Another weekend is almost upon us – maybe you’ll find some inspiration for a weekend listen from this week’s Currently Playing.
Here’s what the Gals are listening to this week.
BJ
Narrated by Emma Wilder and Antonio Amato
Caz
Narrated by Gary Furlong
Em
Narrated by Beverley A. Crick
Kaetrin
Narrated by Xanthe Elbrick
Melinda
Narrated by
Shannon
Narrated by Kate Hosking
I finished up my re-listen of the Rockcliffe series with Cadenza last Friday. It was what I needed!Overall I enjoyed the books even more this time, I think, because I knew the overall plots, and I could enjoy the characterizations and the language even more. I think listened to On Point by Annabeth Albert and narrated by J.F. Harding. That was a lot of fun and a great narration.
Next in my desire for comfort reads, I listened to Slightly Shady and Don’t Look Back by Amanda Quick, the first two Lake and March books. This trilogy has always been one of my favorites by Quick. This time I’ve been listening to them, and I can say they held up very well (better than the couple I recently listened to), helped by two good narrators. Barbara Rosenblat narrated the first book, as she has many of Quick’s aduiobooks. and she does a wonderful job. However, Josephine Bailey narrates Don’t Look Back, and she was simply brilliant! I love her male voices, and pretty much everything about her narration was excellent. I’m happy she’sthe narrator for the third book of the trilogy which I’ll probably listen to soon.
I also listened to Hot Asset by Lauren Layne, narrated by Zachary Webber and Samantha Cook (came to my attention and available on Audible Plus). There was nothing really wrong with this book, but it lacked originality or something to make it stand out from the CR crowd. CR relies a lot on instant attraction– the “gee, somehow she/he is different from everyone else” trope, and it’s often not well done enough to be very interesting. I also don’t care when authors write women who stammer and stutter when a hot guy talks to them. I roll my eyes a lot. Zachary Webber and Samantha Cook are both good, but Cook’s male voices were weak, and I didn’t quite like the way she narrated the love scenes. I wish they had been from the hero’s POV so Webber could voice them. I think this is a “me not you” situation since other reviewers really liked this.
Right now I’m finishing up Without You by Marley Valentine, narrated by Teddy Hamilton and Tim Paige. I made the mistake of listening to this while reading Heartscape, and then two CR m/m stories of damaged protagonists got a little conflated in my head. I usually make sure my print and audio books are different genres for that reason. I’m not sure what I’ll end up rating this book. Still thinking about it. I like Hamilton, of course, and Paige is good, but not quite up to Hamilton’s level of good.
I love J.F Harding – I’m so glad you enjoyed his narration in On Point – and in fact, I think he’s even better now (which is saying something.) There’s a second book in that Marley Valentine series coming out in May (which I plan to review) – but the narrators are different; Aiden Snow and… Cooper North, I think?
I had a bitty week; I couldn’t settle to a new listen so I did a couple of random re-listens (I had an Iggy craving, so it was a couple of Annabeth Albert titles for me as well) before picking up the Hailey Turner (my title for this week’s CP) – which I’ve now finished and which was brilliant.
I ended up giving Without You a B overall, but the story itself was more of a C+ on my scale (good, but with reservations). The narration brought it up.
I’m really curious about that Hailey Turner series. I didn’t end up loving the story arcs in the Metahuman’s series. I felt the second book had some inconsistent world-building and plot holes. But at the same time I really liked a lot about her writing, and her characters were great. I may give the Soulbound series a try.
I’m not completely sure, but I think that Into the Wreckage was HT’s first published work. It’s an incredibly ambitious piece for a first-time author and I think you can see her writing improving as the series progresses. I suspect Greg B’s narration was a big part of why I love the series so much; I was so caught up in it that I didn’t notice any inconsistencies or plot-holes – those may have been “plugged” later due to the overarching nature of the story. The Soulbound series is every bit as complex – again, there’s a fairly large cast of key secondary characters to start with and that grows with each book. The author incorporates different mythologies into each book – Greek, South American, Nordic, Celtic and others – and as she heads towards the series finale (book 7) is bringing various characters back and it can be difficult to keep track. There’s a glossary in the ebook editions that helps, but you don’t get that with the audio (I’ve said a few times that there should be an accompanying pdf with the audio!) – all the books are in KU, so if you do decide to give the series a go in audio, it might be worth having the glossaries to hand. I’ve reviewed all the books so far here if you want to check them out. Also – the series is very much urban fantasy with a romantic sub-plot, but the central relationship is incredibly important, so it’s not like a “tacked-on” romance just for the sake of it.
Thank you, Caz, that’s very helpful. I just looked and the audiobooks are $7.50 if you check out the KU book,so that’s a thought, too. That’s about half what a credit costs me.