Dangerous Ground by Rachel Grant

Dangerous Ground by Rachel Grant

Narrated by Eva Kaminsky, A. T. Chandler & Michelle Yatchmeneff

Dangerous Ground is the first book in Rachel Grant’s new series about archaeologist Fiona Carver. The first thing I need to tell listeners is that it’s not technically a romance – so don’t expect a HEA here. There will be one I’m sure but it’s going to take at least one more book to get there.

Even without my romance listener heart being fully satisfied, I can absolutely say it’s SO. GOOD! I listened to this one in just over a day because it was such a gripping story and I was completely engrossed. The narration (with one small caveat) was fantastic and I am now officially hanging out for the next book in the series, Crash Site, which is out in January (narrators not yet announced).

Fiona Carver is an archaeologist working for the navy doing an Environmental Impact Study of WWII and Unangas (the Indigenous Aleutian people) cultural sites at fictional Chiksook Island in the Aleutian chain where the Navy hopes to build a submarine base. Fiona is one of the few Navy employees – most of the other members of the EIS team are contractors working for Pollux Engineering.

Five weeks earlier, Fiona and the team had been evacuated from the island in a hurry as a storm was coming. She’s very worried about a site that she discovered which wasn’t protected enough for such a long absence.

An earlier member of the team was Dylan Slater, volcanologist. He was “sent home” a day before the evacuation after allegations were made against him. Fiona doesn’t believe them and has reason to suspect that the behaviour he was accused of was, if anything, the other way around. Of course, Dylan is not on the team anymore.

New to the EIS team from Pollux this go round is “Bill Lowell” an ornithologist, tasked with trying to locate some rare grey buntings which may have been spotted on the island. Only “Bill” is in actuality, Dean Slater, Dylan’s fraternal twin. Dean is a celebrated wildlife photographer but is pretending to be a specialist in birds in order to get onto the island. Chiksook is so protected and the security so tight, he was left with little choice but to assume Bill’s identity in order to get there and search for his brother – who is missing and never (it appears) made it off the island. Is he still alive? Dean is convinced he is but how much of that is wishful thinking?

Dylan had told Dean that he and Fiona were dating (untrue) and so Dean tries hard to push down his feelings of attraction for Fiona. And of course, their initial interactions are marred by the lies he is telling her about his identity. However, it is not all that long before the truth comes out and Dean and Fiona are on the run from mysterious people who obviously want them dead.

The entire story takes place in about a week, and it’s tense and taut from start to finish.

Partly because of the short timeframe and partly because of the significant baggage Dean is carrying and his fear of loving again, it made sense to me why there would be no HEA/HFN at the end of this book, so I didn’t get bent out of shape about it. Dean is in the next book though so I’m expecting developments.

The story is well-researched and tightly plotted with lots of adventure, suspense and scorching chemistry between the protagonists. Really, apart from the lack of a HFN it was everything I could want.

The narration was (mostly) excellent as well. Eva Kaminsky narrates the portions from Fiona’s (third person) perspective and A. T. Chandler reads Dean’s. Mr. Chandler has a wonderfully deep and resonant voice which was pleasing to my ears in general but he also delivered on the tension and emotion of the story. His other character voices were very good too, including a softened tone for Fiona’s dialogue.

Eva Kaminsky was also great – she’s a very experienced narrator I’ve listened to with pleasure before and she also was well able to convey the increasing risk and danger the pair faced, as well as their obvious and growing attraction.

There is one short section read by Michelle Yatchmeneff. She is an Unangax woman and narrates a very brief chapter near the end of the story from the perspective of the leader of the local Unangas tribe. I very much appreciated the attention to detail of this representation. Unfortunately, the narration wasn’t very good. The sentences had pauses where no pause was required, or no pause where one should be, there was only a very little voice acting and what there was suffered from the pacing of the performance. There wasn’t much differentiation in the character voices and that did not help things either. It pains me to say this, but I have to be honest. To be fair to Ms. Yatchmeneff, a Google search identifies her as an engineer rather than a narrator and it seems this may well be her first narrating experience. When put alongside such experienced and skilled narrators as Eva Kaminsky and A. T. Chandler, she was starting from well behind the field.

Otherwise, the narration was stellar and, paired with such a ripper of a story, listeners really can’t go wrong.

Kaetrin


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4 thoughts on “Dangerous Ground by Rachel Grant

  1. I liked this, but not quite as much. I didn’t mind the lack of an HEA, but for a book where the two characters don’t get together I didn’t expect so much mental lusting. It got repetitive after awhile. Plus I felt the details got to be too much. We didn’t need to know exactly how many of each protein bar went into their packs. The narration was good but I didn’t feel it really added to the book. I gave the book a B- and the narration a B.

    Having said that, there is enough good stuff in the book, and I like this author, to make me want to continue with the next one, although I might read it instead of getting it on audio. It depends. Dangerous Ground is available on KU and you can add the audiobook for $1.99. If they offer the same deal with Crash Site, I’ll probably get the audio.

    *Note: a lot of Rachel Grant’s audiobooks can be added for $1.99 after buying the kindle version. I think most of her Evidence series, and a couple of her Flashpoint books.

  2. I’m with Carrie on this one – I’m a fan of the author’s and I liked it but thought it got a bit bogged down in detail at times. A solid B for me in print; I haven’t listened to the audio yet though.

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