I’m over at AudioGals today with a review of Worth the Fall by Claudia Connor, narrated by Johanna Parker. A Navy SEAL meets and falls in love with a pregnant widow who has four other children – and it totally works.
Category: audiobooks (Page 72 of 94)
Why I read it: This one is from my own audiobook library. I listened over Christmas as a special gift to myself.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) As a lovely heiress, Roderica Delamore should be a prize catch–except for her shameful secret. She has the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her. Even her family and close friends can’t hide from her strange gift. Knowing that she can never marry, for no man could bear it, Roddy still longs hopelessly for a family of her own. Until she meets the man she’s been waiting for–the Earl of Iveragh, a mysterious Irish aristocrat whose thoughts are entirely closed to her.
The impoverished Devil Earl is damned in society by dark rumor and innuendo, and, for all she knows, he could be a liar, a rogue, or much, much worse. But Roddy must dance with him at midnight on All Hallows Eve, and entrust her life–and her heart–to a riveting stranger, called by his torment into the faerie mists to discover what she most fears about herself and her own magic.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): I read this book ages ago and it was originally published in the 1980s. I had fond memories of it. Listening to it, the story didn’t feel dated – or, at least, it felt dated in the time it was set, which is late Georgian England and Ireland. It’s quite an unusual book and different to Kinsale’s other romances in that it incorporates paranormal aspects. Roddy Delamore can hear the thoughts of others and for her entire life, this has set her apart. People see her as a freak and she feels she will have no life of her own as no husband will want her. When she happens to meet Faelan Savigar, the Earl of Iveragh, he is the only person she’s ever come across who’s mind is closed to her. It is pretty much that which decides her on him for her husband. She is wealthy and he needs money to repair his broken down estate. He is 35 and she is only 19 and very pretty and he can’t quite understand his good fortune to have attracted her but he is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Continue reading
I’m over at AudioGals with a review of In Deep Shitake by Patricia Mason, narrated by Michael Karl Orenstein. It’s a romantic/suspense comedy full of farce and slapstick humour. It was a bit of a hoot actually.
I’m over at AudioGals with a review of The Splendour Falls by Susanna Kearsley, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat. It’s more of a mystery with a touch of romance – but I knew that going in and so enjoyed it.
I’m over at AudioGals today with a review of Targeted by Katie Reus, narrated by the ever reliable Sophie Eastlake. Like a lot of romantic suspense, check your disbelief at the door, but I liked it and would recommend it to fans of the genre.
Why I read it: I heard about this book on a DBSA Podcast so I bought it. I didn’t share the view of the two Smart Bitches who read and loved it. I can’t tell how much of that exactly was due to the audio format but I think if I’d read the book it still would not have been a resounding success, even though I’m sure I’d have liked it better. As it was, it was just okay for me.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Miss Prudence Merryweather Payton has a secret.
Everyone knows that she’s the only graduate from her finishing school to remain unwed on her fourth season—but no one knows why. With her romantic illusions shattered after being compromised against her will, Prudence accepts a proposal even though her betrothed is not exactly a knight in shining armor. When he cowardly pushes her out of their stagecoach to divert a highwayman, she vows never to trust another man again.
John Roark, Viscount Castleton, is nobody’s hero.
He’s a blue-eyed charmer with a mysterious past and ambitious plans for his future—that do not include a wife. When he finds himself stranded at a country inn with a captivating young woman, a delicate dance of seduction ensues. He knows he should keep his distance. And he definitely shouldn’t start falling in love with her.
When Prudence’s dark past comes back to haunt her, John must protect her—even though he risks revealing his own secrets that could destroy his future.
Trigger Warning: Sexual assault
What worked for me (and what didn’t): There’s a thing that happens sometimes when a book is “translated” into the audio format. There are things which don’t work as well aurally as they do visually. What A Wallflower Wants is a perfect example of when something doesn’t translate well to audio. It has a somewhat unusual structure. At the end of some chapters (but not all, let’s not worry about consistency) there is a section which I’ve seen (because a friend screen-capped a couple of pages and tweeted them to me) is in italics. It has a section break before it and it is clearly out of phase with the rest of the story. Even so, there is no time/date stamp above it. It is apparent that these events take place a few days into the future – eventually the book catches up with itself. They are always in John’s POV. This is made even more odd because when Prudence has a flashback they are always marked with a date/time to orient the listener (for example, “Four years ago”). It is only these odd little sections from the future which aren’t so marked. On audio they come out of the blue. There is no aural representation that we are moving into the future and that the section is not in phase with the rest of the story. It took me a while to work out what was going on. At first I thought it was a flashback but that didn’t make sense the more I listened. Eventually I asked on Twitter and my guess was confirmed. When I’m listening, I have only my ears to orient me to the physics of the story. I can’t easily skip around sections like I can in a paperback or a digital file and I can’t see the visual cues on the page. I can’t see the italics. This story flips about quite a bit – in fact, there was one part where I’d accidentally left my iPod running and I missed a couple of chapters and when I started listening again I didn’t immediately realise my mistake – I thought it was just the book messing with me again. (I did realise after a while and went back and listened to the bits I’d missed).
NetGalley Reviewer
Currently Reading
Copyright
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
