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Why I read it: I’m a fan of this series.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) They say opposites attract. And in the case of werewolves Anna Latham and Charles Cornick, they mate. The son-and enforcer-of the leader of the North American werewolves, Charles is a dominant alpha. While Anna, an omega, has the rare ability to calm others of her kind.Now that the werewolves have revealed themselves to humans, they can’t afford any bad publicity. Infractions that could have been overlooked in the past must now be punished, and the strain of doing his father’s dirty work is taking a toll on Charles.

Nevertheless, Charles and Anna are sent to Boston, when the FBI requests the pack’s help on a local serial killer case. They quickly realize that not only the last two victims were werewolves-all of them were. Someone is targeting their kind. And now Anna and Charles have put themselves right in the killer’s sights…

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Well, first off, the blurb is wrong – not all of the victims were werewolves, some were humans and some were fae/half-fae. The rest is okay though. 🙂

Starting around the time River Marked (Mercy Thompson book 6) finishes this is a clever, tightly plotted story, where the romance aspects between Charles and Anna are neatly interwoven between the investigating-the-serial-killer part. I’d say that the romance aspect wasn’t quite as much to the forefront as has been the case in other books, but it was definitely there and the rest of the story was so absorbing anyway that it was engrossing right from the start. I kept finding excuses to listen to it – more housework, more cooking, taking the long way home! 🙂

I did manage to pick the identity of the bad guy about 2/3-3/4 of the way through which I was quite pleased about – the clues are there but I don’t think the reader is hit over the head with them and while I thought I knew who it was, I wasn’t 100% until the big reveal. It was just as possible those “clues” were red herrings to throw me off the scent. Patricia Briggs is tricky like that.

I enjoy the world Ms. Briggs has created, where fae and werewolf are monsters but where they can also be kind, generous and loving. But, they are always monsters. Charles is a werewolf with extraordinary control for the most part, but he is a dominant wolf and he is super protective of Anna (without smothering her) and he can be, he is a monster. I like that the author doesn’t shy away from it, while at the same time making the characters sympathetic. Brother Wolf, Charles’ wolf half features more strongly in this story and that was fun as well, although there isn’t much of Anna’s wolf at all.

I haven’t listened to Cry Wolf and Hunting Ground in a little while, but I remembered there being a change in how Holter Graham performed Charles’ voice from book 1 to book 2. I preferred the first version, but I understand there is some debate amongst fans about which was better. In this book, if my auditory memory is correct, the voice he uses for Charles is closer to that used in book 1 than book 2 while not being exactly the same, and I found it a good balance. (The only downside was that there was a similarity to that voice and the voice used for one of the bad guys and that was a bit disconcerting).

There were a couple of niggles for me. First, I don’t think it’s a spoiler that Charles, Anna and the FBI led team catch the killer. There is a trial and I am unsure as to the reality of the trial and its process. It certainly served the story but was it realistic? I’m not sure. Maybe, but I had questions about it that were not answered in the story. I’m being intentionally vague here because to do more would be spoiler-y and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone.

The other thing is that my memory of the earlier books is that Charles was able to Change much faster than other wolves due to his Shaman heritage; unless there were repeated changes in a short time or he was wounded. It seemed to me in this book that his Changes were more akin to those of a normal werewolf, except that it remained that he was able to use his magic to clothe himself when he reverted to human. It’s not a big deal, but I did notice there seemed to be a difference. Did anyone else notice this? Am I remembering wrong? (ETA: No, I re-read and Charles can Change much more quickly than other wolves, or at least he could back then.) I think I’ll have to re-read Alpha & Omega (no hardship!) to refresh my memory of how Charles was in the beginning (actually, I was planning on doing it anyway) – oh, how I wish that Alpha & Omega were available on audio! … moving on.

I would also have liked to hear the conversation between Anna and Charles about his ghosts which they never quite got to have. But, these are small things in the bigger picture. Overall, this is an excellent book. It also sets up some exciting changes for the future of both this and the Mercy Thompson series which will shake things up and mean that fans will be champing at the bit for the next book. Such is the lot of a great author – fans are satisfied for so short a time!

What else? Holter Graham is an excellent narrator. He doesn’t do female voices like a bad drag act – he softens his tone and lightens his pitch a little but it is a voice which could be used for a male or female – he lets the context of the story provide the “missing links” so the correct gender/age of the character is placed gently in your brain. He does accents quite well too – I’m not super familiar with the Boston accent but from what I do know, the accent he used was pretty accurate. The character differentiation Mr. Graham uses is excellent and it was, with only rare exception, easy to understand who was talking in a fairly large cast of characters.

I think the experience of this series on audio enhances the enjoyment of it and I recommend this series to any who’d like to give audio a try. However, the series does have to be read in order to truly appreciate it (and this book is actually one where I feel that having read the Mercy Thompson books helps too, as Adam plays a part, but I think you can get by without) and the start of the story is the novella Alpha & Omega. As mentioned above, sadly the novella is not available (yet?!) on audio but it is available as a stand alone e-novella or as part of the On the Prowl anthology in paperback.

Grade: A–

Why I Listened: That’s a question I asked myself numerous times throughout the book. Seriously though, I reviewed it for the Speaking of Audiobooks column at AAR but my review (rant) is just too long for the column. So, with permission, I’m posting it here. Read on at your peril.

What it’s about: Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue is the first book in the Cynster Brides series by Australian author Stephanie Laurens. Heather Cynster, daughter of Martin and Celia, is abducted from a soiree in London. The abduction is witnessed by Viscount Breckenridge, a not-friend of hers. They don’t get along – he thinks she’s too young for him (there’s a 10 year age gap) and keeps his distance, she thinks he considers her a child. Breckenridge follows and tries to rescue her but Heather has discovered that the kidnappers wanted only a “Cynster daughter” not specifically Heather and given that she’s being treated well (they hired a maid for her, for “countenance”) she thinks it is best to stay in their clutches and extract information about the villain behind the scheme so as to protect her cousins and sisters. Breckenridge goes along with it and follows, keeping watch. If that sounds like a flimsy excuse for a plot to you, it would be because it is. Given the amount of time Heather spends with the kidnappers, she actually finds out precious little about them and even when she does, it is in brief conversations and DAYS are going by. She’s not frightened or in any way traumatised – it’s the most pathetic kidnapping in the history of the activity.

What worked for me and what didn’t: Torturous. Tedious. Tautologous. In audio, Ms. Laurens habit of describing everything at least three times is so very much more annoying than in print. In print, I skim and I probably only read one word in three, which means I can keep up with the gist of the story but do not want to hit something. I found the same does not apply to audio. I definitely wanted to hit something.

If I had a dollar for every time Breckenridge was described (sometimes within the same paragraph as “the Foremost Rake of the Ton”, I’d be able to buy myself a Kindle. Possibly two. Breckenridge, or, as I like to call him FRT, is, to make matters worse, a very poor excuse for a rake. Depending on what part of the book you are listening to, he has either bedded “countless” ladies, or not as many as everyone thinks. However many ladies he has bedded, in his experience, most ladies don’t take any active part in the process (presumably they just lie there and think of England) and only a few have shown anything like passion. So, when FRT eventually beds the heretofore virginal Heather Cynster, he’s overwhelmed, stunned and amazed by her enthusiastic response – she’s active, takes the initiative, passionate. In one scene when she’s, er, “going downtown”, he reflects that he didn’t let ladies to that to him but she was different – WHAT? See? BAD rake. He should be booted out of the Society of Regency Rakes forthwith. Besides, anyone who knows anything about the Cynsters would know that if he was really that bad, Devil and his “ilk” wouldn’t let FRT within coo-ee of pure Heather.

Then there’s Heather – at the beginning, she’s given up searching in the traditional ballrooms of the ton for her “hero. She’s decided (not unlike her cousin (?) Amanda from On a Wild Night) to search in the racier environs to find the man who will sweep her off her feet. Later, when offered marriage by FRT due to the damage to her reputation, she refuses and states that she had resigned herself to being a spinster and wants to look after homeless children so her reputation or lack of it doesn’t matter. Next thing, she’s contemplating how it turns out that FRT is her perfect hero if only he would love her. Hur?

The villain is the worst villain in the history of villains. We don’t know his identity, but, after hiring people to abduct Heather, he includes a maid for countenance on the journey. Then, when she does escape with FRT, he follows, not to get her back – no!! He follows to make sure that the “bounder” who has her treats her well. There is very little in the book about the motivations of the villain other than that he’s only doing it because his mad-ass mother has made some sort of squirly bargain with him which forces him to “ruin the reputation of a Cynster daughter”. It is clear that he will be the bad guy in the series until he is eventually the hero of the final story in the trilogy.

Anyway, Heather and FRT escape together but due to (some more ridiculous) circumstances, they are forced to continue on foot and this takes a number of days. They head for Richard and Catriona Cynster’s estate and on the way there the “romance” part of the book begins. There is literally NOT SO MUCH AS A KISS before chapter 9. Their very first “romantic encounter” is also the full monty. There follows 3 chapters of sexytimes, each described in torturous purple prose – three times.

Once FRT and Heather arrive at the Vale there ensues further torture for the listener. FRT has vowed never to love (and thereby be vulnerable to another). Problem is, he’s already in love. Okay, so: New vow. He won’t tell her how he feels because that would give her too much power over him. Problem: she’s declared she won’t marry a man who doesn’t hold her in true “affection” which even he knows is code for “love”. So, he decides to show her his feelings by the power of his “mighty wang of lovin’”. Meanwhile, she’s decided she loves him but won’t marry him unless he loves her too and tells her so. She’s having no success in drawing out a declaration and so decides to show him her true feelings with her “magic hoo-ha”. *sexytimes*. Problem: afterwards she thinks he was just pretending in order to get her to agree to the wedding and says no anyway when he proposes yet again. It was enough to make me bang my head against a wall. Repeatedly. Over and over again. Many times. It takes an injury to FRT to sort matters out (I won’t give away what sort; it’s not quite “pecked to death by pigeons” (TM Julia Quinn) but, oh man – over-the-topsville it is).

I decided to listen to this book because, while I do grind my teeth these days at the triptych descriptions and the overuse of the word “evoke” (in all of its many many iterations) , and all the “him being him”s and “her being her”s I have nevertheless really enjoyed some of Ms. Laurens books (Devil’s Bride, On a Wicked Dawn, The Ideal Bride, A Gentlemen’s Honor). But I’m not a big fan of Simon Prebble’s narration of her books. He’s a bit too overwrought for my taste (I listened to two of the Black Cobra quartet which he narrated). This one has a new-to-me narrator and I thought it was worth trying. Sadly, Matthew Brenher is the opposite of overwrought. While he does use some expression in his voice, there’s no passion or excitement – the intonation during a scene where they’re sipping tea is the same as during the time they’re traversing “passion’s landscape” (yes, that is a direct quote.) I thought his voice for our hero FRT was quite good, but Richard “Scandal” Cynster has developed an alarming Scottish accent in the 9 years he’s been living there and Catriona, from the sound of her, has apparently taken up chain smoking – and sometimes she slipped into a more Yorkshire accent than a Scots one which was a bit disconcerting. A brief appearance by Michael Anstruther-Wetherby (one of my favourite Laurens heroes) and his wife Caro was even more troubling. Michael sounded prissy and rather like he’d been castrated. In fact at the end of each sentence he uttered, I mentally added “and where ARE my testicles anyway?”. Caro sounded like she was in her 50’s and frumpy . Heather’s voice was okay, but Mr. Brenher does suffer from that common problem with male narrators where the female characters sound like they’re men in drag.

Also, I know that Ms. Laurens can write an extremely long and convoluted sentence, but I wondered whether Mr. Brenher had done any pre-reading before the narration performance. There were these pauses in odd and unexpected places which made the sentences sound like they had just abruptly stopped. It was so prevalent throughout the book, it was very off-putting. Because I was tortured by the silly plot and the overwrought descriptions, I had plenty of time to notice each occasion.

What else? The book came in at more than 15 hours of listening time. Given that most of it was adjectives, it could easily have been trimmed by half and nothing would have been lost of the plot (what there was of it).

I’ve decided I have to break up with Stephanie Laurens on audio. I just can’t bear it anymore. It may be that I will try some more in print where I can skim to my heart’s content and therefore save a layer of enamel on my teeth, but it won’t be soon.

Grade: D