Category: C reviews (Page 1 of 20)

The Dance Deception by Becky Ward, narrated by Alix Dunmore

December 13, 2023 / Kaetrin

The Dance Deception by Becky Ward, narrated by Alix Dunmore. Great narration, big plot problems.

I enjoy dance competitions such as Dancing With the Stars/Strictly Come Dancing and I like a fake relationship so I expected The Dance Deception to be right up my alley. The sample of the narration, by Alix Dunmore, also seemed very promising. It turned out the narration – which did indeed live up to its promise – was the best thing about the book.

Kate Wareing has been successful in securing a place in a new TV dance show “Fire on the Dance Floor” – a version of Strictly with Latin dances only and featuring “normal” people instead of stars/celebrities. As it is the first season, the competition will only last five weeks. It is winner-take-all, with the top contestant walking away with £25,000. Kate, recently out of work due to a messy break-up, could really use the money.

Kate is paired with Merle, a Frenchman who is all about winning. He’s also gorgeous. I call Merle “the arse”. He is, obviously, from the very beginning, a complete arse. Kate, however, is bowled over by Merle’s good looks. The accent probably helps too. Within a couple of days, Kate and Merle have moved from making out to full-on sex – including an interlude where Merle films Kate (without her consent or knowledge) dancing naked (long story). (Merle quickly identifies that Kate is a much better dancer after an orgasm – she’s more relaxed and less “in her head”). Kate is at first shocked and dismayed by the video but Merle assures her he never uses the cloud and he promises to delete it. (Did I mention Merle is an arse? I think we all know where this is going.)

Before their first performance, Kate is very nervous so Merle takes her to his dressing room (he’s the only professional dancer with a dressing room because of course: arse) to give her a good rogering to settle her down. By the time Kate is at the pub with her friends and after the taping, there are photos online of their interlude. Kate is humiliated, of course. But worse, it is revealed that Merle is married. This does explain why Merle never went anywhere with Kate after practice and all of their interludes (apart from the dressing room one) were in the dance studio. He was such a creep and I was super disappointed in Kate for ever falling for his BS to be honest.

The scandal is great for the show because publicity but terrible for Kate. The next day, Kate is paired with another pro-dancer, Aleksis, and Merle has taken Aleksis’s erstwhile partner (who happens to be the best dancer of all of the contestants), Amelia. Merle apparently told the producers that he could not stay on the show if he remained partnered with Kate. Aleksis, for some reason, seems to detest Kate so the new pairing does not start off well.

There’s a reason for Aleksis’s animosity: Merle’s wife is his sister, Sophia.

It’s a fairly brave romance novel which starts off with the heroine having consensual sex with someone other than the hero. The Dance Deception is perhaps braver than most because in week two of the competition, Kate decides to try and get over Merle by having sex with Warren (a friend of her flatmate’s new boyfriend). It’s very bad (and fairly amusing, albeit entirely at Warren’s expense) and after that, Warren is basically never heard from again.

By the end of that second week, Sophia has explained to Aleksis that Merle is a serial cheater and she has finally decided to kick him out. Her decision; Kate is not a homewrecker. If anything, Sophia is grateful to her. (Which, okay, unusual but I can go with that.)

After week two’s taping when it’s clear that Merle and Amelia are now a couple, Sophia suggests to Aleksis and Kate that they fake a romance to increase their popularity (it’s an audience vote as to who goes through to the next round). So they do.

Nobody seems to question that the show has been going for barely more than two weeks and Kate has now been in TWO “relationships” with her professional dance partners. (And they don’t even know about Warren.) I’m all for sex positivity but this is a romance. Even when she starts thinking Aleksis is a nice guy and better looking than she first appreciated, she’s still hung up on Merle.

By the end of week three, Aleksis and Kate move in together to give the tabloids more fodder and to boost their chances of a higher audience vote.

By week four, Aleksis and Kate are in a real relationship.

The entire book takes place over the five weeks of the competition.

I did not feel confident that Aleksis and Kate really knew each other. I wasn’t confident in their relationship because I didn’t feel like I knew Aleksis all that well myself. I was left with the feeling that the only reason Kate was able to get over Merle wasn’t because he was a complete arse but because Aleksis started paying attention to her. I didn’t get the impression that Kate would do very well on her own. I thought she probably needed some time by herself to decide what she truly wanted in her life rather than bouncing from one man to another. Aleksis was certainly the best man in the bunch however, so she ended up with the best possible choice.

Given how OTT the story was to that point, I was extremely disappointed in the ending. Yes, there is a HFN/HEA but the arse didn’t get nearly enough of a comeuppance IMO. As expected, the video makes another appearance in the storyline and I will give the author credit for taking that into a somewhat unexpected place but she lost those points when the tension fizzled out completely.

On a much more positive note, the narration was very good. Alix Dunmore’s accent work was particularly impressive, with Merle’s French diction and Aleksis (and Sophia’s) Latvian (Russian-like) tones. Plus there were various British accents used as well.

Ms. Dunmore made Kate more sympathetic than I would have otherwise found her I think. I don’t blame the narration for my dislike of the “Fire on the Dance Floor” host, Kimberley. Kimberley sounded like exactly a cheesy TV show host with that annoying cadence, over-the-top enthusiasm and fake sincerity. Still, I’m glad there wasn’t more of her.

My only real criticism of the narration was that most of the character differentiation was based on accent and not pitch. There wasn’t any discernible difference between Aleksis and Sophia for example, which did lead to some occasional confusion. However, the rest of the performance was very good. If not for Alix Dunmore’s skill, I’m not sure I could have finished the audiobook.

The story itself was well-written (which is why the grade is as high as it is) – my issues were all with the plot which was just too much for me.

Grade: C

Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, narrated by Robin Miles

October 31, 2023 / Kaetrin

Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, narrated by Robin Miles. I did not love the narration but the story held up pretty well, considering.

Story holds up but narration was a little disappointing.

I have a confession. Shanna is on my keeper shelf. First published in 1977, it was one of those novels I cut my romance-reading teeth on, before I knew much of anything about anything. It’s, obviously, “old skool” romance. But, as these books go, it has much less of the more egregious or objectionable content than others and is, while still problematic, it is at least far less so than others from this author or of the time period.

Harper has released Woodiwiss’s novels on audio with new recordings. Each has a (long) foreword which talks about how the book is of it’s time etc etc. I didn’t listen to it. I know the book already so I knew what I was getting into.

Shanna is also a long book – the kind of sweeping story you don’t get much these days (there are reasons for that – some good, some not so much IMO) – my paperback is 656 pages and the audiobook, complete, with foreword, tops out at nearly 30 hours.

Shanna Trahern is the young, beautiful and wilful daughter of Squire Orlan Trahern (who is Welsh but you wouldn’t know that from the narration – more on that later). Squire Trahern owns a small island “Los Camellos” somewhere not terribly far from England. It takes about a week to sail there in an old-timey ship but it’s tropical. That’s what I know. He’s a wealthy and widowed merchant with a longing for grandchildren and so he’s very keen for Shanna to marry. Unfortunately for him, Shanna is picky and he eventually gives her an ultimatum: find someone she wants to marry within a year or he will do the picking for her. Shanna is not having it. She has found no-one suitable and so comes up with a scheme to flout her father’s will. There is a condemned prisoner in Newgate with the impressive surname of Beauchamp (pronounced “Beacham”; something I only know because of Outlander – English is stupid) but due to hang within the week. She offers a bargain to Ruark Deverell Beauchamp, a colonial from Virginia: in return for his name, she will make his final days easier. Ruark, makes his own amendment to the deal. He will marry Shanna, but he wants a true wedding night. She agrees.

The only dubious consent (between the love interests at least) in Shanna arises from this bargain. Shanna makes the deal but plans to renege. Her plan was for the reneging to occur before any hanky panky in the carriage after the wedding, but she mistimes her “rescue”. As it happens, Ruark takes her virginity but is unable to, er, finish, let’s say. Ruark doesn’t exactly force Shanna to consummate the marriage – he is far more persuasive than that and she is not immune to his charms. Still she doesn’t exactly give enthusiastic consent either. I viewed it as a kind of sex work – the book certainly references it as a bargain struck. YMMV.

After that, the sex is all fully consensual. And, for a mainstream book from 1977 there is a lot of it. It’s not explicit – there is an abundance of euphemism and the prose is a little purple but Shanna and Ruark are boning down pretty regularly throughout the story. There’s probably something a bit revolutionary about that deserving of its own op-ed but I don’t have time for it here so I’ll move on.

Shanna, believing Ruark duly hanged, returns to Los Camellos and her father a “widow”. Squire Trahern thus thwarted must respect her bereavement.

Only, Ruark, due to the machinations of a greedy gaoler and a corrupt man of business, has escaped the hangman’s noose and has instead been sold as a “bondslave” (a kind of indentured servitude) to none other than the squire himself.

It does not appear that Squire Trahern is a slave owner in the sense of the African slave trade. He does buy “bondslaves” by paying their debt following an auction and then, in return for their labour, paying them a wage and keeping some of it until the debt is repaid. The squire’s bondsmen are, from what I could tell, fairly well looked after, have autonomy in many ways and are not locked up (at least not once on Los Camellos) or restricted in a cell or anything like that. They can’t leave the island until their debt is paid but they have the run of the place. They are provided with clothing and a wage which I gathered was fair for the time (?) and they are given the ability to earn more if their work is good.

(Ruark is a very good worker and he quickly gets a number of pay rises. It doesn’t take long for Ruark to become the squire’s right-hand man when it comes to farming, and he is often found at the squire’s table for breakfast or dinner. The squire doesn’t have any qualms about sharing his dinner table with Ruark and demands Shanna treat him as a guest when he is there.)

There is talk in the book of “slaves” but they are, for the most part, indentured labour who are not permanently enslaved – here is how Wikipedia differentiates the two: indentured servitude of Irish and other European peoples occurred in seventeenth-century Barbados, and was fundamentally different from enslavement: an enslaved African’s body was owned, as were the bodies of their children, while the labour of indentured servants was under contractual ownership of another person.

Indentured servitude is definitely not something I endorse but in the setting and the society of the time, I give the squire some points for not using enslaved people from Africa which was sadly common at the time for landowners growing sugar cane.

Later in the book, there is one reference to “slave quarters” at the family home of Beauchamps but there is no other reference to slave labour, so it seemed to me this was a reference, again, to indentured servitude. I’m a bit rubbery on this though as there is a dearth of information about this in the text.

There are certainly problematic things in Shanna. Indentured servitude is bad. Owning a person, even “temporarily to pay off a debt” is bad. There is no such thing as a “good slaveowner”.

There are people of colour in the book, some of them servants. They all appear to be free people, treated well, respected and valued.

There is some language in the book which is objectionable, particularly in one section where there is a reference to a biracial person of colour by use of a euphemism which is not okay (starts with “m”, ends with “o”).

There are also repeated references to Native American people as “s__ages”. For the most part this notion is strongly refuted so there’s that, but still.

What I’m saying is that this book is not going to be for everyone and that’s totally fair. Possibly my love for the book stems from when I first read it and the ignorance I had then. But I felt like this book held up reasonably well, all things considered.

Anywho, Ruark comes to Los Camellos and there is a constant reminder to Shanna of a “bargain fairly struck but unmet”. Ruark doesn’t press her exactly. He’s just there, reminding her of her promise and that’s enough. He’s also gorgeous and she remembers those pants-feelings he gave her and is curious about where they may all lead. He’s also clever and quick. He designs things that make the worker’s lives better and make more money for the squire. He does odd jobs for locals in his free time. He’s actually a good guy she comes to admire for himself apart from anything else. Had they met in a more traditional manner she probably would have fallen head over heels for him.

Shanna’s battle isn’t really against Ruark. It’s against herself. Shanna had the idea of marrying a nobleman. Ruark was a convicted criminal. He denies powerful relations. He is currently a bondsman. That is not the ideal husband Shanna had in mind. Even after Shanna gives into her physical desires, she holds herself apart from him emotionally. It takes her an eon (well, about a year but it‘s a really long book!) to get with the program and admit her love. Ruark, for his part, loves her almost from the first (that is one of the best parts of the book.)

There’s a capture by pirates, travel to Virginia and revelations about whether or not Ruark was fairly condemned to hang (spoiler: he wasn’t) and who the bad guys are, revelations about connections between other cast members in the story, revelations to the squire about Shanna and Ruark’s true relationship (Orlan has no idea and it’s a messy story that starts in a gaol so that’s not a conversation Shanna has been looking forward to at all). And there’s a HEA. Of course.

The language is of its time, a little on the flowery side. Possibly I’d struggle to read it for the first time now, but the nostalgia is powerful and it brought back fond memories of the first time I read the book.

I had heard excellent things about Robin Miles and I had high hopes for the narration. I was disappointed. The narrative and her voice for Shanna were the best parts of it. She certainly had good pacing and delivered with expression and emotion. But there were many many accents required for this book and most all of the others were terrible.

Shanna was “shah-na” or “shan-a” (rhymes with manna) interchangeably for a while before settling on the latter (yay – that’s how I think it should be said). Ruark’s accent changed too – although to be fair, one of those changes was textual – he “affected an Irish brogue” for the squire when they first met. The Irish brogue was terrible though and it disappeared later without a trace. If the squire thought anything of it, it was never mentioned.

Ms. Miles is good at posh English accents. I’ll give her that.

Whatever accent she gave to Squire Trahern was like nothing I’d heard before – and not in a good way. It was certainly nothing approaching Welsh. It’s difficult to describe other than to say it wasn’t good. Squire Trahern is a large part of the book so it was impossible for me to get past it.

Hergus, Shanna’s maid, had a Scottish accent which was okay sometimes and very much not other times. Berthe, the housekeeper was Dutch but the accent given to her did not sound so to me. There were others.

The bad accents got in the way of my enjoyment of the listen. I admit I turned to my paperback for some of it and skipped ahead.

Ruark’s voice was okay sometimes and I got used to it. Shanna’s tone was a little older than her years, but I could get past that. What Shanna needed was a Davina Porter (sadly, retired, but all the best to her) or a Nicholas Boulton.

For those who want to revisit the story or try it for the first time, I’d recommend the paperback or ebook over the audio, sadly.

Grade: B-/C+

Fly Bye by CW Farnsworth, narrated by Courtney Patterson & Neill Thorne

October 17, 2023 / Kaetrin

Fly Bye by CW Farnsworth, narrated by Courtney Patterson & Neill Thorne. The narration was stronger than the story.

(received review copy from Podium Audio.)

Everly (Evie) Collins has just finished medical school in Boston. She’s returned home to Charleston to do her residency. She’s super smart so was able to graduate early. When she was five years old, Grayson Phillips and his parents moved into the house next door. Gray and Evie’s brother, Noah, became best friends. Evie never got over her crush. Fly Bye is their journey to a HEA.

Gray is a pilot in the Air Force and even though he is not based in Charleston, nonetheless has an apartment he shares with another friend. I don’t know why. There are quite a few things Gray does or says which didn’t make sense to me or strike me as plausible. For instance, one of Gray’s favourite things is “surfing a flat sea” (I believe that’s called “paddling”). I don’t think a fighter pilot is allowed to bring his girlfriend onto base and take her up for a joy ride in a jet. I don’t think fighter pilots on deployment get come home for 24 hours as “co-pilot” for a fellow pilot who has a family emergency. (It wasn’t stated explicitly but it was strongly implied that they flew a fighter jet 5000 miles for this.) So, yeah, there were things which were all for plot and not because they made actual sense.

Anywho, Gray is in town and Evie and he decide to have a fling. She’s a virgin because of course she is. He balks at first but then changes his mind and they bang a lot for about a month but from the beginning, Gray makes it clear he’s not a long term option. However, Gray’s words and actions don’t always line up and Evie becomes, understandably, confused. After Gray is deployed he calls her and tells her she is on his list of people to contact if something happens to him. That’s not what you’d expect from a fling.

Evie graduated early but she’s not Doogie Howser. Much of the time she came across to me as emotionally immature and this didn’t really gel with the rest of her character and the mettle it takes to succeed in medical school.

There was a little too much of nothing happening – a whole bit about Evie having lunch at work one day for example where nothing happened except she didn’t enjoy the anchovies repeating on her afterwards and bought an iced tea afterwards – that made my eyes glaze over.

I struggled with this listen. I was tempted to DNF it at times. However, I did listen until the end and there were some entertaining and engaging things in the book. Gray and Evie did have good chemistry and the section when they were in Beaufort (I’m guessing at the spelling here but it was pronounced Byew-fort in the book if that helps) was my favourite. Gray could be a real jerk at times but he could also be sweet and he did give good grovel.

The narration, by Courtney Patterson (except for the epilogue which was read by Neill Thorne), was very good even though at times I thought the material she had to work with was not. Her character voices were well differentiated and she had good tone, pacing and emotion. I’d happily listen to her again.

Neill Thorne’s narration was so brief it was difficult to really have an opinion on it. Good, I guess? The grade here is for Ms. Patterson though as she did the bulk of the book.

Fly Bye didn’t turn out to be my cup of tea but it has a 4.17 rating on Goodreads to I seem to be in the minority.

Grade: C

Even if the Sky is Falling by Taj McCoy, Farah Heron, Lane Clarke, Charish Reid, Sarah Smith & Denise Williams

September 7, 2023 / Kaetrin

Even if the Sky is Falling by Taj McCoy, Farah Heron, Lane Clarke, Charish Reid, Sarah Smith & Denise Williams, narrated by Adenrele Ojo, Soneela Nankani, Karen Murray, Marissa Hampton, Donnabella Mortel, Joy Beharie & Teddy Hamilton. Loved the premise and there were some real gems in the anthology.

Even if the Sky is Falling is an anthology of stories by BIPOC authors which all have the same basic premise: an alarm blares alerting everyone that some space junk (or worse) is imminently going to crash into the earth and everyone should take shelter. Only the people in the first story know that it’s a false alarm and there’s no risk. Each story takes the forced proximity trope and the setup and takes it somewhere different. I love this idea; it’s illustrative of how romance itself is so diverse – just because the ending is the same doesn’t mean the stories are. Here the premise is the same but the stories are all very different.

Some of the stories are Black romance, others feature at least one character of colour, most are MF, one is FF. It’s difficult to talk about each story in detail here but I’ll at least mention each one briefly.

Taj McCoy’s All the Stars, narrated by Adenrele Ojo, kicks things off and sets up the world. NASA employees are putting the finishing touches on a nationwide emergency alert system for space debris, part of a wider worldwide effort. An accident happens and the alarm goes off. This story was the weakest of the anthology for me; the incompetence of the character who messes up (neither of the love interests fortunately) was astounding; I didn’t get how, in a team of four, the FMC and the MMC had so much downtime; especially as the FMC was the Team Leader. When the crap hit the fan why was she able to go for a nap rather than pitch in to help? This novella also featured a second chance trope and I found the reason for the break up unconvincing – I’m not sure the MMC deserved to be given that second chance. The narration was very good though.

Keep Calm and Curry On by Farah Heron, narrated by Soneela Nankani, was in my top two novellas from Even if the Sky is Falling. Set in a large undercover market, the protagonists, both of Pakistani heritage and the children of immigrants and former best friends each have a food truck. Their dads are no longer friends but can Tariq convince Maya that their generation doesn’t have to be at odds? Can Maya’s Masala Girls food truck coexist beside Tariq’s Curry Junction? Do they need to be in competition? There is also a hot guy in a Henley with the sleeves pushed up and a (the same) hot guy reading a romance novel! (I believe it’s a Tessa Dare book but it’s never named). There’s also a cat. I haven’t listened to Soneela Nankani before but her narration was excellent. She had great characterisation and bought into the somewhat meta nature of the story, adding a touch of humour to those beloved tropes so it never edged into too much.

My Lucky Stars by Lane Clark, narrated by Karen Murray is the only queer romance in the anthology. The only two Black girls in their law school class do not get along. Jones is prickly and aggressive, Diana is not. Enemies to lovers is something of a tricky trope for me at the best of times; I don’t like it when characters are mean to each other. Here, Jones was pretty mean to Diana and I didn’t really like her which made it difficult for me to root for them as a couple. I figure that people who don’t struggle with E2L will like this one a lot better than me. The narration was good though. Karen Murray is also a new-to-me narrator but I’d happily listen to her again.

Bunker Buddies by Charish Reid, narrated by Marissa Hampton was my other favourite of the anthology – my first story from this author. A bookshop owner with a bunker underneath (inherited from his prepper grandad) has been crushing on a customer for months. A university professor who keeps coming to the bookshop to order obscure books just to have an excuse to see said hot bookseller happens to be the only customer in the shop when the siren sounds. All alone together in the bunker while the world may or may not be ending. All that unresolved sexual tension has to go somewhere, right? The only thing that let this one down was the speed of the narration. Ms. Hampton’s pacing was too fast for me. Otherwise, her characterisation and voice differentiation were very good.

Interlude narrated by Sarah Smith, narrated by Donnabella Mortel – a composer and jingle writer spends the maybe-end of the world in her basement with her cat and the hot contractor who, when the alarm went off, was at her house to give her a quote on replacing her kitchen cabinets. I found this difficult to get into because precious word count was wasted on things which didn’t really matter. There was too much time spent on things which didn’t really impact the story and it made my eyes glaze over a bit. On the other hand, the narration was great. Ms. Mortel is another narrator I’ll be looking for again. The story didn’t work super well for me but she kept me entertained nonetheless.

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better by Denise Williams, narrated by Joy Beharie & Teddy Hamilton was another that suffered (for me at least) as a result of the enemies to lovers start of the story. I’m not sure I really bought why she didn’t like him in school when he didn’t do anything beyond being related to the founder of the university. Trapped in an empty college together, the pair eventually work their way through the misunderstandings that plagued their school years (I’m also not a fan of the Big Mis) and find their way to a HFN – and likely HEA. The narration by both performers was very good, with solid tone, pacing and emotion. It’s difficult to say new things about Teddy Hamilton – AudioGals readers know he’s a favourite here!

Like many anthologies, Even if the Sky is Falling was a bit of a mixed bag but I loved the premise and I did find some new-to-me authors and narrators to follow which was an even bigger plus.

Grade: B/C

Point Last Seen by Christina Dodd, narrated by Vanessa Johansson

June 20, 2023 / Kaetrin

Point Last Seen by Christina Dodd, narrated by Vanessa Johansson. Not my favourite.

I used to read a lot of Christina Dodd contemporary romances back in the day so when I saw the prequel novella Welcome to Gothic for her Last Seen in Gothic series on Audible as a Daily Deal I decided to give it a go. It was one of those rare prequels which was a complete (if condensed) story, complete with HEA and it inspired me to request Point Last Seen for review – officially book one of the series.

Whereas the novella included a time travel aspect, Point Last Seen doesn’t.

Gothic is a quirky town near Big Sur, basically owned by a famous acting family. The current “heir” is more of a self-help guru rather than an actor, with many businesses, a line of clothing and ready-to-eat meals. She owns most of the businesses in the town and leases them to the locals.

Adam Ramsdell moved to Gothic for unknown and secret reasons. He’s basically a loner and he likes it that way. He’s an armourer/metal artist. His introduction is more mysterious than it needed to be.

Despite Adam’s reluctance, he’s clearly been adopted by the town and whether he likes it or not, he’s part of them.

Adam is told by “Madame Rune” the local psychic to go to the sea and find a “lost soul”. He does, because reasons, and he finds a woman washed up on the shore. She’s bruised and battered, having clearly been the victim of some violence before ending up in the ocean. He can’t find a pulse but when he lifts her body to transport it, she spews out water and returns to life.

She is “Elle”. She knows there is more to her name but she cannot remember it. She cannot remember very much actually, the trauma of her “death” having caused amnesia.

Point Last Seen wanted me to accept a number of propositions I struggled with. One was not taking Elle to a hospital or even an actual doctor. No, instead Elle is taken to a vet (at least he was formerly a doctor – in the war in Korea) who does not even examine her. This woman had been strangled and drowned. These are things which need to be checked out.

The next was Adam and Elle sharing a bed almost immediately (non-sexually). I know there are romance reasons but I found it hard to believe someone who had been the victim of violence and who had amnesia would snuggle up to Adam the very same day he found her.

The day after, Adam and Elle were talking and Adam said “you know me” in the context of “you know me, I always do this”. When the fact was Elle didn’t know Adam – at all. There were a number of times things like this jarred me out of the story. It made me crabby.

It becomes apparent early on that Elle had been on a research ship in the ocean and had got into a fight with the funder of the expedition because of something illegal he wanted Elle to do which she refused. He was injured and almost killed. Elle went overboard. NOBODY LOOKED FOR ELLE. Logically the first thing you’d do when there’s such an incident (with funder of the expedition being found on deck nearly dead) is at least do a head count!

The villain was so much of a caricature – my eyes hurt from all the rolling.

But wait, there’s more. There was another villain too. This time it was Adam’s nemesis – he was also eye-rollingly bad.

In between those mysteries and the question of who Elle really is (and it’s clear some people in the town recognise her looks somehow even though they’ve never met her before), there is a lot about the quirky locals. There was a vast tonal shift between the serious danger Elle was in and these parts, which didn’t work for me.

Vanessa Johansson narrated both audiobooks. I enjoyed her performance well enough in Welcome to Gothic but less so in Point Last Seen. One of the reasons was that she chose to present Adam as hesitant and nervous – almost to the point of him having a bit of a stutter – when he wasn’t described that way by the text. There was also occasional confusion between which character was talking. Not often, but sometimes, the wrong character voice was used. The text did Ms. Johansson no favours though. I wasn’t enjoying the listen and that makes me prone to being nitpicky.

Point Last Seen was long. So. Long. The time period of the story was only about 3 weeks but the listen clocked in at 11 hours 19 minutes – but it felt longer than that. It could easily have been cut by a third with nothing significant having been lost. There was too much extraneous detail.

I did not enjoy this one.

Grade: C-

The Wrong Bridesmaid by Lauren Landish, narrated by Teddy Hamilton & CJ Bloom

March 7, 2023 / Kaetrin

The Wrong Bridesmaid by Lauren Landish, narrated by Teddy Hamilton & CJ Bloom. It was okay.

Wyatt Ford returns to the small town of Cold Springs for his brother’s wedding. His brother, Winston, said please. That’s the only reason Wyatt deigned to return after leaving town after dropping out of college. He wanted to get away from the Ford family influence and make his own way in life. But Hazel Sullivan, BFF of the bride (Avery) has Wyatt rethinking his plans in The Wrong Bridesmaid.

A large portion of the town of Cold Springs regards the Ford name as an epithet nowadays. Wyatt’s father, Bill, the mayor is no longer popular. He has spent too much time and effort in supporting his brother Jed, a developer who wants to make a lot of money and doesn’t much care who he hurts while he does it. Jed’s latest scheme will see families turned off their farms to make way for a new housing development and there is a significant protest movement about it.

Wyatt has no idea of course but he walks smack bang into the middle of the controversy when he comes back to town. Hazel and her family are solidly team no development and, to add to the angst, Hazel’s beloved Aunt Etta is #NotOverIt about her breakup with Jed decades before when they were engaged and he cheated on her with her best friend.

You’d think then that there would be more resistance to a relationship between Wyatt and Hazel but such resistance as there is is over fairly quickly. Wyatt proves himself to be no friend of Jed’s and he’s clearly his own man.

The attraction between Hazel and Wyatt is off the charts so after a bit of dancing around one another, they can’t help but give in.

The conflict then becomes mostly about the development and the upcoming town council meeting which will vote on rezoning to make way for Jed’s housing estate and just a little bit about whether Wyatt will be leaving town to return to his bespoke carpentry business. (Apparently Wyatt can just leave his business for weeks on end and this isn’t a problem.)

The romance is fairly low conflict once it gets going which I liked but the story itself was fairly generic. Nothing offensive or bad, but nothing particularly new or fresh either.

The narration was better than the story but that’s to be expected with performers the calibre of Teddy Hamilton and CJ Bloom. Both are very experienced and talented, with a good range of accents and character voices, great timing and tone. But even as good as they were, I still found myself interrupting the listen for other things – podcasts or music – because the story wasn’t holding my interest.

I can’t complain about the narration – there was nothing wrong with it. The performances were very strong. But the story’s path felt well-trodden and a little tired.

I did like that Hazel was something of an unusual character; confident, sex positive, tough and self-sufficient and a shark at pool. But overall, The Wrong Bridesmaid was just okay for me.

Grade: C