Kindle Customer

Another Jewel from Anne Bishop

Revisado: 03-03-23

Two years after Janelle unleashed Witch on the tainted Blood, the Grayhaven family (The Invisible Ring, 4.5 stars) is desperately struggling to rebuild Dena Nahile in the image of the old Blood.

After appealing to Daemon Saudi, Theron, Grayhaven's heir, is beyond disappointed with Ebon Askavi's offering of a Queen.

Theron's an @$$. Through the whole book. But the other characters, particularly Gray, and the Saetan/Damon/Janelle subplot is superb.

But, *what* happened to the narrator??? After performing Janelle for three books, she suddenly developed a Scottish accent??? Everytime she spoke, it hurled me out of the story. Equally annoying (okay almost equally) was the way the narrator occasionally dropped out of character during dialogue from Lucivar and Daemon.

I've read and loved the entire Dark Jewel series since their original publication. I remember waiting anxiously for each new book. The Shadow Queen, while clearly the middle of a second trilogy, stands alone as an uncut gem. If only the narrator had done it justice...

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Interesting Take on Greek Mythology

Revisado: 11-12-21

I've enjoyed the previous books enough to continue inspire of the dreadful narration. Besides Percy, everyone sounds sloooow, pissed, or like a bad surfer dude imitation. ugh!

What kept me listening, though, as a middle school ELA teacher, I like how the classic (or mostly classic) myths are woven into modern situations.

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Listen to This

Revisado: 10-05-21

Listen to this awesome thing called No Child... By Nilajah Sun. She's a teaching artist - goes into urban ELA schools and works w the hard case classes using drama. Whether you're an artist, an educator, a caregiver... Just listen. It's rare to find something so hopeful that is also so real.

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Good Backstory

Revisado: 06-17-21

It's interesting to see how the complicated dynamic between Lynley, St James, Helen and Deborah developed. The Havers cameo was perfect. I'd love to see more of Peter and Sydney - Lady Ashford, too.

The thing that really worked against the story was the narrator. Every character voice sounded either like nails on a chalkboard, or like the character was drugged to near unconsciousness.

A different narrator, and this would be a solid 4, at the least.

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Editor! We Need an Editor!

Revisado: 09-07-20

The book was about twice as long as it should have been - or it should have been advertised as a book of psychology. Graham EXHAUSTIVELY (and it does get exhausting) explores different psychological theory with little to connect the various schools of thought to the actual narrative.

Notice I haven't even mentioned Juliette or Pauline yet? Neither has Graham.

Graham seemed utterly enamored with the backstories of the families, going back multiple generations.

And the tedium is only exacerbated by the narrators nearly monotone delivery. The one kudo I can give him is that he had an appropriate accent.

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Now Where's the Sequel?

Revisado: 06-18-20

I first discovered Scalzi with his Lock In series, ironically about 2 weeks before Covid ended life as we know it. I loved both books, and have the same question for them as for this - where's the next book in the series?

Scalzi has a talent for tackling ethically sketchy situations and morally ambiguous characters, and making even the corrupt seem somehow sympathetic.

As an avid reader of *everything*, and an author who's had countless books ruined by learning the intricacies of editing, I'm a tough sell, but the only criticism I have of The Dispatcher is that I wanted more - I'll qualify that by saying the story was fully developed and didn't skimp on plot, so more needs to be a next story. Or a book of short stories or novellas. There are too many twists and turns to be explored, and one favor floating around out there...

I loved Zachary Quinto's narration - he made it clear who was speaking, and his voices fit the characters well - having listened to the Lock In books, also by Scalzi, narrated by Will Wheaten, it's clear the 2nd and 3rd generations of Star Trek have excellent prospects in voice acting. Exceptional!

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Where's The Rest?

Revisado: 06-21-19

A Story This Complex Needs about 75k More Words! And it could have done w out the sound effects. Sigh...

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meh

Revisado: 06-11-19

There was definitely potential for an exceptional listen here, but the brevity and lack of detail in all 3 stories left me feeling like I was missing a chunk of the stories.

I'm also guessing Green is some flavor of European, as he refers to a gas station in Indiana (which I'm fairly certain is still in the US) as a petrol station.

Okay, I'd be much less critical if I didn't see how fantastic an author Green could be. Take *one* of these stories and turn it into a 50k+ book, and you'd have my money.

As for the narrator. I love Steve White. Truly. But he should NEVER attempt British, Welsh, Irish or Australian accents. He sounds like an unsure pirate. Just sayin'.

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Buy. A. Map.

Revisado: 06-04-19

Okay, as a lifelong Michigander, I was intrigued by this horrific story which was unfamiliar to me. My intrigue quickly turned to irritation and then mild outrage as the author repeatedly butchered Michigan geography. Seriously, these were mistakes that a glance at a map and a 5 minute conversation could have eliminated.

Then the story. It reads like a sensationalized romantic intrigue novel. And the author's periodic asides pointing out his superior intellect in dealing with Kelly Cochrane was unnecessary and pulled me out of the story - as did the fact that there was no indication when he went into flashback. (And what happened to Henry?)

Finally, the narration. Maybe I'm being overly picky. After all, look what he had to work with. Particularly annoying were the brief pauses followed by a drop out of character for what was apparently one or two words in quotation marks. Either that, or he suffered from... William Shatner... Syndrome.

Overall, I look at this as a wasted credit and hours I'll never get back.

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Another "Meh"...

Revisado: 05-29-19

The narrator made me a bit nuts. I'm not sure if it's to his credit, but he didn't even try on the female voices. At any rate he just sounded scratchy and old.

The story was interesting, I guess, but the author's rather self-righteous air grated. Of course that might have been due to the narrator.

There were loose ends. What was up w Detective Salinas? Who was making the calls? What was the real story about the dude looking for a gun?

The final and most unforgivable part, IMO, is that none of the characters were likable. With Spence, Burton and Vic, we should have had tons of likability.

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