marie

Do not waste your time or your credit on this crap

Revisado: 02-28-25

This book is a mess. It’s not the fun cozy murder mystery you are expecting from the description and the cover art. It reads like three (bad) authors wrote it, each misunderstanding what the genre was supposed to be.
I wish I didn’t have to rate the narrators because the source material was so bad, but I feel like they leaned into the terrible writing too much.

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Skip - also spoiler alert

Revisado: 02-19-25

This one drags. A lot. I had to keep pushing myself to finish it because I was interested in the whodunnit, for some reason. Spoiler: no one dun it
Its actually worse than this. Maybe someone dun it? Maybe she dun it herself? We never know, because the author didn't think we deserved to know. Apparently, the book wasn't about the murder victim this entire time. Or something.
So, you slow-crawl through this pudding of domestic boredom with this ridiculous family (not interesting ridiculous-boring ridiculous), and the author doesn't reveal ANYTHING. No character learns anything, or grows. Nothing happens. Lots of characters. Zero development. No plot. Just pudding.
Let's discuss the "ending." The ending of this book was not there. In this one, the toxic person was like, ooops, sorry for ruining everyone's lives-didn't really notice, my bad- I'll try do better, and everyone was like: cool. That's the end. The whole resolution to decades of one guy getting bored and starting a whole new family, and then doing it again was everyone going: cool. Again, this might sound interesting, but don't be fooled. It is not.
And the whole time, you are following the dead person (and it's hard to care about her because she's insipid, clueless, AND a bad person), because at LEAST we will find out who killed her and all will be revealed, but nope. Your never learn anything and nothing happens.
I should have quit one of the countless times I put this down.
In terms of the narration, the voice work on the son who sleeps with two of his stepmothers is so bad (I know, that part at least sounds interesting, right? Nope again, the author managed to make even this boring). Is the son supposed to be stoned, or sound like he just woke up, or that he is just not that bright? Why narrate like this?
Anyway, skip this and find something, anything else.

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Why can’t we get a good narrator?

Revisado: 09-07-24

These books are too good for the voice actors they get (after RA) to narrate them. This audiobook was going (sort of) ok, and then this voice actor continually confused the word “desert”with “dessert.” His whole paid assignment is to narrate a book, and he doesn’t bother to check pronunciations? And no editor caught this? It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the name Mount Desert (not dessert, fyi), was repeated like a thousand times. Why is it too much to ask to get someone who understands words to narrate these books?

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I should have checked on the narrator first

Revisado: 08-26-23

Oh wow, is this narrator bad. She is so bad, I cannot focus at all on the story, even thought the plot is interesting. Why do they keep hiring her?!? Did no one listen to this before they sent it out? Is there no one reviewing narrators while they are recording? I’m returning this audio and buying the book, and if I see another audiobook with this narrator, I will pass.

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esto le resultó útil a 15 personas

It’s just not good

Revisado: 02-04-23

And should be renamed. This isn’t a haunted house story. It’s something else, and that something else is long and tedious, and not very good.

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I’m only halfway though, but

Revisado: 01-17-23

Plot is great so far. Setting is broad and brilliant. Story is paced excellently, all kinds of wonderful references to past books and characters, and thank goodness the narrator is doing a fantastic job. Maybe someone was reading all our reviews about the last few narrations and finally someone listened?
I’m loving it so far.

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esto le resultó útil a 14 personas

Theeeeyre Baaack!

Revisado: 08-18-21

Yes!!! The gentlemen are back on their game with this one. What an excellent story. Also, to address all the negative reviews about the narration, nobody will ever be as fine a narrator as Rene Auberjonois (may he rest in peace), but at LEAST someone listened and did not hire the woman who narrated the last one and another before it. I do agree that several of this narrator's voices are either WAY off, or just weird (Constance sounds like an old man so much that I was wondering if new readers thought she really WAS supposed to be an old man), but the narrator did an ok job with some (I just remembered the Jack Nicholson, though, that was cringy). Maybe I was just so grateful that it wasn't the last narrator? I should probably just switch to reading the book. Anyway, the story is GREAT. I've read every single novel these guys have written and this story is every bit as good as the early Pendergasts. Fine job, Messrs. Lincoln and Child, and thank you for writing this gem. If you could help us all out and find a good narrator for future books, though, that would be great.

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This is how terrible narration ruins a book

Revisado: 06-03-21

I stuck it in there as long as I could because the story was compelling, and it seemed well-written. But oh boy, I just could not listen to this narrator one more second. I made it pretty close to the end and then kept trying to convince myself that it was only a little further, like a runner at the end of a long race. But I hit the wall and had to stop. I can't decide if she had extra spit in her mouth, or if she thinks it's necessary to over-enunciate sounds like the "t" and "s." Did she get some vocal training where they taught her to do that, and then she thought it would be cool to use it on prose? Also, the forced calm, slow voice got to me after a while, but I think I could have stuck it out if it were only that. It was the spitting of those consonant sounds, like needle jabs to the brain.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Decent Little Mystery

Revisado: 06-03-21

This one wasn't bad, as far as domestic suspense goes. The big reveal was pretty predictable, but that's probably just me because I read too much. I was absolutely engaged for the first 90% of the book, though. The author created some interesting threads for us to work out, but I wish the real killer would have come from a different one, as that reveal was anticlimactic, and there were no real surprises. Overall, I feel like it was a fun ride that just kind of flopped at the end. One thing that did not work at all was the very last scene. We got a lesson in feminism that didn't have to be spelled out for us, and it came off pretty didactic, but the author probably thought some people wouldn't get it, so ok. Overall, it was entertaining, but not very memorable.

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Please not this narrator ever again

Revisado: 02-24-21

I stopped a bunch of times because the narrator is so bad on several of these character’s voices. They are so annoying that it’s like a cheese grater to the brain. These books are too good for this and it ruins them. It’s incredibly, incredibly distracting, and it takes you right out of the story. Please, may we have another narrator for the next book?
We know there is no Rene A, equivalent, but they can do better than this narrator.

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