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The Atlantic
- By: Gordon Hempton
- Length: 2 hrs
- Original Recording
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Imagine yourself in Cape Cod in early fall with the steady swells of the waves falling against the sand and the gentle rhythmic chirp of crickets in the dunes. Unlike canned nature sounds created in a studio, renowned acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton gives you the real deal. He travels the world recording remarkable locations that capture the essence of the place itself.
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Crickets!
- By Washington, DC reader on 06-16-20
Crickets ruin it
Reviewed: 04-25-21
I want to sink into the sound of the waves, but the obnoxiously loud crickets ruin it.
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Now That You Mention It
- By: Kristan Higgins
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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It's been over a decade since Nora left her hometown of Scupper Island, Maine, and very seldom looked back. She's carved out a successful life in Boston, where no one knows her as the awkward girl with the delinquent sister and the dad who left, but a not-as-dramatic-as-it-sounds brush with death has her taking stock of her life. Inspired to reconnect with her prickly mother and snarky teenage niece, Nora returns home for the summer, where she's forced to face the people she's spent the last ten years trying to avoid.
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Trigger warning needed
- By Kindle Customer on 02-16-18
- Now That You Mention It
- By: Kristan Higgins
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
Trigger warning needed
Reviewed: 02-16-18
I am not generally supportive of the idea of trigger warnings for a book, but I think this one actually merits one. When you pick up a romance novel--especially one by an author who generally writes light hearted, humorous romances--you don't expect to get a long, detailed, step-by-step description of a physical assault, but that's exactly what she does here. She does a good job of getting inside the head of someone undergoing such an attack, and I think it's quite well-written, but it just is not what most people would expect from the Kristan Higgins brand and I can imagine it really affecting someone badly.
As for the rest of the book, I generally really like the Kristan Higgins formula, which this book follows (open with heroine facing some disaster, insert a lovable dog, odd family dynamics and secrets and several quirky friends, add a somewhat mysterious hero and voila--you have a KH romance). However, this time it just didn't work for me. I'm not quite sure of what didn't ring true, but something was off. I think I never really believed in any of the characters, except possibly the teenage girls. The hero, in particular, was a real cipher. We just don't get enough of him to really know him at all, and they hardly spend any time together. In fact, the book may actually have been better without that romance. It could have worked just as well if they formed a supportive friendship instead of going for the HEA. It's really more a story of the heroine coming to terms with her past and for that the romance was unnecessary. In addition, there was some really superfluous violence at the end that seemed out of character and unnecessary. Just not one of her best.
As for the narration, Xe Sands has a very particular style that I thought was fine for the first few books of KH's that I listened to, but it's a style that I have gotten very tired of.
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118 people found this helpful
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The Seduction of Elliot McBride
- By: Jennifer Ashley
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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USA Today best-selling author and RITA Award winner Jennifer Ashley pens heart-pounding tales that keep listeners spellbound with torrid romance and finely crafted intrigue. Juliana St. John faces the ultimate mortification when she's stood up on her wedding day. But then fate places her face-to-face with her first love, Elliot McBride, and she finds herself falling for her half-mad former paramour.
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5 STARS - 5 WORDS LOVED LOVED LOVED THIS BOOK
- By CAROLYN 🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹 on 05-25-13
- The Seduction of Elliot McBride
- By: Jennifer Ashley
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
Torture porn and muddled plot
Reviewed: 11-09-17
My least favorite of Ashley's Highland series. At times it felt like torture porn to me. It was just too, too much. She did not need to give us such a detailed description of his treatment at his captors' hands.
There were certainly many good things about the book, but the plot was pretty muddled--if Elliott was there to stop her wedding, why was he asleep in another chapel while the ceremony was supposed to be going on?--and it ultimately just didn't work for me. I feel like she could have written a better book with the same broad outlines of the plot and same characters. Too bad she wrote this one instead.
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2 people found this helpful
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Unforgiven
- The Horsemen Trilogy
- By: Mary Balogh
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The Woodfall and Hayes families have been bitter rivals for nearly a century. Now, after eight years, Kenneth returns home and realizes his underlying love for Miss Moira Hayes. For her, he is willing to forget the past. But can she?
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Heroine is a bit difficult to like
- By Mercy Boujarwah on 12-08-16
- Unforgiven
- The Horsemen Trilogy
- By: Mary Balogh
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
Not her best
Reviewed: 07-23-16
At the risk of a spoiler, a critical plot element in this book relies on the stupidest excuse for having sex I've about ever read.
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6 people found this helpful
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A Witch's Handbook of Kisses and Curses
- Half-Moon Hollow, Book 7
- By: Molly Harper
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Nola Leary would have been content to stay in Kilcairy, Ireland, healing villagers at her family’s clinic with a mix of magic and modern medicine. But a series of ill-timed omens and a deathbed promise to her grandmother have sent her on a quest to Half-Moon Hollow, Kentucky, to secure her family’s magical potency for the next generation. Her supernatural task? To unearth four artifacts hidden by her grandfather before a rival magical family beats her to it. Complication One: The artifacts are lost somewhere in vampire Jane Jameson’s occult bookshop. Complication Two: Her new neighbor, Jed Trudeau, keeps turning up half-naked at the strangest times....
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One of the best spin offs I have read!
- By Diana Turmenne on 05-28-13
- A Witch's Handbook of Kisses and Curses
- Half-Moon Hollow, Book 7
- By: Molly Harper
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
Painful to listen to
Reviewed: 10-29-13
2 stars, largely based on the painfully bad narration of the first half
I normally LOVE the Molly Harper-Amanda Ronconi team. This time the narration was painfully bad--so bad that it distracted me from following the story and came close to ruining the book for me. What the hell was she thinking to go with such a broad "pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd" Boston accent for an Irish woman? I understand that for part of the time she was presenting herself as having come from Boston, but in that case only her dialog should have featured that accent, not her first person narration.
The only way I managed to get through the book at all was because she pretty much drops that accent for the second half of the book. This allowed me to focus on the plot, which seemed particularly slapdash and full of holes. Admittedly, I don't read Molly Harper for her tightly plotted prose, but this was especially weak. There also seemed to be less wit than usual, but that may have been obscured by the horrible narration.
I'm certainly not giving up on Molly Harper audiobooks, but I will no longer view them as a guaranteed good time. Better to relisten to one of her Jane Jameson titles (which Amanda Ronconi narrates brilliantly) than to bother with this on audio.
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Flowers from the Storm
- By: Laura Kinsale
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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He's a duke. He's a mathematical genius. He can't talk and he's locked in a lunatic asylum. Only a modest Quaker girl can reach him, but when she helps him to escape, she's swept into his glittering aristocratic world, her life torn apart by his desperate attempt to save himself.
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~COMPELLING!!~ Love This Author! Love This Book!
- By 🌸DARA on 10-01-13
- Flowers from the Storm
- By: Laura Kinsale
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
Even better as an audiobook
Reviewed: 07-29-13
Even better as an audiobook. Nicholas Boulton is a fabulous narrator, perfectly capturing the desperate frustration Jervaulx suffers, as well as his innate ducal arrogance. It's a fine line to tread and he does it beautifully.
My only complaint with the book is that Maddie becomes fairly unsympathetic for a time, largely because we don't get much from her perspective during a longish stretch near the end. However, In the grand scheme of things, this is a fairly minor quibble. This is definitely not your average romance novel but well earns its place as one of the best.
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1 person found this helpful
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The Prince of Midnight
- By: Laura Kinsale
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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He was once a legendary highwayman. Now he's a recluse in a ruined French castle, with only a half-wild wolf for a companion. When Lady Leigh Strachan comes looking for a man to aid in her revenge, she's disillusioned to find that the famed Prince of Midnight couldn't help even if he cared to - which he doesn't. S. T. Maitland wants nothing to do with his legend, or with this fierce, beautiful, broken woman... until the old thrill of living on the cutting edge of danger begins to rise in his blood again.
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Imagine My Joy!
- By Anonymous User on 05-26-13
- The Prince of Midnight
- By: Laura Kinsale
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
You couldn't ask for a better narrator
Reviewed: 06-11-13
Really a 3 star book but with 5 star narration.
In general, I love Laura Kinsale. In addition to her beautiful writing, with her you always get something just a little different, which is definitely the case here. In this case, we have hero and heroine who are both very damaged and very flawed, though in totally non-cliched ways. Unfortunately, the plot is also pretty flawed in places and the heroine is not only flawed but also pretty unlikeable through most if the book. This is a long book, with many subplots, some of which work better than others.
However, if you listen to this as an audiobook, none of that will matter because Nicholas Boulton's voice is so beautiful you wouldn't care what he was reading. It is really hard to narrate romance well, but he does it perfectly. His French is irresistible and his drunken S.T. was hilarious. He doesn't give women an annoying falsetto. He doesn't overdramatize. I will go off into cliches if I try to describe his deep, rich voice. Suffice to say, his narration is perfect.
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8 people found this helpful
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Three Nights of Sin
- By: Anne Mallory
- Narrated by: Angèle Masters
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When her brother was arrested for murder, the ton shut its doors to Marietta Winters. No one would help her save him from the gallows - no one but Gabriel Noble. In exchange for taking the case, Gabriel requests three favors from the desperate young beauty, and Marietta has no other choice but to make a deal with the sinfully handsome devil. Searching for clues in the rough underbelly of London, Marietta must masquerade as a shamelessly wanton wench - much to Gabriel's delight. But Marietta swears to herself that her passionate moans are just for show.
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Delightful Regency Romance with a Good Mystery
- By Katherine on 09-06-13
- Three Nights of Sin
- By: Anne Mallory
- Narrated by: Angèle Masters
Less sexy, more interesting than it appears
Reviewed: 03-27-13
3.5 stars
Definitely not your average historical romance. This book deals with a far grittier reality than that of ton balls and vouchers to Almacks. The protagonists are barely part of society (him) or clinging to the fringe of society (her). The book opens with Marietta going to Gabriel in desperation to ask his help in proving her 18-year-old brother innocent of a series of Jack the Ripper-like murders. Their relationship develops as she collaborates with him to search for evidence that could free her brother.
There are many things to like about this book, and the novelty of the characters and plot is a major one. Unfortunately, I was never able to warm up to Marietta enough for the romance aspect to completely work for me. Part of that may have been the audiobook narration. It was actually pretty good but it's possible that the portrayal of M wasn't as sympathetic as it could have been and that influenced my perception of her. I would also be interested to see what their life would look like a few years down the road, because their HEA seems a little fragile. It's great that they recognize that they love each other, but how are they going to make a life together?
The climax of the book was heartbreaking and will stick with me for a long time. I don't want to say much else about it in order to avoid spoilers.
Finally, the cover and title seem to promise one kind of book, while what we get is far different and, in my opinion, better. I can see someone being disappointed if they were expecting a very hot historical and got this complex, psychologically gripping murder mystery instead.
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Driving Mr. Dead
- By: Molly Harper
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Miranda Puckett has failed at every job she’s ever had. Her mother just wants her to come home, join the family law firm, and settle down with Jason, the perfect lawyer boyfriend. But when Jason turns out to be a lying cheater, Miranda seizes on a job that gets her out of town: long-distance vampire transportation. Her first assignment is to drive vampire Collin Sutherland from Washington to sleepy Half Moon Hollow without incident—no small feat for a woman whom trouble seems to follow like a faithful hound dog!
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Molly Harper can't write fast enough for me!!!!
- By d.e.matthews on 01-14-12
- Driving Mr. Dead
- By: Molly Harper
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
Another fun Molly Harper
Reviewed: 03-27-13
3.5 stars
Another fun Molly Harper. Similar to Susan Elizabeth Phillips, she puts her characters through hell, often leaving them desperate and broke in some unlikely location, only to let them claw themselves back for their HEA. I'm not always a big fan of gratuitous protagonist suffering, but like SEP, Harper seems to make it work.
I have two quibbles with the book, one with the narration and one with the story: First of all, Colin's voice was not very masculine. It made him sound like a wimp, even though he wasn't. Pretty unsexy. This was a shame because the rest of her narration was perfect.
Mild spoiler ahead:
My second quibble is the heroine's actions toward her former fiance. Yes, he was a total scumbag and he probably deserved a great deal of psychic pain, but breaking someone's nose is just not funny. A good way to test this is to ask, would it have been funny if the characters' sexes were reversed? No one would ever try to play a man breaking a woman's nose for laughs, under any circumstances, and I thought it was offensive here too. Ineffectual attempts at violence by a woman toward a much stronger man can sometimes be mildly funny, but a broken nose isn't ineffectual violence. This made me dock the book by a whole star.
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Proof by Seduction
- By: Courtney Milan
- Narrated by: Priscilla Carson
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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A gifted fortune-teller from a humble background, Jenny can make even the most sophisticated skeptic believe her predictions simply by batting her smoky eyelashes. Until she meets her match in Gareth Carhart, the Marquess of Blakely, a sworn bachelor and scientist. Broodingly handsome, Gareth is scandalized to discover his cousin has fallen under the spell of "Madame Esmerelda", and vows to prove Jenny a fraud.
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Well Written And Passionate
- By Book Worm on 01-13-10
- Proof by Seduction
- By: Courtney Milan
- Narrated by: Priscilla Carson
The good and the bad of Courtney Milan
Reviewed: 03-26-13
I re-read (re-listened to) this book recently and found that it had all the things I love as well as all the things I kind of hate about Courtney Milan books. First, the hate: it dragged. The ratio of action--which I would define as anything at all happening, if only a conversation--to interior monologue and exposition of the characters' thoughts and motivations was just too low. The story ground to a halt all too often. And this from me, a person who loves Mary Balogh's books, a writer who spends a lot of her time describing the same events from everyone's perspective and then rehashing reactions and motivations, so I actually have a very high tolerance for slow paced, cerebral romances.
I have also come to the conclusion that the novella is Courtney Milan's best format. She writes such beautifully crafted shorter works that it always feels to me that her novels are bloated by comparison. That is definitely the case in this, her first novel.
My other major problem was how isolated Jenny was. For all we're told of what a warm person she is, we don't see any evidence that she had any friends in London. The Madam Esmeralda persona might have made it difficult to allow anyone too close, but it's hard to believe there was no one besides Ned she'd really consider a friend, particularly since she schools Gareth in the art of friendship.
As for the good, well, she writes beautifully and does an almost too-good job of conveying lower class poverty and desperation. She also does a particularly nice job of depicting a socially awkward hero, not someone whom we diagnose in hindsight with our 21st century knowledge (as opposed to Ned, who is clearly bipolar), but someone who is simply ill at ease with small talk and never has known how to relate to people. I also loved how she shows that as a fortune teller, far from being a fraud, Jenny actually provides a valuable service to her customers in acting almost as a therapist, decades before such an idea would even emerge. I'm glad I revisited this one.
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5 people found this helpful