A Darker Dream

By: Amanda Ashley

Narrated by: Christine Padovan

In all his four hundred years, Rayven never met a woman like Rhianna McLeod. She is a vision of light, of warmth, of everything he is not - nor can ever be. Doomed to live forever in darkness and solitude, he knows all too well the risk in getting close to her, yet he hungers for her with a fierce passion he swears he will never allow himself to feel.

Rhianna's father sold her to Rayven to put food on the table, so she had no choice but to go with the dark stranger. To her surprise, he gives her everything she wants - the finest clothes, education, and the run of the castle - everything, that is, except his touch. For although she senses danger beneath the soft-spoken manner, although even Rayven himself warns her to stay away, she is drawn to this creature of the night, and loves him as she will no other.

©1997 Madeline Baker (P)2012 Audio Realms, all rights reserved.

THIS BOOK DRAGGED & IT WENT ON & ON & ON

Set in 1843 Scotland or Ireland (and written in 1997) this is the story of Rayven a 400 yr old wealthy, moody, grumpy Vampire who, on a whim while gambling one night, bought a 15 yr old girl from her Father and took her back to his Castle so he would always have a supply of warm tasty blood. But, as he got to know the naive innocent Rhianna, he could feel his demonic side wanting more from her than just a few drops of blood and this shocked and disgusted him. So eventually he sent her away to a Convent to get educated.... but, four years later, he wasn't expecting the 19 yr old siren who pushed her way back into his life and, even though he tried over and over again, she refused to leave him. And, once again, he constantly battled his nature, kept secrets and was ravaged with guilt because he couldn't give her the life she deserved.... and feared he would drink her dry.

Rhianna loved Rayven and couldn't understand why he was so conflicted.... he was obviously attracted to her, got demanding and jealous but was always trying to push her away too. She didn't know what he was or why he didn't have friends... his only companion was the mysterious elderly Butler. In the end they settled on Rhianna staying at the Castle for 1 year.... but that year was going to be fraught with tension and challenges.

I usually love Amanda Ashley but because this book was written a long time ago it did feel quite dated and there was A LOT of repetitions of theme - "I want her but can't have her because I'm a beast so I'll push her away". I also didn't like the narrator's voices for any of the characters, but especially the Hero's, so I lost the connection with them because of it and the listen just seemed to drag on for days.... I ended up hoping someone would just put them out of their miseries (or mine) by putting a stake through his lifeless heart. Multiple POV's but mainly the H and H's, no sexy scenes but there was a sweet HEA.

Worth a credit? No - it's under $5 so it's a cheap listen but I did regret the time I spent listening to it.

Truly awful narrater

I've been an Audible fan for many years, and I don't think I've heard anyone read this badly. I do have a kindle book, so I can actually read it myself. I've read her books before, so I may re-review it after I've done so. It made me wonder if she was someone's daughter or girlfriend, since there is no way she is a professional narrater.

Excellent book!

I loved the book! But I did not enjoy the narrator. Still I listened for the wonderful story. I love a good HEA.

Vampires shouldn't sound juvenile

Unless I already know what the narrators sound like I always listen to the sample to make sure I like the narrators , with this one I didn't listen long enough. In my opinion the narrator ruined this book. I believe the story was probably good as other titles by this author have been but a bad narrator can ruin a good story, I'm afraid that was the case with this one. She was horrible with the accents of the characters making them sound most of the time very juvenile, I couldn't even get half way through the book. I did learn a lesson, in the future I will listen to the complete sample before I make a decision.. My advice is maybe read this one unless you don't mind your vampire having an odd juvenile accent.

Too Long

I found this book a wonderful story. I am going to be honest and say this book was too long. Nice romance, but this story drags in approximately 10 chapters. I enjoyed the epilogue very much. D.Page

WTF did I just listen to

I downloaded this book because it has fairly high reviews on Kindle, but good Lord the narration is so awful I'm not sure I will even finish it. If I do it will be the Kindle version for sure. The voices for every character are terrible at best. But the accents- I don't even know what she was going for. Maybe Scottish? Maybe Transylvanian? Totally terrible? I made it about 25%, but I seriously can't take any more. I don't care if they hook up or not. I love a good mindless story, but this is definitely the case of bad narration ruining the book.

It's a better book to read instead of listen to.

The story is so so. But the narrator's voice characterization is overly dramatic and makes the FC sound whiny. And the MC sounds so controlling.

Love vampires

I love vampire stories and this was a decent one. The reason for the one star rating was the really bad narrator.

Beware this isn't exactly a new title for audible

What did you love best about A Darker Dream?

I liked how it was a historical. I also liked how the lonely vampire had enough compassion to save a girl in a bad situation

What other book might you compare A Darker Dream to and why?

I just can't get over the way they are reselling this title

What aspect of Christine Padovan’s performance would you have changed?

Her performance is ok, a little slow and precise for my taste but not bad

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, I really liked it the first time I listened-enough to listen in one sitting, but not again

Any additional comments?

I started listening but it sounded so familiar, sure enough I had bought this one already. I'm not sure what happened with audible but taking a book I purchased away then offering it for sale is disappointing

Couldn't listen...

This may be the best story ever written but I'll never know. The narrator was beyond horrible! Trying to do accents but wasn't close. Poor cadence.... I just couldn't get past that enough to listen to the story.