Becalmed

By: Normandie Fischer

Narrated by: Karin Allers

With her days chock full - designing jewelry for the shop she co-owns with her best friend, sailing her sharpie, and hanging out with girlfriends - Tadie Longworth barely notices she's morphing into the town's maiden aunt. When Will, a widower with a perky daughter named Jilly, limps into town in a sailboat badly in need of engine repairs, Tadie welcomes the chance to help. Her shop becomes Jilly's haven while Will hunts boat parts, and Tadie even takes the two of them sailing. It's the kind of thing she lives for, and it's a welcome distraction from the fact that her ex-boyfriend Alex, aka The Jerk of Jerks, is back in town. With his northern bride. Oh, and he's hitting on Tadie, too.

Those entanglements are more than enough, thank you very much, so it's almost a relief when a hurricane blows into town: at least the weather can match Tadie's mood. When Will and Jilly take shelter in her home, though, Tadie finds herself battling her attraction to Will. Even worse, the feeling is mutual, tempting them all with what-ifs that petrify Will, who has sworn never to fall in love again. Mired in misunderstanding, he takes advantage of the clear skies and hauls Jilly out of there and back to his broken boat so fast, Tadie's head spins.

With the man she might have loved gone, and the man she wishes gone showing up on her doorstep, Tadie finds herself like a sailboat with no wind; becalmed, she has to fight her way back against the currents to the shores of the life, and the man, she wants to have.

©2013 Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas (P)2013 Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas

Audible got this one wrong

Would you listen to Becalmed again? Why?

Absolutely not. The narrator was awful!
See comments below under additional comments.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Jillie, Isa and James.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Karin Allers?

Almost anyone other than Ms Allers. Preferably the author because she would know how to speak the voices of each character.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Jillie walking to find her friend Tadie. Jillie was such a lovable character.

Any additional comments?

I've often said there are narrators and there are narrators. Just because you are listening to the audio version of a book does not mean you are going to have the same experience as reading it yourself. You are listening to the narrators interpretation of how the dialog would sound, their interpretation of how the voice inflections should be, the way the questions should be placed with vehemence, or calmly and with curiosity. A narrator can really ruin a book for you.

This was the case for me. This narrator did not have a handle on how people normally talk. She was okay as long as it was background explanations, but once the characters had verbal interaction, it became so frustrating to me. She sounded like her normal job is as a newscaster or TV weather personality, just putting the facts out with no normal voice inflections. The only one she even remotely made to sound like a real person was the little girl. I nearly deleted it about half way into it because I hated the way it was read so much.

Nice sweet story.

I enjoyed the story. I really struggled with the sound of the narrator. Very hard to listen to her. Many of the characters sounded the same and the little girl voice was like fingernails on chalk board.