Fire and Ice

By: William Graham

Narrated by: Tim Brunson

In a small town in Iowa, a series of murders have the town on edge. A newspaperman turned reluctant sleuth unravels the interconnected deaths, and in the process rekindles a romance and has his faith tested.

This story will leave you guessing. This suspenseful work is from William Graham, the author of the critically acclaimed works The Red Planet Trilogy and The Red Planet President - both of which are also available in audio format.

©2003 William Graham (P)2015 William Graham

Narration killed it.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A better narrator maybe. The weird pausing mid-sentence, lack of emotions in the voice and almost same style of delivery for all characters - all of these made it a very bad listening experience.

Any additional comments?

Moreover, the book has multiple POVs that the story jumps to. So, with the bad narration, it becomes very difficult to keep track of what's happening.

I received this free review copy from the author / narrator / publisher and am leaving an unbiased review.

A good story made average by narration

Fire and Ice has all the right elements for a good listen. An unusual murder in a small town that becomes a series of murders, A newspaper reporter trying to find roots back in his home town becomes a sleuth helping a former girlfriend who is a detective in the small police department. Politicians blinded by ambition and a developer trying to build an Idyllic development.
That being said, the narration just took it down to an average listen in which it was hard to stay involved.
Tim Brunson's voice is pleasant enough, but his reading was so slow and void of any emotion
I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher

Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice
: William Graham


A murder mystery/ suspense that had me totally confused even after a second listening. The characters didn't engage me. Others may enjoy it, but I struggled to finish it.

The narration was sub- slandered. Tim Brunson's voice is pleasant enough, but his reading was so slow and void of any emotion. The speed was able to be adjusted to 1.5

normal when I switched to listening on my Kindle, just disappointed I couldn't listen on my Ipod. The attempt at switching voice gender was clumsy.



"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Story was great - sample the narrator first

This is a tough review to write because I REALLY wanted to love this book as a whole. It had colorful characters with original quirks (like people who consider playing the classical music on the violin so sexy that they use it as foreplay), a shrewd politician who spins a blackmail scheme to personal advantage in an incredibly clever way, and a cute immigrant housekeeper turned stripper/prostitute who doesn't go the way you'd think and defies stereotypes as she works hard to make a better life for her Mother.

The story engaged the heck out of me, but I didn't relate well to the narrator. I sped him up. I slowed him down. I did everything but play him backwards. His narration felt stiff and he chose to pause in places where the author may not have meant for there to be a pause. It made the story, which I was enjoying, hard to follow.

However, in an effort to do a reality check, I played some passages for my husband and said, can you understand this passage? And when he heard it, he said, "Yes I understood it just fine. He just sounds like he is more accustomed to narrating self-help books because he likes to enunciate each syllable clearly."

I found it distracting, and that's a bummer because I think there were parts of the story I may have missed out on since I misunderstood what was happening because of the way it was read. I'm accustomed to a more relaxed cadence. So I urge you to listen to a sample of the book, and if you're cool with the narrator, then you're likely to dig the story's originality and refreshingly original laugh out loud moments in what is otherwise a fun and entertaining murder mystery.

Good

Good plot, have reads others by author and have enjoyed all of them. Good narration added to this story.
Given audio for my voluntary review and my honest opinion

A mixed experience.

The narration just didn't work for me. I didn't find any flow in it, for me the pacing was off, the delivery of the lines was unnatural. For all I know this might actually be an accurate delivery of the accent and speech pattern of the area to book is based in but I found it detracted from my enjoyment of the book.

I also hated the character voices, particularly the male voices which to me sounded more feminine than the female characters which is really strange with a male narrator. I had a terrible time trying to figure out who was talking, the voice would change mid line which made me think the other person said the second part, but no, or I'd think it was all one person when it was going back and forth, I found it pretty frustrating. I would avoid listening to this narrator again. I strongly recommend listening to the sample before buying.

As for the story, well it was a complicated little thing! It followed a lot of different people weaving back and forth before bringing it all together at the end. It was really quite well done.

I found that part of the mystery remained a mystery right up to the reveal and part was obvious from the middle of the book, but overall it was enjoyable. I enjoyed it bt for me the eBook would have been better.

This book was supplied free by the author/narrator/publisher and I voluntarily wrote this honest review.

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Mixed Bag

Any additional comments?

A man and his wife are murdered in their farmhouse and a young single mother is also killed in her home. Are the murders related and who did it? These are the questions that police detective Nora and her old flame Declan, now the newspaper editor, are determined to find out.

Fire and Ice was a good mystery with plenty of quirky and interesting characters. There were some clever plot twists that kept me guessing. I feel that the story would have been more engaging with a different narrator. At times he seemed to vacillate between "Fargo" and "Rain Man". I would recommend Fire and Ice with one caveat - listen to the narration sample first.

I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator. This review is my honest opinion.

I had a really hard time listening to this one...

Would you try another book from William Graham and/or Tim Brunson?

I really don't know... I've got confused feelings about the book and the interpretation of it...

Would you be willing to try another book from William Graham? Why or why not?

I may give William Graham a try again but it will be either in a paper book / e-book form or with another narrator. I could not get into this story properly because of the way Mr Brunson read it, unfortunately... The plot seemed interesting at first, but I quickly lost the track of the main storyline for the simple reason of trying to understand who was speaking and figuring out whether a sentence ended there or not (I'll explain in a moment what I mean by that)... Also, there were a few instances when I was wondering what particular scenes had to do with the crime... Generally, it was difficult for me to engage in the book and I really didn't care whether the murders would be solved or not... Not a good thing when it comes to crime novels, right?
But there were a few good scenes and plot twists, that's why I'm on the whole willing to read another book by William Graham...

Would you be willing to try another one of Tim Brunson’s performances?

Probably not, unfortunately. Mr Brunson has a nice voice and when I listened to the sample of the audiobook I liked it a lot. But... And here are the 2 main reasons why I did not generally like the audiobook:

1. Mr Brunson has a particular manner of reading which I find really tiresome; he makes pauses in the strangest of places and also accentuates the sentences in a strange way.

To explain it better, let's say you have to read aloud what I've just written. I would expect the narrator to make pauses in the places I marked with a hyphen, something like this:
Mr Brunson has a particular manner of reading - which I find really tiresome (the pitch of the voice going down here a bit to mark a longer pause or a full stop); he makes pauses in the strangest of places -- and also accentuates the sentences in a strange way. (pitch going down to mark the end of the sentence)

In Mr Brunson's interpretation I would expect something like this:
Mr Brunson has a particular - manner of reading which I find really - tiresome; he makes pauses in (pitch going down as if the sentence ended here) - the strangest of places and also (pitch going down again) --- accentuates the sentences in a strange way.


2. Although generally I got used to this strange manner of reading after a while and I didn't mind it so much in the book's 3rd-person-narrator's parts, I really hated what Mr Brunson did in dialogues. Every person in the book was given exactly the same, high-pitched voice of a whiny 15-year-old girl... It didn't matter if it was a man, a woman, if they were angry or happy, what I saw in my mind was a spoilt teenage girl who was whining because her parents refused to buy her an icecream...

I'm sorry to say all that; I am not usually so harsh in my reviews... When reviewing books, audiobooks or movies, even the ones I like a little less, I try to follow Pollyanna's philosophy of finding something good in them. In this instance, however, I have a really hard time trying to pinpoint something that I did like...
Well, maybe one thing: Mr Brunson, please, do not try to change your voice when reading, just read the whole book in your own, normal voice - it has a real nice timbre, pleasant for the ear :)

Any additional comments?

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Needs a different narrator

This book is one which alternates between a few different POV stories. At first this gets quite confusing as it jumps around. And it's made worse by the fact that the narrator doesn't do a good job of female voices at all. So I found it hard to distinguish who was who. He doesn't give unique and identifiable voices to the characters. All men & all women sound pretty much the same.
It's a bit shorter of a listen than most books, and I think it's because a lot is packed into a smaller time frame. But I found the jumping around in POV & mix of characters to be difficult to follow along with. It didn't hold my attention well & I had to keep rewinding the re listen to what I missed.
Maybe a different narrator could have made the difference, but overall it wasn't memorable or that exciting/enticing. I was provided this book via audiobook book & gave my honest review.

A little of everything in this book.

It's like a new age Peyton Place. It has everything you like to read, interesting characters a plot that matches a soap opera. I received this audiobook for free and voluntarily reviewed.