Finally! I've been waiting for years for this!
I have been waiting for this for years. I first read Trinity back in the 90s, when I was a teenager and it was gifted to me by my Irish father. I fell in love with it then and have read and re-read it countless times over the past two decades. Some years ago, I even wrote to Audible to request an audiobook version of Trinity, but I gave up after years of checking Leon Uris's Audible catalogue to no avail.
I highly recommend this audiobook for anyone who loves military and Irish historical fiction. It's so well researched, and with just the right amount of romance woven in--not overpowering, but enough to keep it exciting.
And a narrator who can do an Ulster accent! What a treat! I am normally reluctant to listen to "Irish" stories, because a bad "Irish" accent can make an audiobook unlistenable, but there are none of those worries here.
I read the reviews. I read the reviews. I read the reviews I should have known...known...known. And yet the ratings were still so, so high. Why? Why? WHY? The narration was the saving grace, but even the narrators seemed to be so, so frustrated...so frustrated...so frustrated with the weird, weird repetition of words and phrases; a device used so frequently that I was soon able to predict when the author would repeat, repeat, repeat a word or phrase two or three times for no apparent reason, aside from a deep, deep lack of skill. It could have been good, good, good, but it was terrible. It was terrible. It was terrible.
Romeo and I were happy in love. The future stretched before us brighter than any star in the darkest sky. Now everything is broken. Literally broken. Romeo's entire career is at stake, my entire future is threatened.... And my past? It's coming back to haunt me. To haunt us. Romeo says we're in this together, and right now the only sure thing is us. But how far can a love so new be pushed?
The only good thing I can say about it is, once again, the male narrator was great. Everything else, the female narrator, the writing, the premise, even the grammar was terrible. Lots of low-key sexism, such as Romeo never treating Rimel as a person capable of making decisions for herself, and more than one reference about Ivy's promiscuity (but the boys can sleep with as many people as they want without judgment, of course). Save your time and credit.
The narration would have been 5 stars except for the robotic woman narrating Rimmel's chapters. She was terrible, but the make narrator das great. The story was cute, although a bit shallow. Easy listen when you want entertainment but don't want to think too much.
Along the ancient Pilgrim Trail traveled by countless crusaders from Europe to The Holy Land, Dr. Rory Osgrove is in charge of her first archaeological dig. A Biblical Archaeologist by degree, her target is a holy relic of unimaginable power. But what she discovers instead is the tomb of a long-buried Crusader, one of the thousands who came to this desert land in search of glory and riches. Deterred from her original goal, Rory is fascinated by the English knight and the journal buried with him.
This was by far one of the worst stories I've listened to in a long time. Most of the characters were unlikeable and it was poorly written. Pretty much every male character treated the main character like she was a possession or a child. It was very irritating. The narration was good, although he spoke too fast at times. I had to slow the playback speed to 0.95. I love historical fiction but maybe I'm used to historical fiction that is well researched. This was not. Save your credit, unless you're looking for a cheesy melodrama without a strong female protagonist.
North and South has been sitting in my Audible library for a couple years. I have no idea why it took me so long to listen to it, but once I finally started, I could not stop. At more than 30 hours, it's impossible to listen to it in one sitting, but I wish I could have. I stayed up well into the early morning hours on more than one occasion because I just couldn't turn it off. I found myself talking back to the narrator and yelling at my iPod because of all the dramatic twists and turns, the evil scheming, and the sheer desire for the protagonists to triumph.
I loved the attention to historical detail and the use of real historical figures as minor characters in the story line. Even the Afterword, in which the author talked about his research and the writing process, was interesting to me.
The narrator was superb, especially his voice for Orry. I could easily distinguish when Orry was speaking, even when in conversation with other South Carolina characters.
What made the experience of listening to Dead of Winter the most enjoyable?
Emma Galvin's performance, once again, made this a fantastic listen. I read the ebook while I listened to the audiobook and Emma Galvin's narration made the book even better. I am a big fan of Kresley Cole, but I found that (in Dead of Winter at least) she went a little overboard with her use of exclamation points! It gets distracting to read like that after a while! See what I mean!?! Emma Galvin softened those exclamations and put such life into the story.
I am firmly Team Death. He doesn't treat Evie like a fragile damsel in distress and, unlike Jack, Death is always honest with her.
Yes, and she is one of my favourite narrators. I found Poison Princess (book one in the Arcana Chronicles) by searching for books narrated by Emma Galvin. Her voices for the main characters are consistent and distinct. If she could just differentiate the voices for the other characters a little bit more, this would have been a five-star performance.
The ending. Kresley Cole, you are killing me with these cliffhangers! I hate it when books end in such a harrowing cliffhanger, but it also brings a little hope for those who were wishing for a different outcome. With fifteen minutes left in the audiobook, I wasn't sure if I was happy about how the book was ending, but the conclusion was such a dramatic twist and it wiped out my theory as to where the next book is headed.
Hated the ending. Hated it.
No. This series wasn't awful, but isn't something that I would want to listen to again. If you've already listened to the other two books, then you'll probably listen to this one as well. This instalment was my least favourite of the three (and I was on the fence about the other two).
Would you ever listen to anything by J. D. Horn again?
Probably not. I didn't like his writing style. There was way too much going on...too many antagonists, too many side stories, an irrelevant Nazi back story, just too much "stuff" in general. And I didn't care for Mercy all that much either. She made a lot of stupid decisions and came across as immature and selfish at times. It's really hard to get into a novel when you don't care for the protagonist.
She was okay, but her delivery could have been more natural. She mispronounced a few words, and I really didn't like the way she pronounced the word "appreciated", which, oddly enough, came up often enough that it grated on my nerves.
Maybe. Maybe the story could be better told if a decent scriptwriter got a hold of it and streamlined the story.
I cannot emphasize enough just how much I hated the ending, like in my Top 5 most hated endings of all time. It was just so stupid how the whole thing wrapped up, and it confirmed my feelings that I didn't care for Mercy as a character.