Comments on: Speaking of Audiobooks: Listening Challenges

By: delmartian

delmartian — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:23:15 +0000

My favorite female narrators are Rosalyn Landor and Jenny Sterlin. They are amazing. Rosalyn Landor really shines in the Hathaway series of Lisa Kleypas. She does such a great job I can’t tell it’s a woman reading a man’s part. Jenny Sterlin is also just as good. Listen to The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn. It’s funny and touching and so well read you really just get sucked into the story. You don’t even notice the narrator. Jenny Sterlin is just that good!

By: Lea AAR

Lea AAR — Sat, 08 May 2010 12:18:21 +0000

The Imp – glad to hear about Darkfever. Right now I’m listening to Brockmann’s Out of Control and loving every minute.

By: audiobook

audiobook — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:08:14 +0000

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By: The Imp

The Imp — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:01:01 +0000

I was spoiled in that my first audio book was Dark Lover (JR Ward), read by Jim Frangione, who IMO has the best delivery ever. Everyone else has a high bar to reach there!

So far there’s only one book I haven’t been able to get through. Suz Brockmann’s Unsung Hero (which was GREAT in print) is read by William Dufris and I just can NOT get into how he portrays the characters. The voices are too extreme, I think.

Oh, and Joyce Bean did a good job with Darkfever. I have a harder time with female narrators for some reason, and I was leery at first, but once I let myself just go with this I was quite pleased.

By: Lea AAR

Lea AAR — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:08:13 +0000

Libby – Thanks for the Notorious recommendation. I’ve been on the fence about this one but I hadn’t realized it was narrated by Josephine Bailey! Bailey also narrates Dream of Me by Josie Litton and I consider it one of the best narrated romances out there. So, Notorious has been placed on my Wish List at Audible and I’m now waiting for my next month’s credits!

By: Libby Emond

Libby Emond — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:11:39 +0000

If you want a historical romance in audiobook format that, in my opinion, is the absolute best, then Notorious by Katherine Sutcliffe and narrated by Josephine Bailey. The narration is, without a doubt amazing. Josephine Bailey, a Briitish actress, can literaly play a crowd of characters without a pause, and you can distinguish each character without being told who is who. If she could read all historical romances, I would be thrilled. Another of her’s that is outstanding is Pride and Predjudice. Her narration is clear, and you can understand every spoken word, unlike other British narrators.

Then, for the best contemporary romance narration, Shem Creek, by Dorthea Benton Frank, and narrated by Sandra Burr and Dick Hill. They are completely adorable, believable and amazingly talented.

By: Diana

Diana — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 01:04:52 +0000

Lea, oh good! You and your husband might like Ricochet (Dennis Boutsikaris), Smoke Screen and Play Dirty (Slezak). They’re mystery/police procedural. Sandra Brown’s recent books are exceptionally well done. She’s a favorite mystery writer for me even though I didn’t like her category romances.

By: Lea AAR

Lea AAR — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 03:49:02 +0000

Diana – My husband listened to Envy (based upon your recommendation) and considered it a definite audio success. It will be interesting to see if we can start sharing a few books (we hardly ever listen to the same books). I then felt confident in recommending one of the Karen Rose books you mentioned and he has purchased it as well.

BevQB – I have the same sort of problem with narrator Barbara Leigh-Hunt. She played Lady Catherine DeBourgh in the A & E version of Pride and Prejudice (which I’ve watched at least 20 times) and when one of her characters gets angry, she sounds exactly like Lady Catherine telling Lizzie off in the park. Talk about hard to focus on the book and not the memories!

Gamatst – The first volume of The Sharing Knife is going very well. I’m really drawn to both of the lead characters and understanding the world they live in quite easily. I’m so glad so many heartily recommended this.

And yea! on the Outlander decision. I will also add that I recently listened to the “reading” of Lover Awakened and it worked totally for me. I’ll have my review in our next column. I now plan to listen to all of the BDB books.

By: Gamatst

Gamatst — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:22:23 +0000

Lea I’m looking forward to your thoughts on Beguiled. I know it’s a book I would have struggled to read, yet the narrator sucked me into that world so easily and I couldn’t get enough.

katyco, Yesterday I started listening to the first Lily Bard, Shakesperes Landlord, after seeing you mention it here more than once. I agree that Julia Gibson does an excellent job. Thanks

BevQB, I agree about skipping around with Feehan’s Carpathian’s once you have the basic idea of their “world” down. Both of my audio favorites are short stories because of the excellent narrations. Dark Descent and Dark Dream. I’m looking forward to Dark Curse when I get to it.

I know what you mean about the same narrator for different series of books. I was afraid that after hearing Lorelie King as Stephanie Plum for so many years that she wouldn’t work for me with Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series. But it has worked out well, for one thing the story lines are so different that my attention is totally caught up in Mercy’s world, so I rarely think, hey, is that Joe Morellie’s voice? when I hear a similar tone.

It also helps if I don’t listen to the same narrator doing another book with a different set of people too close together.

I’ve decided what my 2010 challenges shall be:

I’m going to allow Dark Lover, the first of the BDB books, to be “read” to me instead of preformed. I didn’t make it past the first chapter last year. I’ll force myself to finish it (I do really like the story) this time and see if that style of narration will ever work for me.

I’m going to try Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series. Straight UF with, “ack”, no romance angles. I’ve heard great things about the author and James Marsters, as the narrator.

And I’m going to commit to (isn’t it 36 hours?) Outlander and Davina Porter once and for all before the year is up.

By: Diane

Diane — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:32:43 +0000

Good question Bev. I haven’t had your exact problem but I do have problems when there are more than one narrator to a series. I love the male/female combo. My problem is when one person starts the series and then they bring in a new person to do more or the rest. I get used to the way the first person reads and then it takes me a good bit to get used to the second, third, etc. (however many it takes to finish the series). I think they should stick with the first person or couple who starts the series. It drives me nuts to have to adjust to someone new every few books or so.