Romance Audiobooks discussion

Hi all,
(this is the first topic I have started, I hope it's alright that I did)

Going to keep this short but bittersweet;

What is the point of having dual narrators if they are both reading the story by themselves and it's broken down by chapter or POV? Why can't they be done the way that Natalie Ross and Phil Gigante did KMM's last 3 books in the fever series?

I like dual narrators when they interact with each other but I don't see the point if they are separated. I'd rather listen to one person do all the voices so it's consistent. And in that case I'd nearly always prefer women because I hate most male narrator's female voices and a lot of female narrators do very good male voices (IMHO). And if you are going to have them read each chapter or POV separately then at least make the voices close to each other. Either someone has an accent or they don't.

I'm assuming the problem is logistical and financial. I wonder if they have to be in same studio to make it work and if everyone is working from home it becomes impossible?

(Rambled enough. Just wanted to see if anyone found this as annoying as I do)

I can kind of see where it would make sense if each chapter is in the 1st person. So the heroine's POV chapter would be read by a woman and the hero's POV chapter is read by a man. If it were in the 3rd person I think I'd find it very annoying, too.

Sloppy! I'd say that the publisher wanted to save time and money by rushing the audiobook out without paying for a sound editor.

I second your peeve.

I think it depends in the brockmann book I they are alternating first person POV - so at least to me it makes sense that the male or female would be hearing what the other is saying and narrating it whereas if it's a 3rd person POV it's easier to switch up midchapter

That's done a lot in YA when they have alternating POVs from the female and male characters for each chapter. I don't think it has anything to do with finances but maybe it's easier to edit? It doesn't annoy me but I agree with you that they could still have the alternating POV and have the man narrating the male parts and the female narrating the female ones but each would do the non dialogue parts that belonged to their character. I wonder why no one has tried that.

But I prefer male narrators overall - I like my men to sound manly and I can still hear a woman pretending to be a man in most female narrations. I really don't care how the woman sounds unless the voice is horrible.

I fully agree with you, Ancientpeas. I looked forward to listening to my first dual narrator last year but was not only disappointed but puzzled as to why the audio producer would do it that way - have each narrator merely read different chapter/chapters!

What's the point?

I was expecting the male narrator to read the male characters and the female narrator perform the female (or kids, if any) characters. But no, each narrator does both.

I'm sure it costs more money to hire two narrators, in which case, it's a waste of money as far as I'm concerned. Might as well do it properly and have them perform the gender-relevant roles or save money and stick to one narrator!

As for male or female narrators, I far prefer males because I find their voices more soothing and when it's a romantic suspense, a male adds to the suspenseful atmosphere. There are good female narrators I like, Carol Shneider, for example, but a lot of female narrators have high, nasal voices which are hard on my ears.

Wow. The only dual narration I have listened to, used the male for the male voices and the female likewise. I agree, either there is an accent or there is not. I also agree with the male narrators, with a few exceptions like Nicholas Boulton. I am listening to a male narrated romance for review right now, and the heroine's voice (as well as her brother's) is very irritating to me.

This is one of my pet peeves with audios...when I started to see more dual narrations I was so excited thinking it was going to be like the last couple "Fever" books that had Natalie Ross and Phil Gigante....but was SOOOOOOOOOO disappointed when they just switched POV's and the changing voices/accents for each character drove me crazy....I firmly believe if they are going to fork out the dough for two narrators the girl should read the girl parts and the boy the boy parts....jmo...

I think I still have a couple of dual narrations in my audible library but they have been moved to the bottom of the TBR

I guess if it's a female POV chapter and then a male POV chapter then a flip in narrators make sense but I still think that the male should read the male voices and the female should read the female voices in each other's chapters. I like consistency.

I think I got a little spoiled by the Fever books. It was my first experience with a dual narration and I kind of expected them to all be that way. I wish they were.

I wonder if sometimes (when it comes the accent/dual narrator issue) maybe the female reader is very good with accents and the male is not, or visa versa, if it creates some issues.

I don't mind duel narrations if they're alternating POV and its told in first person. Third person can be handled by one narrator.

Suzanne Brockmann has been very successful with the dual male/female POV narrations - in fact she insists upon it (she writes her books with what she calls a “deep point of view”) and has even talked about writing one book with Patrick Lawlor in mind for one section she knew he would be narrating.

At one time, I really truly didn't care for this type of narration as it required me to learn two sets of characters voices. But with good narrators, I've come to appreciate it.

Of course, I'd love to hear more of the whole Phil/Natalie type of thing!

I think the first dual narration I heard was in this format (alternating POVs) and I loved the book so it doesn't bother me as much.

I prefer dual narration to a poor one person narration.

comfort wrote: "I prefer dual narration to a poor one person narration."

Agreed. Also, the female needs to stick to all the female voices and the male to all the male voices. That way it is clear.

I hate dual narration! The shift in voices are frustrating especially when one narrator is better than the other...and two narrators cannot read the secondary characters the same way so what is the point!

I've only ever listened to one series with dual male/female narration and that was KMM's Fever (Natalie Ross/ Phil Gigante), which is so well done and probably the standard by which I would judge any other dual m/f narration. It doesn't make sense to me to have two narrators and not take advantage of them doing the male/female voices - just having them alternate chapters is silly.

I've also listened to Lisa Gardner's D.D. Warren series which has two female narrators - one for the main character in 3rd person and one for the secondary character in 1st person. It took me a while to get used to the change in voices but once I did, I could see the logic in making the distinction between the narratives clearer.

My preference is for female narrators, especially in romance. Most of the male narrator's I've listened to mangle the female voices - David DeVries in Libriomancer is particularly awful. James Marsters is one exception though - he does the female voices really well.

Phil Gigante could read the phone book and make it sound so sensual! Also he is a wonderful upbeat narrator. I have listened to books where the narrator makes even the description text sound down and depressing. Even the happier parts of dialogue sound depressing. I hate that!

Lauren wrote: " It doesn't make sense to me to have two narrators and not take advantage of them doing the male/female voices - just having them alternate chapters is silly. "

This is usually done when the book are written with alternating chapters from the female and male 1st person POV (happens a lot in YA and NA), so you see where they are coming from.

Dual narrators were essential in My Name Is Memory to keep up with the time changes and shifting roles in addition to the genders.

D.G. wrote: "This is usually done when the book are written with alternating chapters from the female and male 1st person POV (happens a lot in YA and NA), so you see where they are coming from."

That definitely makes more sense. However, doesn't it become confusing when different narrators provide the voices for the same characters?

It's not ideal for me when they have 2 narrators giving each character 2 different voices. Many romance novels have dual POV's and just use one narrator. I don't know why NA and YA have to have 2 all the time now. Usually I end up liking one of the narrators a LOT more than the other, so it kind of jars me out of half the story if not completely ruining it.

It would be great if they could all be like the Fever books, or at least a few now and then. I'm wishing that KMM will have the first 3 Fever books re-recorded some day with Phil and Natalie just so the series will be consistent, and because BloodFever is my favorite.

Lauren wrote: "That definitely makes more sense. However, doesn't it become confusing when different narrators provide the voices for the same characters?"

No, it's not confusing if the clues to the characters are there i.e. Julie said, Patrick exclaimed, etc. Also, a lot of times these characters live in their heads so it doesn't matter as much. But as some others have mentioned, if one of the narrations is better than the other, it makes for an uneven listen.