Romance Audiobooks discussion

arg. Who is this narrator?? It's like about 25% of the time, her narration is almost ok - and not a whole section, but a sentence or 2. Her character voices are pretty good. But the rest of her sing-songy narration is DRIVING ME NUTZ AND IT'S A SHORT DRIVE TODAY.

It's not even like she's horrible, it's just so inconsistent and she has this repetitive song: she says the first word on a regular note, then she jumps not quite an octave (a sixth, I believe!), and then does a triplet on each descending note, ending with the bottom note at the period. Oh, and she has some odd pauses, like pausing after a comma that is there because there's a list, not because there's a new clause.

And while I'm complaining, how about that hoarseness - as if she didn't rest her voice enough between books? Indicative of voice nodules, which will end her career if she doesn't learn to speak correctly.

She's on the verge of ruining this book for me - and I can tell the story should be funny in a lot of places, but her delivery is not comical at all and I'm having to reconstruct it in my mind to get the humor. It's not the snobby, bored voice of Jenny Sterlin, or the overly dramatic Flosnik. It's like she could be BETTER if she just had some direction.

Ya know, I had read the audible reveiws which say the narration wasn't good, so I ended up leaving it on my paperbackswap.com wish list, but being a hardcover, it's taking forever. yeah, like one person wrote: Was Joyce Bean busy??

/rant

I've been waiting to see if anyone else responded. I know the word went out that several of our listeners who were planning on buying the audio version immediately upon its release held off because of the reviews. Peggy P listened to part or all of Veil of Night (I feel like she took one for the team) and didn't have a favorable review. I can't find where she shared her opinion - maybe it was on Twitter - but I had decided to definitely not go there.

You’re right – where is a Joyce Bean? This IS Linda Howard. But production companies are choosing new narrators more and more these days. I think it has to do with affordability.

Thanks! What's confusing is, her character voices are good! She's probably a good actress. It's her reading voice that sux. Big time. I will probably read the book to get a better take because I could tell it had some funny moments.

On another narrator topic, I went to SEP's website to read the teaser for Ted Beaudine's story, and could hear Anna Fields/Kate Fleming reading it in my head. I just don't know if I can listen to someone else!

I so agree with you, what are "they" thinking when they put non proven narrators with very popular authors? Or, my other favorite gripe, not directing a good narrator properly!

Either the narrator or the producer/director needs to be familiar with the book beforehand so they can bring out the right vibe. Be it humor, attitude change in pacing, whatever. But I think that is a rare occurrence.

If it is a saving money tactic they're shooting themselves in the foot, look how many of us didn't buy it because of being leery of the narrator? And were proven to be smart for saving our money!

I loved Jaclyn's mom and her comments, I wanted to hear her done with a good southern woman's accent. If the voices themselves are good I'll have to start looking at the library to at least listen to a few of her comments. :)

I'm sure part of the problem is availability for certain narrators.

I agree with the general rant on production/direction!