Tag: narrators

Book Review: AMONG THE BEASTS AND BRIARS

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

I discovered this book somewhere on Audible and gave it a listen a few weeks ago. (I’m a bit behind on posting my book reviews.)

Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston is an enjoyable story about gardener’s daughter, Cerys, who is cursed with the magic of the dark forest that borders her home, and who must save her kingdom from the forest’s dark powers.

This was a classic quest/coming-of-age story with a strong underpinning of fairy tale lore – the dark forest, old gods, terrible curses, and young people reaping the sins of their forebears. There is a spot of romance throughout the narrative as well, but I would not describe this as a romance novel — it fits well with the plot. The story is well-paced, and there are enough little twists to keep the reader guessing as to the final resolution.

There is some surprisingly fantastical and frightening imagery as the characters survive and then confront the dark magic of the forest, and I think this story would translate well to an animated horror/fantasy treatment.

For the audiobook version, male and female narrators trade point-of-view sections for the two characters who end up becoming our protagonists. The dual narrators definitely provided interesting perspective, as the conflicted perspectives of particular scenes drove some of the conflict. However, I didn’t find that the narrators’ voices matched what I felt were much more intense or frightening scenes, especially in places where Cerys confronts gaunt and terrible visages of the people of her kingdom. I think there’s a version of this narration that could lean much more heavily into the horror aspects.

Still, this was an enjoyable standalone novel, and I’m curious about of Poston’s other work.

Steve D

Review: THE WRONG ONE delivers thrilling twist

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

Audible recently offered The Wrong One as part of some kind of sale. I’ll always give free books a shot, and I could definitely not say no to a novella by Dervla McTiernan.

I’ve read the first couple installments of McTiernan’s more well-known Cormac Reilly series, following a Dublin-born detective trying to figure out his career in Galway as he solves often strange cases.

McTiernan’s crime stories always have a slow burning build, usually following multiple characters, until the threads twist into an intense third act. It may sound formulaic, but the characters are always well-developed, and the twists are enough to put a reader off-kilter.

So, I went into The Wrong One expecting to be hooked from the start. Admittedly, I was not. The Wrong One uses two voice actors to narrate the respective point-of-view narrators in the story, and I was not a fan of the first narrator. I’ll go into a little more detail below, in a section marked for spoilers.

This first narrator had an odd inflection to his voice that irked me. The second narrator was good, fitting for a teenaged boy who thinks he knows everything.

Despite my issues with one of the narrators (and the character they were playing), the story’s tension ramped up rapidly with a looming realization and twist that only McTiernan can deliver with such fluidity and emotional weight. I ended up enjoying this story quite a lot. Now I just want to go read more Cormac Reilly stories.

Steve D

Spoiler section with some further thoughts…

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Alright, so I didn’t like the first narrator, playing Simon, had an inflection that made him sound emotionally vacant and like a know-it-all from the start, making him virtually unlikable. Then, as the story progressed, it becomes clear that Simon is more than full of himself — even delusional — about his advances towards Clara and her obvious (to everyone but him) complete disinterest in him. Then, his pathetic delusions became overbearing, then possessive, then manipulative, and then, holy shit it was him the whole time! Great twist. I’m telling myself that the strange voice-acting of the character was completely intentional to throw the reader off-balance from the start. Totally worked.