Was I even listening to the same narrator as the other reviewers?
I don’t like leaving negative reviews and I think the narrator has a lot of potential. Maybe some of the other books he’s narrated show improvement. But…
I read the Fluke books on Kindle Unlimited and loved them. IMO the books are better and the narration in the audiobooks detracts from a funny, fun, heartfelt story with a great ending. Fluke is Fantastic. Gideon is patient and kind. Sage and Gideon’s romance is heartbreaking but in an “it’s all going to work out” kinda way. It’s not pointless drama. It actually motivates Sage to do better and overcome his fears. It’s not gratuitous angst. It actually moves the plot along. Seeing Sage gain so many loving family and friends after all the years he spent being abused by his father gave me all the feels.
The last Fluke book just came out and I wanted a refresher on the series. Since I’m super busy I thought I’d try rereading by listening to the audiobook and to be honest I almost DNR’d at chapter 2. The narrator talks so fast that I had slow the book down to 85% to keep it from sounding like he was speed reading. Which made the story take a lot longer. Sage’s voice is nasally and irritating. All the other men sound exactly the same. I honestly had a hard time telling David and Gideon apart. If I hadn’t already known the story I might not have been able to. Gideon is supposed to have a low deep voice. In reading the book I was thinking more “Sam Elliott”. Gideon sounded kinda constipated. He had a very distinct voice from Sage, but it was too tense.
All the men (Not Sage) had similar speech patterns to Gideon. I thought this book was set in California? As a lifelong West Coast girl, I can say definitively that very few people in California have a “cowboy” style southern drawl. Yet most of the men, other than Sage, have at least some of that inflection.
The women don’t sound like women at all. And again they almost all sound the same. Iris’s maid had a very distinct female voice and a decent enough British accent. So why do all the others sound so “snobby high society” American? Beez’s parents are Asian and she grew up in California. Where did she get that accent?
All in all, once I got used to the narration it was worth it just to get a refresher on the story and because Fluke is soooo Fantastic! I will be listening to the next book. It has a different narrator. But the sample wasn’t great so we’ll see.
Go listen to Gomez Pugh. Especially the Psycop Series by Jordan Castillo Price. He knows how to make distinct voices that match the characters and their background.