Shari Creates

Books, languages, things I make and notes from everyday life.

Tag: audiobook

  • Anathema

    Anathema

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    Maevyth Bronwick enters the forbidden Eating Woods in search of her banished sister and crosses into Aethyria, a dark world of magic, curses, and dangerous creatures. There she meets Zevander Rydainn, a centuries-old assassin whose curse may be tied to Maevyth’s blood, binding their fates together in ways neither of them expected.

    I picked up Anathema because I was in the mood for dark fantasy romance, and Zevander sounded exactly like the sort of hero I usually like — cold, dangerous and not particularly friendly.

    The story follows Maevyth Bronwick, who lives in Foxglove Parish, where everyone knows not to go near Witch Knell, otherwise known as the Eating Woods. People who are banished there don’t come back. Then Maevyth’s sister, Aleysia, is banished into the woods, and Maevyth goes after her. That takes her somewhere she definitely wasn’t expecting to end up: beyond the mortal world and into Aethyria, where she meets Zevander Rydainn, known as the Scorpion. He is a centuries-old assassin carrying a curse, and Maevyth’s blood may be the key to breaking it.

    So naturally, he can’t simply get rid of her. Not to mention that he was totally into her. 😂 Apparently mortals smell rather deliciously like oranges to the immortals of Aethyria. The problem is that mortals are also associated with disease, which is one of the reasons crossing between their worlds is rather complicated.

    This was actually a very interesting setup for me because their relationship doesn’t begin with romance. Zevander has a practical reason to keep Maevyth alive, while Maevyth has her own reason for wanting to get back to the mortal world. And this is where Maevyth and I eventually began to have problems.

    Initially, I really liked her. She seemed level-headed, sensible, observant and surprisingly capable considering the horrible environment she had grown up in. Then Aleysia was involved and suddenly, to me, all reason went out the window. I understand loving your sister. I understand wanting to know what happened to her. But Maevyth had just entered a forest where she had literally watched a monster tear the flesh off Uncle Riftyn. She barely escaped with her own life, somehow managed to cross into an entirely magical world, and Aleysia was trapped on the other side with that creature approaching her.

    At that point, what would a sane and reasonable person realistically think had happened to Aleysia? Because my assumption would not be, “She’s probably fine. I just need to get back there.” To me, there was practically nothing that would make me believe Aleysia should still be alive. Maevyth’s single-minded certainty about it started bothering me because it didn’t fit the level-headed girl I thought I had met at the beginning of the book.

    The romance, though, worked much better for me. The attraction was pretty much there from the beginning, especially on Zevander’s side. For someone who wouldn’t even blink when killing someone, the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to kill Maevyth while she was lying in her bed did it for me. 😂 His attraction to her was hardcore from day one, even if he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. For Maevyth, it was much slower. There were practical reasons for them to remain together before there were romantic ones, and their relationship developed gradually rather than having her immediately fall all over him. That part worked for me.

    The world itself is much darker than a lot of romantasy I’ve read. This isn’t just a pretty magical forest with a few dangerous creatures wandering around for decoration. The Eating Woods are genuinely horrible, some of the creatures are grotesque, and there is an underlying horror element throughout the story. There is also a LOT of worldbuilding: curses, blood magic, mages, different realms, creatures, old gods, prophecy, Zevander’s history… A LOT.

    But surprisingly, I was completely immersed in it. I didn’t actually just listen to Anathema. I read the book while listening to the audiobook at the same time, and that combination was chef’s kiss. 🤌 Having the text in front of me while Melissa Barr and James Cassidy brought the characters to life made it much easier for me to sink into such a complicated world. Instead of struggling to keep up with unfamiliar names, places and all the lore through audio alone, I could actually see everything on the page while hearing it performed. I tore through this enormous book in about a day, so whatever complaints I have about it, boredom certainly wasn’t one of them.

    And then there was James Cassidy. I think we need to acknowledge that his voice may have had some influence on my continued interest in Zevander. 😂 His performance suited Zevander extremely well: deep, controlled, slightly threatening — basically exactly what I wanted this character to sound like. That deep baritone voice certainly helped the imagination.

    Unfortunately, the ending did the book some harm for me because then we get the trapdoor. After everything Maevyth has gone through trying to find Aleysia, she discovers her sister beneath the floorboards of the Crone Witch’s cottage. Alive.

    And my brain immediately went: No. No, no, no.

    How long had she been down there? How did she survive everything that happened after Maevyth crossed into Aethyria? How did she get from the Eating Woods into that crawl space? What exactly had been happening to her all this time?

    I know it is a cliffhanger and obviously the next book can provide explanations. But as the ending of Anathema, it asked me to accept one thing too many without giving me enough information to make it believable. And this is one of my problems when I read: once something doesn’t make logical sense to me, my brain starts pulling at the thread.

    I can overlook a lot in fantasy. Magic? Fine. Immortals? Fine. Giant murderous creatures roaming around a cursed forest? Absolutely. But the internal logic still has to convince me. Between Maevyth repeatedly throwing reason aside whenever Aleysia was involved and then discovering Aleysia alive under that trapdoor, I reached the point where I couldn’t keep making excuses for the story.

    Then there is another cliché I keep noticing in these kinds of books: why do they all have masquerade parties? 😂 At some point, the mysterious masked ball has to stop being mysterious.

    Anyway, other than those jarring things, there was so much about Anathema that I genuinely enjoyed. I liked Zevander. I loved the dark gothic atmosphere. The Eating Woods were wonderfully horrible. The world was interesting enough that I became completely immersed in it, and reading the book together with the audiobook was probably one of my favourite reading experiences in a while. And apparently I liked James Cassidy’s voice enough that I subsequently went looking through the other audiobooks he had narrated. So there is that. 😂

    Would I continue with The Eating Woods? No. I was curious about what happens next, but not curious enough to read another enormous book hoping that the things which bothered me would eventually be explained.

    Sometimes a book can keep me completely absorbed while I’m reading it and still lose me once I start thinking about what actually happened. Anathema was one of those books.

  • Does Listening to an Audiobook Count as Reading?

    Does Listening to an Audiobook Count as Reading?

    I have to admit something. Sometimes when I finish an audiobook and mark it as “Read” on Goodreads, there is a tiny part of me that feels as though I am cheating. Did I really read the book?

    Technically, my eyes did not move across the words on the page. Someone else read the words aloud while I listened. But I still finished the book. And this is where I started wondering whether we are perhaps getting too caught up in the word reading rather than what it actually means to finish a book.

    Why I Listen to Audiobooks

    I listen to audiobooks mostly because they allow me to do something else at the same time. Housework is probably the biggest one. I can listen while washing dishes, folding clothes or doing other boring things around the house. I also listen when I commute.

    Sometimes my eyes have simply had enough of staring at words for the day, especially if I have already spent hours looking at a screen. An audiobook lets me continue with a book without asking anything more from my eyes.

    When My Mind Wanders

    There is, however, one obvious problem with this wonderful ability to multitask. Sometimes my mind wanders. I will be washing dishes, thinking about something completely unrelated, and then suddenly realise that I have absolutely no idea what happened during the last thirty seconds.

    “Hey Google, rewind 30 seconds.” I have said that more times than I would like to admit. 😅

    At first, I thought this was perhaps another reason audiobooks did not quite count as “proper” reading. Surely if I had been sitting down with a book in front of me, I would have been paying more attention. Except that isn’t actually true. I have done exactly the same thing with printed books.

    Sometimes I reach the bottom of a page and realise that although my eyes have gone over every single word, my brain apparently decided not to participate. So I go back and read the paragraph again. With an audiobook, I rewind. With a physical book, I reread. The problem isn’t necessarily the format. Sometimes our attention simply wanders.

    The Other Audiobook Hazard: Falling Asleep

    There is another danger with audiobooks, of course: falling asleep. This happens to me particularly easily if I listen while lying down. One moment I am happily following the story and the next thing I know, I wake up and the narrator has somehow travelled three chapters into the future without me.

    I suppose this is precisely why Audible has a sleep timer. 😂 And again, this isn’t entirely unique to audiobooks. I have fallen asleep with an actual book in my hands before too.

    So, Does an Audiobook Count as Reading?

    So perhaps the question shouldn’t really be, “Did I read this book?” Perhaps it should be, “Did I experience and finish this book?”

    If I listened to the entire unabridged audiobook, I know the characters. I know what happened. I know the ending. I can discuss the book with someone who read the paperback. The story reached me through my ears instead of my eyes.

    That seems like a rather small distinction on which to decide whether a book “counts.” I can understand why people distinguish between reading and listening. They are technically different activities.

    But when Goodreads asks me whether I have finished a book? Yes. I finished it. And I think I am finally going to stop feeling as though I cheated.

  • Adrian’s Undead Diary by Chris Philbrook — Series Review

    Adrian’s Undead Diary by Chris Philbrook — Series Review

    Adrian’s Undead Diary — Original Eight-Book Arc
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    Published: 2013–2014
    Adrian Ring records his survival through a zombie apocalypse as he gathers supplies, builds a community and confronts threats from both the living and the dead.

    Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars

    This review covers the original eight-book Adrian’s Undead Diary arc, beginning with Dark Recollections and ending with Cassie.

    I first listened to the series through Audible. There was a deal on the first four books—or at least the first part of the series—and the audiobook format suited the story particularly well. Because Adrian records what happens to him in diary entries, listening to the books felt almost as though he were personally recounting his experiences. It made the story immersive from the beginning.

    The series follows Adrian Ring as he tries to survive a zombie apocalypse. It begins on a relatively small scale: finding somewhere defensible, gathering food and weapons, clearing buildings and working out whom to trust. These practical survival details were one of the main reasons I kept reading. The books spend time on the everyday problems of surviving after society has collapsed, rather than treating supplies and security as matters that simply resolve themselves between action scenes.

    What held my interest even more was the community that gradually developed around Adrian. He begins in isolation, but the story slowly becomes about more than one man surviving. New people arrive, relationships form and the group has to make decisions about how to protect what they are building. I became interested not only in whether Adrian would live, but in what kind of society these survivors could create.

    Humour is another major part of the series. Adrian is crude, sarcastic and often very funny. In the earlier books, his humour softens the horror and makes the violence easier to tolerate. A straightforward account of zombies, death and constant danger could have become oppressive, but Adrian’s voice gives the story energy and personality.

    However, the same humour became increasingly irritating to me towards the end. There are moments when the characters are facing serious danger or emotionally significant events, yet someone still makes a joke. I understand that people sometimes use humour to cope with fear, and the diary format means Adrian is recounting events after they happened. Even so, not every tense moment needs to be defused. Sometimes a scene needs to remain frightening or painful long enough for its emotional weight to settle. When the jokes became too constant, they weakened moments that should have felt more serious.

    My reaction to the wider storyline also changed as the series progressed. The early books concentrate heavily on survival, zombies and human threats. Later, the explanation behind the apocalypse expands into a much more overtly supernatural conflict involving good, evil and humanity’s fate. This is not exactly magic in the fantasy sense, but it moves the series away from grounded survival horror and towards a cosmic struggle.

    That development will probably appeal to readers who want an explanation for why the dead rose and who enjoy a larger mythology behind a zombie story. For me, it was less satisfying than the earlier focus on survival and community-building. By the final book, the series had moved quite far from what originally drew me into it, and I was not entirely happy with the conclusion.

    My ratings reflect that progression. I gave the first two books five stars, Books 3 through 7 four stars, and the eighth book three stars. So although my overall rating is four stars, it was not a consistently four-star experience. I loved the beginning considerably more than the ending.

    Despite my reservations, I read all eight books in less than two weeks. That says something about how absorbing the series could be. The diary structure, detailed survival elements, developing community and audiobook experience kept me involved even when the humour and supernatural storyline began to work against it.

    I would recommend the original Adrian’s Undead Diary arc to readers who enjoy character-driven zombie fiction, detailed survival planning and a protagonist whose humour makes a brutal world more manageable. Just be aware that the story eventually becomes much more supernatural than its opening books initially suggest.

  • Blood Moon by Graeme Reynolds – No One Gets Out Clean

    Blood Moon by Graeme Reynolds – No One Gets Out Clean

    Blood Moon by Graeme Reynolds book cover
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    Published: 2015

    By the time I reached Blood Moon, I had pretty much moved into High Moor.

    I finished Moonstruck on the 12th of August and Blood Moon on the 13th. Considering this audiobook is not exactly short, I think it’s fair to say I was invested.

    The third book takes everything that had been building in the first two and removes what little restraint was left. The existence of werewolves is becoming increasingly difficult to contain, humans are preparing to deal with the threat in the way humans generally deal with things they are frightened of – with weapons – and the werewolves are hardly presenting a united front themselves.

    So, naturally, everything goes extremely well.

    It doesn’t.

    What started in High Moor as a relatively contained horror story about a small town and a terrible secret has become something much larger by this point. There are factions, old grudges, competing loyalties and the very real possibility of a conflict that neither side can control.

    And there is a lot of blood.

    A LOT.

    This is where I think the trilogy fully commits to what it has always been. Graeme Reynolds never suddenly decides that his werewolves need to become softer or more appealing because we’ve spent three books with them. They remain dangerous creatures capable of doing horrific things, including to people they care about.

    I appreciated that.

    There is also something satisfying about reaching the third book of a horror series and feeling that the stakes genuinely have increased. Blood Moon doesn’t feel like Reynolds simply found another excuse to send a few werewolves running around the countryside. The consequences from the previous books have accumulated, and now everyone has to live – or perhaps more accurately, try to survive – with them.

    Chris Barnes narrates again, and by this stage I couldn’t imagine the series without him. His Scottish accent had already become part of the atmosphere for me in the first two books. Three audiobooks later, his voice simply was High Moor.

    And considering I apparently listened to this one almost immediately after finishing Moonstruck, there really wasn’t much opportunity for that atmosphere to wear off.

    Was it perfect? No. I still landed at four stars. The story gets quite big compared with where the trilogy began, and there were parts that worked better for me than others.

    But it gave me what I wanted from the conclusion.

    Violent werewolves. Actual consequences. Characters I had become invested in being placed in increasingly horrible situations. And an ending that felt like the culmination of the story rather than an excuse to keep the series going forever.

    Three books.

    Three four-star ratings.

    And not one supernatural boyfriend in sight.

    I’d call that a successful werewolf trilogy.

    4/5

  • Moonstruck by Graeme Reynolds – High Moor Gets Even Nastier

    Moonstruck by Graeme Reynolds – High Moor Gets Even Nastier

    Moonstruck by Graeme Reynolds book cover
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    Published: 2013

    I didn’t leave much breathing room between High Moor and Moonstruck. Five days after finishing the first book, I had already finished the second.

    That probably tells you most of what you need to know.

    Moonstruck picks up almost immediately after the events of High Moor. John Simpson is in police custody, the town is trying to make sense of what has happened, and the authorities are faced with the rather inconvenient possibility that the man claiming to be a werewolf might actually be telling the truth.

    I liked that Reynolds didn’t use the sequel as an excuse to reset everything. The consequences of the first book are still very much there, but the world around High Moor starts to become bigger. It isn’t simply a case of another full moon and another monster turning up. We begin to discover that there are other people who know werewolves exist – and they have their own reasons for making sure the rest of the world doesn’t find out.

    That gave the story a different feel while keeping everything I enjoyed about the first one.

    And yes, the werewolves are still horrible.

    If anything, Reynolds seems even less interested this time around in protecting his characters. The violence is brutal and occasionally excessive, but this is exactly the sort of werewolf fiction I was looking for when I started the series. Becoming a werewolf isn’t sexy or desirable. Nobody is standing around admiring anyone’s supernatural abs. These creatures rip people apart.

    Thank you.

    I listened to the audiobook again, with Chris Barnes returning as narrator. By this point his Scottish accent had become part of the High Moor experience for me. There is something about the combination of that voice, the British setting and the sheer nastiness of the story that works extremely well in audio. It gave me the same sense of immersion that I enjoyed in the first book.

    What I appreciated most about Moonstruck, though, was that it actually felt like a continuation rather than simply “High Moor again.” The mythology expands, the situation becomes more complicated, and the story starts suggesting that what happened in this little town is part of something much larger.

    I still gave it four stars rather than five. There were moments where the story dragged a little and I don’t think every part worked equally well. But when it moved, it moved – and I was invested enough that I finished the whole thing in a day.

    Then, naturally, I started Blood Moon.

    If High Moor convinced me this was the kind of werewolf series I’d been looking for, Moonstruck convinced me to finish it.

    4/5

  • High Moor by Graeme Reynolds – Werewolves That Are Actually Scary

    High Moor by Graeme Reynolds – Werewolves That Are Actually Scary

    High Moor by Graeme Reynolds book cover
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    Published: 2011

    I have a fairly simple requirement when I pick up a werewolf book: I want the werewolves to actually be monsters.

    Not brooding supernatural boyfriends. Not an excuse for a romance involving mates, destiny and somebody growling possessively every three pages. I want claws, teeth, bad decisions and people having a genuinely terrible time when the moon comes out.

    High Moor delivered that.

    This is proper werewolf horror. It is violent, sometimes gruesome, and doesn’t try to make its creatures attractive. There is something much more unsettling about a werewolf story when becoming one feels like a curse rather than an upgrade.

    What I particularly liked was the atmosphere. There is a roughness to the story that suited it. It isn’t elegant gothic horror with beautiful monsters wandering around dramatically in the moonlight. These things are dangerous, and when the violence starts, Reynolds doesn’t make it pretty.

    I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Chris Barnes, and his Scottish accent added enormously to the experience for me. It gave the narration the kind of rough, distinctly British character that the story needed and provided the immersion I was looking for. This was one of those cases where the narrator didn’t simply read the book – his voice became part of how I remember it.

    I tore through it remarkably quickly. There were a few places where I thought the story could have been tighter, which is probably what kept it at four stars rather than five for me, but I was never bored.

    And perhaps the clearest indication that it worked: almost immediately afterwards I started Moonstruck, the second book.

    For anyone looking for a werewolf novel that belongs firmly on the horror shelf rather than the paranormal-romance shelf, High Moor is very much worth a look.

    4/5