Good story, dreadful narration

The book isn’t high literature but it is fun and easy to read. I often get the audible alongside a book so I can carry on with a story while doing chores. In this case I just couldn’t bear the narration and resorted to Alexa reading it to me instead.

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great story, looking forward to the next

Lucy Raynor is a great narrator and makes for an enjoyable listen of this great story. The male narrator is harder to settle into, but you do eventually.

looking forward to the next book in this series.

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narrators just not right

the story was really good but the narrators sound like they are reading as an aloof 1920s spy, the book deserves more than this, the characters needed a bit more depth read out of their lines

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1 person found this helpful

Disappointing narration

I’m a St Mary’s addict and yes, I can see similarities here - there will always be writers who latch on to the successful themes of others - but I was happy to go with that….until I heard the narrators.

Lucy Raynor makes everything sound like a garden party, with her upper-crust and soft-toned voice. There’s no fire in it, even when she’s walking naked along the bottom of a lake - don’t ask!

Alex Wyndham must have the most boring intonation on the planet. Every sentence sounds the same and, after 20 minutes I found my mind wandering.

It’s a shame, as the plot idea is interesting, but Jodi Taylor and her reader Zara Ramm do it so much better! Oh, by the way, I think the reviewer who said St Mary’s was depressing is muddling up the two series!!

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3 people found this helpful

A brilliant mix of history as we know it and what could have happened, with intrigue & humourfor good measure

Loved listening to both fabulous narrators. The world the author has created is intriguing as are the characters and chemistry between them. Can’t wait to listen to the next one!!

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Totally spoiled by narration

Although I was enjoying the story, I’m afraid I had to stop listening halfway through as the female narrator, with her bizarre intonation, made it unlistenable. I suppose it just illustrates how important it is to get someone to actually “act” a narrative rather than just read it out. This narration was *so* bad, though, that I definitely won’t be listening to any of the other books in this series.

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Enjoyed, bought the next one before finishing this

I enjoyed it, I can see the comparison between this and St Mary’s, but they must be quite different as I liked this and didn’t like St Mary’s, (I found it quite depressing).
It’s well narrated, I do like Alex Wyndham and the female isn’t bad either.
It’s kept my attention, I haven’t been bored and i have bought the next one to start straight away.

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Great story, dire narration

I love the idea of this story, time travellers saving historic artefacts. The narration just made this difficult to listen to. I am not sure why they read things as though they were repeating the same rhythm each sentence, over and over, they didn’t act this story out well and it just ruined it for me. You just don’t read like that, or even talk like that, no idea why it had to be so lilting for the female role and the male role always emphasising the last word of every sentence no matter what the context. I may just buy the kindle version of the next book as I don’t think I can listen to those voices again, at least not without a long break. Shame, think I’ve been spoiled by the chronicles of st Mary’s narration, all were so amazingly well narrated that you felt like you were living the stories. Why is it so hard to find a good narrator?!

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2 people found this helpful

Derivative and poorly performed but fills dead time

The story is clearly drawn heavily from authors who forged new ground - and frankly, did it better and with humour. Personally, I’d stick with Jodi Taylor every time.
Perhaps the lack of humour comment is unfair, but the art of storytelling is just that; an art. Just because someone has been trained to perform to an audience, whether seen (live) or unseen (tv/film), does not mean that they can automatically translate and produce the same effect when reading a page. The male reader wasn’t too bad, but the sure sign of having failed at storytelling, is to insert an insistent version of oneself, rather than the characters, into the narrative and be noticed by the listener.
The female narrator was appalling to listen to. Every sentence she spoke had exactly the same intonation and rhythm, which made the story flat and tedious to hear. She did have flashes of potential when she used voices for different characters, but in the main, she squashed all the joy and nuance out of this book. Thank goodness it was free, as I would definitely not recommend spending money on it.

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1 person found this helpful

Staying at St Mary's

a) Is Jodi Taylor OK with this?!
b) Annoying narration makes it even more difficult to listen to

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