I'm not sure if this review will show up on audible.com or Amazon. The story was excellent, it took me a while to decide to read it but I liked it so well I also bought the sequel. It is well written, especially good cadence of southern storytelling, a substantive plot and intricate characters.
I was thrilled to see and buy the audible book, but managed to listen to only the first few chapters before returning it for a refund. This is the second time this has happened to me. I bought audible version of an excellent story, only to find an inappropriate narrator has made the listening experience unbearable. First his southern accent was not Mississippi - I grew up in Louisiana so I know what it should sound like. It grated so on my ears it was difficult to listen to. (This is the reason I cannot bear to watch NCIS-New Orleans -- the fake a** southern accents.)
Also this is a novel about two young gay men, so what's with casting Wilford Brimley/Col. Sanders voice for a narrator? I checked the narrator's other work on audible.com, and he has not done any other young man roles, much less any gay roles. This is Nick Wilgus's first "audiblization" of one of his novels, and I don't know how the narrator selection process works for an author signing up with audible.com. Hopefully he has more control or money or both next time and can hire a younger voice for a young man's tale, one who can also better act a Mississippi accent. There are dialect coaches to help with that.
The final insult to my ears that had me figuratively fling the audible file back to the publisher for a refund was the narrator pronouncing the word "prostrate" as "prostate" in the following in one of the early chapters:
"...as a priest read the Rite of Exorcism over my prostrate body."
Really, guy? In a m/m romance, that is a particularly egregious error.
I heartily recommend this title for reading but the audible version is irritating at best. A good narrator enacts the story, it's more than just reading.
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