More good news for Julie Garwood fans! Brilliance is now showing additional Garwood titles to be released in audio within the next year. We should have known they wouldn’t forsake the few that remained unpublished having come this far with her backlist.* They are even including her Young Adult title. The additional releases are as follows:
- A Girl Named Summer 7/30/13 (YA)
- The Gift – 7/30/13
- Castles – 9/30/13
- The Wedding – 9/30/13
- For The Roses – 11/30/13
The first three are brand new to audio while the last two are re-releases with new narrators if the trend continues. Thanks to AudioGal reader and commenter Angie’s strict watch for narrator announcements for the Garwood titles mentioned in our original article, we now know that Brilliance is indeed re-recording the upcoming releases with new narrators. To date Angie has filled us in with the following:
- Prince Charming – narrated by Rosalyn Landor
- The Secret – narrated by Susan Duerden
- The Lion’s Lady – narrated by Susan Duerden
- Ransom – narrated by Susan Duerden
Angie’s success had me digging deeper and finding the narrators for the two contemporary titles that are coming soon as well.
- Heartbreaker – narrated by Tanya Eby
- Mercy – narrated by Susan Duerden
Check our first article found below for the release dates of all the announced titles at this time. I, for one, am very excited by this latest news – both the additional titles and the variety of announced narrators. Kudos to the powers that be at Brilliance!
*The two remaining titles not yet showing at Brilliance are Come the Spring and The Clayborn Brides (One Pink Rose, One White Rose, One Red Rose) and I’m thinking it’s now only a matter of time.
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Original Post from September 18th 2012
While searching Brilliance Audio’s “Coming Soon” list, I noticed more Julie Garwood backlist titles are scheduled for release in unabridged audio format. This is great news for her multitudes of fans! The narrator for each is listed as TBA which brings up some interesting questions as several of the titles were previously released by either Sound Library or Recorded Books. Does Brilliance now have the rights to re-release the originals or will they be recording the titles with a new narrator or two?
Here’s a list of the Garwood titles Brilliance has as “coming soon” with the release date Amazon shows:
- Prince Charming – 12/4/2012
- Heartbreaker – 12/4/2012
- Mercy – 1/30/2013
- The Secret – 1/30/2013
- The Lions Lady – 3/30/2013
- Ransom -3/30/2013
- Guardian Angel – 5/30/2013
- Saving Grace – 5/30/2013
From the above list, only The Lion’s Lady and Guardian Angel haven’t been available in audio format before and Saving Grace is offered only in abridged narrated by Emma Samms. The rest are available (although Hard-To-Find) as unabridged audiobooks with the following narrators:
Deborah Hall – Prince Charming – from Sound Library
Laura Hicks – Heartbreaker – from Sound Library
Johanna Rodriguez – Mercy – from Sound Library
Jill Tanner – The Secret – from Recorded Books
Paula Parker – Ransom – from Sound Library
With the Garwood titles previously released by Brilliance plus the above titles, only The Gift and Castles remain unrecorded at this time. This leaves the following Garwood unabridged audios (produced by Recorded Books) as Hard-To-Find: The Wedding narrated by Steven Crossly, For the Roses narrated by Melissa Hughes, and Come the Spring narrated by Richard Ferrone. Surely you can’t forsake these last five Brilliance?
Brenda
*Fantastic!!! I am so excited about this news. I have waited and waited for some of these because they are some of my favorite books and I wanted the unabridged audio. Great News!
*I’m so excited about this. I would love to go back and listen to her historicals on audio. By the way, Guardian Angel and Saving Grace have both been offered on unabridged cassettes in the past. Guardian Angel was narrated by Mitzi Friedlander, and Saving Grace was narrated by Ilona Dulaski.
*I agree Andrea, this is fantastic news!
Angie did you know that those audios were not meant for the public and couldn’t be purchased new? They were library books meant only for the blind via the NLS which I found out after buying copies via eBay. On the positive side I’m hoping for much better quality and new narrators with Brilliance’s acquisition of the rights!
*No, I didn’t know that Brenda. I had a friend who ended up with copies of them somehow. I haven’t listened to either, the quality was pretty bad on one and the narration didn’t seem worth listening to anyway. Hopefully they will rerecord them with up-to-date narrators that we will all enjoy.
*@ Angie – Amen! “Hopefully they will rerecord them with up-to-date narrators that we will all enjoy.” The two public audios I haven’t heard from the above list are Heartbreaker and Mercy – I can tell you that the inadvertently purchased NSL library copies
were a complete snooze fest though! So I’m with you on new narrators
for those. :) I have good memories of Jill Tanner with The Secret and
Paula Parker with Ransom although I haven’t done a recent re-listen …. I think I’d be happy with their narrations being re-released – just gimme. :D.
@Vic – Yes! The Lion’s Lady is top of my list with these new releases, I want to hear the slow reveal of Christina’s Dakota background with all the humor involved, remember her eating leaves from a bush as Lion and Colin watched her at the fancy tea party. :D
Very good news indeed Brenda! Thanks for the heads up. These are some of my favorite Garwood books and I’m looking forward to having them on audio!
*Well I see our “Reply” feature has some kind of glitch – sooo Vic see above :D
I too can’t wait for these new audios from Julie Garwood, come on March! I’m wishing my life away over audiobooks. – LOL
I’ve been erratic in listening to past Garwoods. This inspires me to listen to one of the older hard-to-finds, The Secret. I really enjoy Jill Tanner.
I haven’t listened to any of her contemporaries. Which one do you consider the best?
*Personally while enjoying a number of the contemporaries the first two are still my favorites which is why I’m glad they are first up in the release schedule. Heartbreaker in Dec and Mercy in Jan doesn’t sound too terribly far away. ;)
It looks like Rosalyn Landor is the narrator for Prince Charming. She’s listed on Amazon.com now.
Angie – thanks for letting us know! There are many fans of Rosalyn Landor’s romance titles and there seems to be an equal number of non-fans if you go by the comments I see. I recently really enjoyed her narration of Susanna Kearsley’s THE WINTER SEA but didn’t enjoy other of her narrations such as…the Lisa Kleypas books. Another one I appreciated – Mary Balogh’s MORE THAN A MISTRESS. What do you think of the choice for PRINCE CHARMING?
One thing I think we can bank on. Landor wouldn’t be narrating so many well-known romance titles if she didn’t sell.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I envy the multitudes of fans that enjoy all of Rosalyn Landor’s heroes until I’m green with it – I want to be one them so badly!
I’m not a fan of Rosalyn Landor’s narration, only because of the voices she gives the male characters. I enjoy her narration otherwise. I’ve tried so many of the books she’s done only to quit after listening to the hero speak a few times. The only book that I made it all the way through was Again the Magic and that was because the hero was American and his voice didn’t sound nearly as bad as her male British voices do.
I wonder if she is going to do the narration on all of Julie Garwood’s books coming out. Probably so. I guess I will be missing out. I’m quite disappointed, but I guess I’ll get over it.
Yes Angie, thanks for the heads up on the narrator choice and all I can say is Ditto – my thoughts are in perfect alignment with yours on Rosalyn Landor’s narrations so I’ll be disappointed as well if she is doing all of these new ones. :(
The good news here is that Lucas the hero of Prince Charming is an American cowboy so we may get lucky, lets keep our fingers crossed. :D
On another positive note your finding the narrator for this December release sent me looking and I also found the narrator for Heartbreaker which releases in December – and it’s Tanya Eby – whoop!
I couldn’t remember if any of the upcoming historical releases had American heroes or not. Maybe we will get lucky with this one then.
Tanya Eby is a great choice for Heartbreaker, so that is a positive.
Just saw that Susan Duerden will be narrating The Lion’s Lady, The Secret and Ransom. Now I am extremely happy about this news. She’s one of my favorite narrators. I’m just holding my breath now for Saving Grace which is my favorite Garwood out of all of these re-releases. I hope it won’t disappoint.
Angie you are awesome to be keeping such close track and then sharing it with us! Susan Duerden is a great choice for these three favorites and I’m with you again – fingers double crossed for Saving Grace!
I have an update to this article already in the works with some additional info and release dates I’ve found and now I’ll include this narrator news as well – with credit given to you of course. :)
I am so enthused about Susan Duerden! I totally enjoy her historical narrations. Thanks Angie!
You are so nice to mention me in your announcement. Glad that I could help out a little. It’s good that you are keeping up with the contemporaries for us. I keep forgetting about them, I guess since I never got into them before. With Tanya Eby and Susan Duerden reading them though, I’m definitely trying them again.
And I’m interested in hearing a Susan Duerden contemporary. I’ve only listened to her historicals. In fact, I wonder if this is her first contemporary romance narration – I can’t find any. I do see one shorter paranormal.
Waiting for Judith McNaught… like garwood but waiting to hear about Judith McNaught…
Barbie – I agree! I’m lobbying for it right now along with the Romance Audiobooks Goodreads group. McNaught is one of my favorite romance/contemporary authors from way back when. Wish she still wrote.
Saving Grace will be narrated by Anne Flosnik, and Guardian Angel will be narrated by Susan Duerden. I wish they had switched those two around. I have grown to like Anne Flosnik’s narration better these days, but I would have rather had Susan Duerden for that one since it’s one of my favorite Garwoods. I guess I can live with it though.
Angie I’m sure you’ve been watching this as closely as I –
After having Amazon and Brilliance toss narrator names back and forth several times for Saving Grace they are both on the same page with Rosalyn Landor in the seat as of yesterday. :(
I’ll be hoping a Scottish accent changes her male delivery style from a grouchy old curmudgeon to a sexy Highlander … can’t hurt to hope right??
I did notice that. I’ve recently been trying to train my ears to enjoy RL narrations, and I did enjoy her narration of The Governess Affair. I recently tried The Bride again where she does a Scottish accent and while far from great, I managed to finish it this time.
It seems that in some of her latest narrations, she’s trying to change her male voice to sound not so stuffy, but she doesn’t keep it consistent. She’ll change it for one book, then the next she’s back to her old voice, then the next one is better again. I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s hard to get out of the habit of doing it one way.
I saw that too Angie – and I noticed they have changed the narrator of Mercy from Susan Duerden to Christina Traister. I was looking forward to hearing Susan do a contemporary. :)
Oh, I didn’t notice that. I didn’t care for Christina Traister’s narration of Mackenzie’s Mountain, so I will probably skip that one now. I hope they don’t change any of the others.
I agree with your comment about Christina Traister. I planned to give Mercy a try (it was only average for me in print) since it was to be narrated by Susan Duerden. I doubt I will do so with Traister. I thought her narration of Mackenzie’s Mountain okay but not enough to draw me to a book I didn’t love.
Heartbreaker with Tanya Eby showed up today at Audible – a week early – my favorite kind of surprise.
If you speed Christina up with your MP3 player settings (as I did with JG’s The Ideal Man) she delivers well with all the other aspects.
Her accent for Mary in Mackenzie’s Mountain was over the top but I enjoyed the stand up attitude she gave her as well as Wolf & Joe. ;)