Narrated by Emma Taylor
My previous experience with Kristen Ashley audiobooks was with Kate Russell narrating. I liked Own the Wind
There are some things that I think Kate Russell does better, but there are other areas where Emma Taylor shines more strongly and overall, I think I’d have to pick Ms. Taylor as the winner of the “Kristin Ashley narrator smackdown”.
But first, the story. Lauren Grahame is a 42-year-old former executive divorcee. After she found out her husband had been cheating on her for five years with her (then) best friend, Lauren took her half of the house money, chucked in her job and started wandering the US to try and find herself. The book opens when Lauren drives into Carnal, a small mountain town in Colorado. At Bubba’s bar, she sees a “help wanted” sign in the window. She applies for and gets the job and takes a room at the Carnal Motel while she decides whether she can settle in the town for the long term.
Tatum “Tate” Jackson makes a strong impression on Lauren – the next day when they actually meet, this is very much not in a good way: Lauren overhears Tate refer to her as “fat, old and sorry-ass”.
In part because of Tate’s harsh words and in part because Lauren decides she wants to, Lauren starts swimming regularly in the motel pool and working out at a boot camp run by a personal trainer. But, even though she makes an effort to improve her appearance, Tate wasn’t being truthful when he said those nasty things. He liked the look of her from the start and the more he gets to know her, the more he likes. Of course, because of their inauspicious start, he has a lot of making up to do.
The rest of the story is taken up with Lauren finding a home and friends in Carnal, falling in love with Tate, and all the complications that brings (but lots of laughs and fun too) and dealing with a serial killer who is targeting local women.
Kristen Ashley fans often refer to Tate as their favourite hero. He rates about third with me (first is Tack, and Hopper Kincaid jumped into second place, pushing Tate down a peg, after I read/listened to Own the Wind). He is all alpha, all male and when he falls for a woman, he’s all in. Lauren stands up for herself, but probably not as much at Tyra does in Motorcycle Man. Still Laurie is no pushover and her presence brings changes, not only in Tate, but in everyone she comes into contact with in Carnal.
Tate has a deep, growly voice that fits his macho man, badass biker, bounty hunter persona, and Emma Taylor has the chops to pull it off. There are quite a few burly mountain men in the story and Ms. Taylor manages to differentiate them all, some of them only subtly, in a way that was, for the most part, easy to tell who was talking. The other great thing was the way Ms. Taylor separated the female characters by various vocal tonings. I particularly loved her portrayal of the hippie pair, Sunny and Shambles.
The thing about Kristin Ashley books is that they have long sentences and the sentences often go on a bit of a journey until they reach the point. This can be confusing to read at times. If the narrator doesn’t get it right in an audiobook, a listener could easily get lost. One of the criticisms I levelled at Kate Russell (particularly in Motorcycle Man) was that she tripped up fairly often ending sentences before they were finished in the text and not quite managing the convoluted journey the words were taking. Emma Taylor, on the other hand, does a stellar job with this. I only picked up once where it was a little confusing and Sweet Dreams is a long book (for a romance). The trade-off however is that Ms. Taylor’s pacing was a little slower and a tad more deliberate. Sometimes, it felt too slow and not quite natural. Where Kate Russell has the edge over Ms. Taylor is in that “natural” delivery. People will differ no doubt on which they prefer, but for me, with Ms. Taylor’s ability to vocalise a deeper, more gravelly voice, the kind appropriate for Tate (and even probably Tack) and the way she made the text easy to understand, won out over the slightly faster, slightly more “natural” delivery of Ms. Taylor.
There were times during the listen, where Emma Taylor sounded a little like Renee Raudman and as I like Raudman, this meant a win for me too. Maybe they hail from the same area of the US? Those parts of the story also tended to be more free-flowing to my ear and had a more relaxed vibe.
I did say above that Kate Russell sounded slightly more natural (and her portrayal of Elvira is brilliant) but I don’t want to give the impression that Ms. Taylor’s narration was stilted. Sometimes it was a little slow and a little bit more careful than someone who was just saying the words as they pop out of their head might say.
I enjoyed revisiting Sweet Dreams on audio and would definitely recommend it to fans of Kristen Ashley. I had a blast listening to it.
Kaetrin
Narration: B+
Book Content: B+
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: Graphic
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Blackstone AudioPublisher: Blackstone Audio
Sweet Dreams was provided to AudioGals for review by Blackstone Audio.
I have listened to several of the Rock Chick books and Motorcycle Man, but at this point, the Colorado Series with Emma Taylor narrating is my favorite. I think the way she can make each character has his/her own voice is “the bomb” as KA would say. I have decided I would listen to anything Emma Taylor narrates and that puts her in a very special category for my top narrators.
Ooh, I never thought about listening to this series. Off to check it out.
Emma Taylor is definitely my favorite KA narrator! Susannah Jones is pretty good, too, but personally I can’t stand Kate Russell.