Narrated by Natalie Ross & Phil Gigante
I admit the main reason I requested Carry Me Home for review was the strength of the narrating pair. Phil Gigante and Natalie Ross are, for me, best known for their joint reviews of the last couple of books in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series and her more recent follow-on releases, Iced and Burned.
Unlike most dual narrations, Mr. Gigante not only performs all of the sections from the male POV, he also delivers all the male dialogue (and vice versa for Ms. Ross). It neatly gets around the potential problem of a narrator struggling to deliver convincing character voices for the opposite sex but it does take a little getting used to. The best way I can think to put it is; one narrator telling a story (even including swapping narrators when the POV changes) feels intimate but two at virtually the same time feels a little like a play but without any sound effects. At first it sounded kind of… fake. I think it was easier to fall into in the Karen Marie Moning books because there is not a lot of male dialogue and not a lot of male POV (ie hardly any) whereas the balance between male and female POV in Carry Me Home was about equal. Also the urban fantasy genre (to which the Fever series belongs) is aided by a feeling of unreality whereas a contemporary romantic suspense isn’t, quite. It’s not that I didn’t like it; it’s that it took me a while to get used to – even though I was actually expecting it. Apparently I’m just contrary.
On the other hand, there was never any confusion about whose POV I was in or who was speaking.
Zoe Santangelo is a hydro-geologist who has taken an assistant professorship at a small college near Paradise, Idaho. Her plan is to teach for a few years, and then move to one of the Ivy League colleges in a research role. There’s where the stars in her field end up and that’s where the big bucks are. Her father, whom she idolizes, pushes her very hard to achieve these goals.
Zoe initially finds the Idaho weather a challenge and one night slides on some black ice and drives into a ditch. She is “rescued” by Cal Jackson, a local (wealthy) farmer who tows her car out of the culvert with his truck. Zoe, quite sensibly, is reluctant to accept help from a strange man and Cal teases her about how she’s in Idaho now, not California, so that kind of fear is unnecessary. I was annoyed that Zoe didn’t explain immediately that her location wasn’t to the point – it was her gender and Cal ought to get his head out of his rear if he thought he understood what it was like to be a woman alone, anywhere.
Cal’s opinion is proven wrong time and time again during the course of the book, as there is a serial rapist on/near the campus. He initially targets one of Zoe’s students and when his plans are foiled and Zoe helps the student protect herself, the rapist transfers his attentions to Zoe instead.
Carry Me Home is a really good example of a romantic suspense full of menace but which does not go into explicit detail to achieve it. There is some villain POV but it is not at all graphic.
Also, both Amy, Zoe’s student, and Zoe herself are smart and capable women who never wander down Too Stupid To Live Alley in the dark armed only with a smile and Girl Scout cookies.
The romance aspect of the story is strong. The suspense plot takes several months to work out – so there is plenty of time for falling in love.
Cal sometimes bothered me because he was high-handed and bossy, but Zoe didn’t let him get away with that kind of behaviour and called him on it (for which I was very grateful).
Maybe it’s because I’m Australian and I don’t know Idaho really, but I don’t associate Idaho with cowboys particularly. Mr. Gigante gives Cal a Texan-style twang. I found it curious because Cal, who had also spent some years in California, had the drawl, while his brother, Luke, who had lived all his life in Idaho, spoke with a more mid-western accent (no drawl). I suppose it was one way to differentiate character voices but I did occasionally forget the location of the story. That said, Cal did have a “good ol’ boy” attitude and maybe Mr. Gigante’s portrayal was exactly right.
Cal had been burned by a wife who didn’t want to live in small town Idaho and when he finds out Zoe doesn’t plan to stay, their romance is cut short. However, even with a broken heart, he is still protective of her and makes sure she is safe. He won many points with me for this.
I don’t think it will be a big surprise to listeners how the romance plot is worked out – I think it’s fairly obvious which way things are heading from quite early in the story. But the journey was worthwhile anyway and the resolution believable without making Zoe appear wimpy.
Both Ms. Ross and Mr. Gigante are very experienced and talented narrators and they did a great job here. (Apart from that they both do that thing where they laugh when the text says the character laughs in addition to saying that they laughed. So it goes “he laughed. [laugh noises]”. Some people don’t mind this (*cough Lea cough*). I hate it. One or the other please.)
I enjoyed the romance and the suspense and, for the most part, I enjoyed the narration too. I definitely plan to try more romantic suspense from Ms. James.
Kaetrin
Narration: B+
Book Content: B
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: Fighting
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Carry Me Home was provided to AudioGals by Brilliance Audio for a review.
I hate it when the narrator actually laughs or makes other noises. ..hahahaha. Hehehe…ugh. Oh well, better than making a noise when the character farts.
I really like it when Natalie Ross laughs or chuckles when it is called for in the reading. For me it is the same as speaking “hoarsely” or “choked” or “breathless”. She sounds delightful to me. It adds another layer to her characterizatons.
I think it’s a matter of pacing – I am one who does not like for the narrator to add sounds already spelled out by the author, like “He chuckled and said ‘So that’s what they call it'” to sound like “He chuckled and said ‘Heh heh so that’s what they call it”. Especially if the author has the characters chuckling a lot – I’d be bummed if the narrator stopped every time and added “heh heh” like it’s Beavis and Butthead! But if the narrator can blend it into the pacing, so it’s not just hanging out there, it can work. If the author writes “She could hear the laugh in his voice when he spoke” and then the narrator puts laughter in the voice, that’s a win. If the author writes something about choking, and the narrator goes into a choking fit, well, that’s a fail for me.
I like it when the action is integrated into the words spoken. As Melinda said, when the narrator puts laughter *into* the voice rather than adds it as a separate action. Same with choking sounds, hoarseness and any other vocal cue – I want to hear it in the text, not via addition. In the book it says. “he laughed”, it doesn’t say “he laughed. Heh Heh.” I want emotion and tone in the the narration but I don’t want narrators adding words that are not there.
On the other hand, Vicky loves it (as well as Jean above) so it’s definitely a matter of personal taste!