Narrated by Jay O’Shea
I requested The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest because it was marketed as a cross between Swan Lake and Robin Hood. Two wonderful stories in their own right but together, it could be magical. Unfortunately, instead of an enchanting romance, I got a fiery crash that singed my eyeballs (and my ears).
Odette is living a double life. By day, she is the niece of prosperous merchant, by night she hunts in the forest. She does this to feed the starving children in her village. It’s been months and it’s tiresome, but Odette believes she’s the orphans’ only hope. Lately though, her uncle has been urging her to consider marriage. He believes marrying a wealthy man who can support her and the orphans is the best option. Odette, although beautiful, isn’t getting any younger. And her uncle won’t be around forever to help her.
It is at a party that she meets Jorgen. Jorgen is young and handsome and feels the same way Odette does about the orphans of the village. She really likes him and builds hopes around the idea that marriage may not be so bad, that is, until she discovers he is the new forester. And his first task is to find the person poaching the king’s deer.
I do not like this book. Excluding the terrible narration (more on that later) the book is full of implausible twists and turns and a heroine who is TSTL, which is sad; this was almost tailor made for me. Historical fiction with romantic elements set during medieval times? Normally I would say “Score!” and then devour it. However, this book is plain annoying. Why: Odette. We constantly hear about how beautiful she is, or how noble and self-sacrificing she is because her only thoughts are for the little orphan children that live in the village. Or watching as every man she meets falls at her feet. Yuck! I don’t know about you but I like it when the characters have flaws; real flaws, not ones that make them candidates for sainthood. I kept waiting for birds to start talking to her and for mice bring her clothes and help her dress in the morning. Talking animals would have made for an interesting change of pace but, alas, there is no magic in this book, in the story or in the plot.
There also isn’t any real romance, either. It’s true she has many men vying for her hand but for all that she prefers the attentions of one man, this appears to be solely based on how he can assist the poor. All of Odette’s decisions revolve around these young orphans. It is mentioned that she, too, lived on the streets and went hungry until her uncle found her but this seems a weak motivation for her future endeavors, especially since it blinds her to the ulterior motives of those around her. She does get wise but not until the end. So we don’t get to see her learn from her mistakes. Instead, everything works out for her with little trouble or interruption of her goals and lifestyle. I like my romances to have HEAs but I want realistic ones.
As for the narration…
The best I can say for Jay O’Shea’s performance of The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest is that she has a lovely accent. Everything else about her performance is bad, y’all. I hate to be mean but it is true. O’Shea is literally reading the words on the page instead of narrating a book. This is not normally bad; some narrators read the words without distinguishing the characters and everything is all good. It is not required for a book to be performed, to paraphrase Luke Daniels in the last AudioGals Narrator Forum: when we read a book to ourselves, we do so in only one voice. I’m not a fan of this type of production but I understand the appeal.
However, O’Shea is not simply reading this book to me; she is literally reading the words on the page. There are no pauses between character dialogue, no breaks for scene changes. Heck, the only way I knew a new chapter had started was when she said the word chapter and a number! There is no energy in her reading. She is entirely monotone and lifeless throughout the book.
What’s worse, this became apparent from the first paragraph (I assume it was the first paragraph since there were no natural sentence breaks) and made the whole book an ORDEAL. I wanted to quit listening almost immediately. I’m sorry to say this but this is the type of performance a newbie would listen to and never try audiobooks again. I can’t in anyway recommend this performance.
Diana
Narration: F
Book Content: C-
Steam Factor: You can play it out loud
Violence: Minimal
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers
The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest was provided to AudioGals for review.
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Ouch!! I hear you, Diana. Listening to two minutes of that narration seemed like listening to my Kindle e-books’ robotic narration in-built feature. Such a pity…her voice is very nice and her accent is flawless.
Well, at least it’s done and you took one for the team! You deserve a pat on the back and a stiff drink ;-)
Oh my! That sounds like an excruciating listen! Glad you hung in there Diana and were able to put pen to paper to your experience (perhaps it will spare one of our AudioGals followers from a difficult listen)!
As far as the reader goes I completely agree! It was like nails on a chalk board trying to listen to it. I may have gotten through the first chapter but I doubt it. I need to find time to actually read the book to see how I feel about the writing though. I thought the reader for the Hagenheim series was really good. I wish they had used her instead.