Narrated by Molly Glenmore and Rob Shapiro
Tyrant, book 2 in the King series, will have you questioning just who truly is the “tyrant” in the story. Having absolutely fallen in love with the spell binding, suspenseful writing in the first book, I pretty much picked up Tyrant as fast as I could after finishing King (see the AudioGals review). While still good, the second book has a slightly different feel. It’s still a dark romance, but whereas in King you got the comforting feeling that the darkness was more imagined than real when it came to the hero’s adoration of the heroine, in Tyrant we unfortunately get a full glance at what it means to be caught in the hands of a real madman. So as not to spoil the suspenseful mystery behind the story for you, however, I will not go into much specifics when it comes to laying down the background for Tyrant.
Please note, however, this is the sequel to King, which must be listened to first to understand the full story. For those of you who have not yet listened to King, it is also worth noting that this is a dark romance which delves in detail into some very disturbing subjects, including drugs, domestic abuse and rape. In fact, in the spectrum of violence, I would venture to say that Tyrant is even darker – as it definitely skirted the edges of acceptable violence for me, which perhaps also factored into my reduced level of enjoyment for this title. I will also caution that if you are looking for a realistic listen, then Tyrant may not be the right fit, as I definitely felt like I had to suspend my belief in reality at a few points.
The story picks up where King leaves off. Doe has been reunited with her affluent, powerful family, and slowly she starts to recover her memory. But whereas you might expect that the stabilization and comforting feeling of being found would be heartwarming, particularly when she learns just how much she left behind, nothing is quite what it seems or what you would expect.
Try though she might, Doe can’t forget or stop thinking about her former captor who captured more than her body, but also her heart and soul. Fighting for what her heart wants, however, and, even worse, letting on that she has started to recover some of the spine-tingling memories that haunt her, could cost her more than her heart. Is there any way out, when a powerful and controlling influence has his sights set on claiming her no matter the cost?
King is narrated by Molly Glenmore and Rob Shapiro in the typical New Adult fashion, with Ms. Glenmore narrating all the chapters from the female characters’ points of view and Mr. Shapiro, the ones from the males’. Like in King, this style works generally well to highlight the perspective being shared at different points in the book, however, I found that there were a few editing issues that detracted from the overall performance.
Specifically, I noticed that in a few places there were audible differences in the narrator’s voices. It sounded almost as if a passage had been corrected by splicing and adding in a corrected one with a noticeable difference between the intonation at the beginning as compared to the end. Interestingly, I didn’t notice this issue in the recording of King, which I rated an A- narration.
Aside from this noticeable editing effect, however, I highly enjoyed both narrators’ deliveries. Mr. Shapiro has the perfect baritone voice to deliver all of the male characters, from King’s outlaw persona, to Doe’s father’s commanding senator politician’s voice, Mr. Shapiro excelled at the delivery of the male voices and did a good job of also portraying Doe’s and the other female characters.
Ms. Glenmore, in turn, was particularly adept at communicating the multitude of emotions that were constantly being experienced by Doe. She also was able to vary her intonation sufficiently to deliver distinguishable voices for the plentiful cast of male and female characters.
All in all, I enjoyed this suspenseful, dark romance series. While my favorite parts were more heavily weighted towards the first half of the series, and I would have preferred a little less descriptive detail around some of the violence, I’m still glad I persevered to reach the conclusion of this story. The unexpected turns certainly made for a dramatic and exciting ride prior to reaching its final destination, which I’m happy to say does include a HEA.
BJ
Narration: B-
Book Content: B-
Steam Factor: For your burning ears only
Violence Rating: Fighting, Domestic Violence, including rape
Genre: Contemporary Romance - New Adult
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Tyrant was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for a review.
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