Narrated by Julia Motyka
If a little bit of everything rolled up into a book is something that makes your skirt fly up, then you’ll enjoy Forever His. The Stolen Brides series takes a little bit of historical romance, contemporary romance, and science fiction, puts them all in the pot, and gives it a good stir. The year is 1993 and Celine is at a family chateau celebrating the New Year during a lunar eclipse. Suddenly she falls and finds herself in bed with a handsome knight after being transported 700 years into the past. Gaston thinks that she is his betrothed, who he has never met, and he forces her to marry him. Only she is a modern woman in a medieval time.
The premise of Forever His is interesting, using time travel to throw together two very distinct people from two incredibly different times. The relationship between Gaston and Celine was somewhat believable, but would have benefitted if Celine was a more true-to-life independent woman. I get that the heroine was from a rich family, and I get the “black sheep child that hasn’t yet found what she is truly looking for out of life” character she’s supposed to be. It’s been done – a whole lot. However, I am close in age to Celine (at the time of the book in the 1990’s we were in our twenties) and I can, in all honesty, say that I would have reacted in a different way than putting my hands on my hips and telling Gaston to “listen Buster.”
Often, the interaction between Gaston and Celine made me want to keep listening, as things heated up between them along with the author’s well-constructed push-pull of their attraction. Some scenes were pretty amusing involving modern vs. medieval technology and thinking. That said, there were times that I wanted to fast-forward as I was over hearing the same sentences again and again. For example, the worries about a bullet fragment lodged in Celine’s body. It’s her “real reason” for wanting to go back to the present time. A few mentions would have been enough. Listeners get it – she needs an operation or she could die. The repetition of that point got extremely tedious.
Forever His had the potential for so many more laugh-out-loud moments and gripping dialogue. It’s a shame the opportunity to do so was missed (think about explaining an Epilady or tampons to any medieval person—that’s just comedy waiting to happen). True sci-fi fans would have a field day ripping apart the time-travel explanation (trust me, I’m married to one) but personally, I am one who thinks an author is entitled to decide how his/her fictional world is going to work, so that didn’t bother me much. However, for the sci-fi purist, the explanation will be too pithy. Gaston is probably Thacker’s strongest character – his actions are close to what a listener would expect from a man of his time. It took an exceedingly long time to discover his redeeming qualities, which made me dislike him for a good portion of the book.
The last third was the best – it contained more action, more romance, more of everything. If the entire book had been as good, I would be dying to listen to Book two, His Forbidden Touch.
It looks as though Julia Motyka is rather new to narrating with only fourteen titles at Audible, with twelve of those categorized as romance. Her narration was not to my taste at all. She’s very dramatic in her reading and I find this type of narrator off-putting. The over-dramatizing made Forever His seem too flowery and verbose, even when it wasn’t. When a humorous moment came up, it just wasn’t funny. She’s not necessarily a bad narrator, but would be more suited to poetry or a work by Homer.
Motyka does differentiate her characters – you could tell most apart based upon the sound of her voice and she does a great job with a French accent. Her male characters had a distinct tone and were not eye-rolling bad, as some female narrators are with male characters. When Gaston and Celine were talking to one another, it was easy to discern who was speaking. Unfortunately, Motyka either did not understand the humor (or get that something was a joke), or she so over-exaggerated the tone of her voice that it seemed cheesy. Her over-dramatization extended to the sensual scenes, and became distracting about one-fourth of the way into each.
On the whole, I won’t rule out a listen to the second book, as I have found that series books generally get better as the premise gets more fleshed out and the writer finds his/her groove. Forever His offers just enough of a twist at the end involving a secondary character who really needs a storyline that I may be tempted to read that HEA. I will, however, require a change of narrators to continue with the series. My online searching didn’t yield an audio version so I can’t verify if this narrator will continue.
Minnie
Narration: C
Book Content: B
Steam Factor: Glad I had my ear buds in
Violence: Fighting
Genre: Historical Romance/Time Travel
Publisher: Summit Avenue Books
Forever His was provided to AudioGals for review by Summit Avenue Books.
