Publishing Date: November 6th, 2012
Page Count: 87
Source: Sent for review
Format: Audiobook
Read by: Melanie A. Mason & David Wilson Brown
Description from Goodreads.com:
Holidays are worse than a full moon for making people crazy. In Harborsmouth, where many of the residents are bloodsucking vampires or monstrous fae, the combination may prove deadly.
Ivy Granger, psychic private investigator, returns to the streets of Harborsmouth in this addition to the bestselling urban fantasy series.
Holidays are Hell, a point driven home when a certain demon attorney returns with information regarding a series of bloody murders. Five Harborsmouth residents have been killed and every victim has one thing in common—they are fae. Whoever is killing faeries must be stopped, but they only leave one clue behind—a piece of mistletoe floating in a pool of the victim's blood.
The holidays just got interesting. Too bad this case may drive Ivy mad before the New Year. Heck, she'll be lucky to survive Christmas.
Blood and Mistletoe is an Ivy Granger series novella.
Review:
When I was asked to review the audiobook of Blood and Mistletoe I immediately agreed, because I absolutely love E.J. Stevens work. However, I was a little worried because audiobook performances can really alter how much you enjoy the story. The readers voice can be one you find annoying, you may not like the way they pause or pronounce things, and you could end up being so focused on how much you loathe the reader that you don't pay attention to the story and imprint that hate onto the book itself. Luckily, this wasn't entirely the case with Blood and Mistletoe.
The one thing I really liked about the audiobook was the speed it was read at. I am a pretty fast reader and sometimes I feel like audiobooks read something way slower than I would have read it. Especially when it comes to thrillers. Something HUGE is about to happen and I'll feel like I'm listening to the slowest reader in the world. With Blood and Mistletoe, that wasn't the case. I wouldn't say it was read fast, but I would say that it was read fast enough. It was the perfect speed. Before I knew it, it was over.
Another thing I absolutely loved was that there are two readers, a man (David Wilson Brown) and a woman (Melanie A. Mason). This was so wonderful, because they alternated the character's voices. They really made this book come alive with their performance, and I highly enjoyed that each character had a very distinct voice that I could easily identify. Another thing that was great was a guy read the guy parts! So refreshing! I am so used to listening to women deepen their voice for male characters, but I finally heard an actual guy play them. Their performance was very well done.
Now, I did read the book way before I was asked to read the audiobook, and I absolutely loved it. Like I said earlier, I was pretty worried that the integrity of the story wouldn't stay true, but it totally did! The audio was almost as good as reading the book itself. I really felt the story stayed intact and wasn't altered by the reader's performance.
There was one small thing that made this come second to reading the book for myself, and unfortunately that was the voice of Ivy. Not Melanie A. Mason's voice, Ivy's voice. When I read the books, that voice is not the one I hear in my head. I imagined a tough voice, but one a little more feminine. One a little more higher pitched. It just threw me off. I still really enjoyed the audiobook, because these readers flowed extremely well together and made the book come alive, but the voice for Ivy was just not what I imagined.
Overall:
I really enjoyed this listening experience. Melanie A. Mason and David Wilson Brown did an amazing performance of this book that really rang true to the story's integrity. They flowed so well together and really made this book come alive with their alternating performances. Although Melanie's voice is not what I imagined for Ivy's voice, I still enjoyed the story and thought it was a super fun way to re-read the book.
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 4/5
**The books cover, description, and info was all found on Goodreads. A link back has been provided. All other work and ideas are of my own creation. This book was sent to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.**
