Audio Review: Flesh and Blood by Kristen Painter

Flesh and Blood

by Kristen Painter

House of Camarre #2
Narrated by Abby Craden

Source: Purchased from Audible.com

With the ring of sorrows still missing, and the covenant between othernaturals and mortals broken, Chrysabelle and Malkolm's problems are just beginning. Chrysabelle still owes Malkolm for his help, but fulfilling that debt means returning to Corvinestri, the hidden vampire city neither of them is welcome in.The discovery that Chrysabelle has a brother could mean reneging on her promise to Malkolm, something that might make him angry enough to loose the beast living inside him. And fulfilling her vow could prove devastating for Chrysabelle-especially when you throw in power hungry witches, dead fringe vampires, and the Kubai Mata.

Normally I save my thoughts about the narration of the audiobook to the end of the review. But since I almost gave Flesh and Blood a 3 star rating based on the narration I going to talk about it first.

Abby Craden's narration of the main characters was pretty good and her "reading" voice (non dialogue narration) was good. Where I had a problem with the narration was her choices for A LOT of the secondary characters more to the point the minority characters. For example Katsumi is an Asian vampire and Craden's narration of her sounded like siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp. I had that song "We are Siamese if You Please" stuck in my head whenever Katsumi can on scene.

Doc

Another character I had problem with was Doc. I read the first book, Blood Rights and I didn't either remember or picked up on the fact that he is Africain American but listing to Carden's voice for him I thought, is Doc black? So I asked my two read along co-hosts that recently read Blood Rights and they were not sure either. I looked him up on the House of Comarre website and saw a picture of the character. Yep, he's Africain American. But I didn't enjoy the stereo-type voice that the narrator gave him; she made him sound like a street thug mixed with a white raper (Vanilla Ice). I thought he would say Yo-Yo at any moment.

I was so focused on how much I disliked the narration of the minority characters that it took me out of the story many times. But I thought it was unfair to lower my rating of the writing that Kristen Painter brought to life. It's just a case where I will read the rest of the series instead of listening. It happens.

Ok now that my rant about the narration of the audiobook is over I'll talk about the book.