Grave Watch

Soul Reader, Book 3

By: Annie Anderson

Narrated by: Cassandra Parker

Meeting long-lost siblings should be awesome, right?

Well, when you happen to be on the wrong side of the law and have every intention of staying there, having a cop for a sister isn’t exactly ideal. And teaming up with said sister? Well, that is just the cherry on top of the crap-tastic pie that has been my life.

But, when our brother decides to attack us head on, banding together is the least of our problems.

Because in our family? Being the hunter also means being the hunted.

©2021 Annie Anderson (P)2021 Annie Anderson

Love This Series!

This series and the connected series that follows her sister are great! The story lines are well thought out, where different series cross over and intersect are enjoyable and seem free of the poor editing and timeline errors sadly common in the era of self publishing, and the writing shows talent with dedication to detail. The narrator is very talented, does a great job of creating distinct voices for each character with believable accents, and I have enjoyed listening to both series. My only concern is that as both series progress, the narration is becoming increasingly over dramatic. Both main characters have a flair for sarcasm and that’s something I usually enjoy. However, as I listened to this book, I was less and less able to stay immersed in the story. By the last chapter nearly every line was voiced in either very condescending baby talk or highly over dramatized sarcasm. This went beyond dialogue between characters to include internal thoughts and even descriptions of actions, places, things, and people. By the end of this book, the narration was so over the top I’d lost the story line. Even though the writing was done well and story had proceeded realistically, the vocal tones made it seem as if the slightly jaded, traumatized young woman that used sarcasm to insulate herself at the beginning of the series had been reduced to a petty, over dramatic 13 year old capable of communicating only in the most offensive and condescending manner possible with no regard for the situation or potential consequences. The last chapter was so extreme, I had to listen 4 times to get the point. That changed the entire feel of the story for me, negatively impacted my view of the main character, and resulted in my thoughts constantly moving away from the story to consider if the author really intends for the main character to dramatically regress rather than grow into the impressive potential she displayed early on as she gains experience and power. All that aside, I still think the narrator is very talented so this slide into extremely over dramatic narration likely has much more to do with production / direction because even this performance is well done on her part! So if this type of narration is as problematic for you as it is for me, you may prefer reading rather than listening as this really is a great series!

I'm sad it's over

I can't say enough good thing about this series. Actually, anything Annie Anderson has done is amazing. Also this narrator is exceptional!

Good story line

But...the narrator is too over the top on the tone she uses on sarcasm. tone it down. it can get annoying...

Not for me

I listened to the first two books in this series, but I couldn't get into this one.