Wildfell

By: London Clarke

Narrated by: Rebecca McKernan

Running away isn't always an escape...

After a traumatic experience with her graduate school professor, Anne Fleming disposes of all her possessions, boards a plane, and plans to check out of life. But a chance meeting on an international flight leads her to Wildfell, a gothic mansion north of London. At first glance, Wildfell seems like the perfect place to hide out, and Anne is intrigued by its strange atmosphere and history of disappearances and deaths. But echoing voices, ghostly mists, a mute girl with a sketchbook full of murders, and a possessive landlady force her to confront her deepest fears. Anne's budding romance with gorgeous Irish actor Bain Tierney ties her to the house. But when Wildfell tenants begin disappearing and dying, Anne must decide if she trusts Bain. Is anyone in the house who they claim to be? Or are there are other forces at work inside Wildfell? And will they ever let her leave?

©2018 London Clarke (P)2020 London Clarke

Interesting plot, but author rambles

After having read The Meadows, another story by Ms Clarke, I thought I’d see how her first book was. Though the overall plot was interesting, I felt like the author rambled way too much, trying to find ways to bring in necessary characters, this resulted in vast swaths of unnecessary and boring story.
The performer was decent, but could use some direction or coaching on how to handle some of the longer narratives. Often sounding like a preacher in a pulpit delivering every line with the exact same cadence. But her command of voices, and reasonably good accents helped her carry through, though please do a little more study before trying a New York or South African accent again.
Read The Meadows, a much better book.

Shirley Jackson and robot collide.

First, the narrator is HORRIBLE. For about 90-95% of the book, she’s very robotic. She ends nearly every sentence with the same (somehow, annoying?) emphasis. It’s like she recounting events to a jury in a courtroom or maybe admonishing her teenager after catching them after they’ve been out all night. Siri and Alexa would have been better and less robotic. To give her “props” though, she has narrated more books for a public audience than I have (I’m sitting at “zero”). Just listen to a sample so you know what you’ll have to listen to for 10 hours.

The story itself is a more modern take on “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. It’s not particularly scary or spooky (though this could be due to the narrator) and definitely not one of Ms. Clarke’s better stories. The “Legacy of Darkness” novels were great. This one, *meh*, kind of phoned in. Again, it could be due to it sounding like I hit “text-to-speech” on a textbook.

Tedious

Though Wildfell was somewhat curious, creepy and suspenseful, overall I thought it longwinded and dull. The writer described the environment clearly and I could easily imagine the gothic house. and scenery but this wasn't enough to for more than 3 stars.
I didnt really like the main character, I thought her pathetic and dimwitted for such a (apparently) well educated woman. 
This is my first London Clarke book so cannot compare it as other reviewers have. 
The narrator performed well espically given the numerous different tricky accents involved.
I was given this book at my request and am voluntary leaving a review

I struggled with the narrator

The narration was very one tempo. The lack of any range other than forced and mispronounced words made it quite difficult to stay engaged in this story.

The narration is terrible

The story isn’t bad, it’s worth reading because it is in a series, but it isn’t the best book in the series.

The narration is distracting, terrible and made the book so unpleasant to listen to that I had to stop listening and read the book instead.