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The best Cormoran Strike Novel so far

Revisado: 11-15-22

I absolutely loved this book!

After I finished it, I took a look at the reviews and was surprised at the amount of negative reviews, particularly about the online discussions. I think they were handled well, and once I got in the rhythm of the audiobook it flowed well for me.

I don't know if a seed of this novel was planted by the controversy about JKR's statements or not, but I think the story is an in depth study of how people's opinions or (false) facts can encourage people to extreme measures. We see it every day, and the difficulty of getting to the root cause, both the individual or group, and the method of spreading rumor, is extremely hard to uncover. The Ink Black Heart is an example of the complexity of uncovering the truth as well as a great story with great characters and a plot that kept me involved.

I'm an addict of both books and audiobooks, and have found more and more references to online messaging and discussion from texts to social media and more, contained within the stories. As readers, it's a new skill to be able to "visualize" the different forms of communication between character interaction through talk or correspondence, to the new technological mediums.

I loved it and expect it will be worth a reread.

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Bertie Wooster meets Lord Peter Wimsey

Revisado: 05-25-20

Enjoyable cozy mystery with a clueless detective. If you could blend P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster and Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey into a single character, you'd have Heathcliff Lennox, a very unlikely sleuth. I picked up the first two of these in an Audible sale and enjoyed listening to these lightweight mysteries. The narration by Sam Dewhurst-Phillips suited the story and lead character well. I'm looking forward reading the third book, hopefully not the last in the series.

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Bertie Wooster meets Lord Peter Wimsey

Revisado: 05-25-20

Enjoyable cozy mystery with a clueless detective. If you could blend P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster and Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey into a single character, you'd have Heathcliff Lennox, a very unlikely sleuth. I picked up the first two of these in an Audible sale and enjoyed listening to these lightweight mysteries. The narration by Sam Dewhurst-Phillips suited the story and lead character well. I'm looking forward reading the third book, hopefully not the last in the series.

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A disappointment for this fan

Revisado: 04-19-20

I was so happy to see the latest Simon Serrailler novel by Susan Hill that I started listening right away. As always, Steven Pacey does a wonderful job narrating.

The story started great, but began to fall apart. The story lines seemed disjointed, and the ending just sort of dropped. I was surprised when the book ended since I felt I was only about 2/3 of the way through the book. I was expecting so much more, but was left with a pile of loose ends after an abrupt ending and characters that behaved in disjointed ways. It felt like a bunch of story ideas that were lumped together and never resolved.

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Awful

Revisado: 08-26-19

Even Zachary Webber couldn't salvage this one.

The female narrator's voice and inflection was just awful and I couldn't get past her voice. Combining that with the continual dropping of designer names and attention to posh instead of plot, I had to stop midway.

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An unexpected treat.

Revisado: 01-07-19

I've enjoyed Julia Whelan's narrations in books by other authors and picked this one up on a whim. It was truly a delight.

I'm having a hard time finding books lately that are fun to read, have good character development, and aren't filled with characters that I really dislike. It seems like behaving badly with cruelty and selfishness thrown in is the prevailing theme. Frankly I'm tired of it and enjoy books about fairly ordinary people leading fairly ordinary lives. Having said that being a Rhodes Scholar and spending a year in Oxford isn't the norm, but I would have loved it myself, and enjoyed tagging along for the ride.

The characters are well developed and likable. There are some predictable moments, and others that aren't. But to be honest in a book like this if some things didn't come off a little predictably I'd have been so disappointed. It was fun being a visitor to Oxford and seeing the city and colleges through the character's eyes. I could also imagine making the same choices as the main character so the story was very relatable.

No spoilers here, just a great review for a very enjoyable book.

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Flawed Delivery

Revisado: 09-26-18

I don't know why the author chose to present this story in the form of a multi-part tale tale delivered by a bard playing multiple characters, instead of telling the story as a fantasy adventure. The story wasn't well served using this method of delivery and frankly bored me. Kudos to Luke Daniels for making an attempt at the ballads, but there was really no hope for them since most of them were barely a song or even poetry. That's all I can say about the story.

Luke Daniels was stellar as usual, but Xe Sands' version of breathy and weirdly moderated delivery is distracting at best, and difficult to hear at worst. I don't know if I would have enjoyed it more with another narrator. Sometimes it seemed like mumbling and the rest was whiny. Her voice is very difficult to listen to for long periods. The Performance is my combined rating of Sands and Daniels, Sands' narration being a 1.

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An interesting departure for Nora Roberts

Revisado: 06-22-18

I read through some of the reviews before buying this one and my purchase was partly because of those negative reviews. I read a wide range of books from classic literature to mystery to science fiction and young adult. I like dystopian fiction but am thoroughly tired of the ones that spend almost all of their time on killing, raping and pillaging and describing all the gore, and very little time on character development.

Nora Roberts' Year One is definitely different. The growth of magic is a little weird for me, but frankly fantasy novels do it all the time. She's written a few other novels with a magical bent, so why not. I prefer it to the glut of horror novels where there's the average guy versus the serious evil. If I wanted that I would go to to the master Stephen King and reread The Stand, which I loved, but again there's that serious gore and overwhelming evil. Right now I'm looking for something different.

It's lightweight for dystopian fiction, but that's okay and it's what I expected from Roberts. I listened to the audio book version and zoomed through it. I'm looking forward to book number two in the series.

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An Unexpected Joy

Revisado: 09-15-16

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book.

In the book, we follow Charlie, a very bright guy with a poor start in life that takes advantage of the opportunities that land in his path in order to make money. He's a little greedy, a little lazy and very independent, and those attributes take him from investment banking to drug trafficking. But this isn't about the seedy side of either of these careers. It's about Charlie's inner life and the path he takes to another direction.

It's a great story, and made marvelous by the narration by Kevin Stillwell. His reading of the story takes it from a really good story to something pretty wonderful.

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Big disappointment

Revisado: 08-29-16

First, Zachary Webber's reading of the book was flawless. That's the one redeeming quality from my perspective. Angela Goethals was good, but not worthy of a five star performance rating.

The story is reminiscent of Same Time Next Year, the play where a couple reignites their affair each year in the same place. No affair here, but it's another take on that story. A young couple meet, feel an attraction and decide to meet on the same day for the next five years.

I enjoyed the story, but frankly the ending totally destroyed the entire experience for me. It felt like the author didn't know how to end the story, but decided they wanted a major cliffhanger so we'd be on the ledge for the next book. No thanks. The surprise twist at the end pretty much invalidated the entire story from my perspective.

The book was told from the point of view of each of the two main characters, sharing their thoughts and feelings about the events of their annual meet. But with that end, I'm no longer able to believe the characters as they developed throughout the story.

What a waste.

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