Cherry Mischievous: Annabel Chase

Showing posts with label Annabel Chase. Show all posts

Thursday 5 September 2024

THREE DOG KNIGHT

Three Dog Knight by Annabel Chase
Book 2 in the Midnight Empire: The Tower series
Narrated by Suzanne Elise Freeman
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Three Dog Knight:

I survived a job for royal vampires with my life and identity intact. That means I can return to my normal life as a knight, right?

Wrong.

When a group of werewolves goes berserk in our local pub, there’s a new threat in the city and the local pack hires me to find out what it is. Unfortunately that decision draws the attention of a certain vampire prince who likes to keep tabs on the most powerful pack in the city. Just when I thought I was free of the Demon of House Duncan, we’re embarking on a road trip together to investigate.

And what we discover changes everything — as well as each other.

Source: Info in the About Three Dog Knight was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59535753-three-dog-knight on 13/05/2022.

Buy Link(s):

My Thoughts:

The opening volley is the death of somebody who shifted unwillingly because of some external forces and when he shifted back to human form and asked for help, he was killed instead! That broke my heart!!

At this point I can tell that the over-arching theme of this series is about power stones and finding them. If it keeps being like this, I'm afraid that it's going to get repetitive. So, hopefully, the author has some trick up her sleeve to liven things up. However, at this point, this book is still very interesting and even though it ended in a cliffhanger, it also ended the dilemma in the book. Points for the author!!

The plot... yes, there is a plot. Not twisty, but there is one.

I don't recommend reading this book as a starting point into the Midnight Empire world because the reader will almost likely get confused. The world building was done in book one and this book just follows through. So, a reader might get confused about the butterflies in this book.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 4
Story itself = 4
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = (7 hrs and 24 mins listening time)
Plot = 4
Narration = 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

Books In The Midnight Empire: The Tower Series:

Amazon

Amazon

Meet The Author

About Annabel Chase:

Annabel Chase is the author of urban fantasy and cozy mystery novels. She would love to live in a magical town where she can shop at Ready-to-Were for the the perfect outfit, flirt with hot angels and vampires, and cook gourmet meals without exerting any effort.

The Narrator

About Suzanne Elise Freeman:

Audiobook narrator and voiceover artist narrating books in multiple genres, including Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Young Adult, Mystery, and Romance.

www.suzannefreemanvoice.com | twitter | facebook | goodreads

FTC Disclosure:
The ebook and audiobook copies of the book were purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.

Thursday 1 August 2024

DEAD TO THE WORLD

Dead To The World by Annabel Chase
Book 1 in the Crossroads Queen series
Narrated by Vivienne Leheny
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Dead To The World:

Lorelei Clay isn’t like other people.

She isn’t even like other supernaturals. Her specialties are the nightmares of the living, communication with the dead, and cooking bacon until it’s golden brown and perfectly crispy — no magic required.

Six months ago she moved to the ultimate fixer upper, a monstrosity from the Gilded Age that borders the local cemetery in the sleepy Pennsylvania town of Fairhaven. Lorelei is content to spend the next few years in solitude, renovating the house and avoiding humanity, until a missing young woman disrupts her plans. Lorelei’s search for the teenager means crossing paths with the residents she’s successfully avoided so far, including the human police chief, the coven, a cursed vampire, the assassins guild, the werewolf pack, and the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring owner of The Devil’s Playground, an elegant nightclub that caters to the local supernatural clientele.

Lorelei plans to find the girl quickly and return to the privacy of her castle walls before anyone learns her secrets, but you know what they say about the best laid plans…

Source: Info in the "About Dead To The World" was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/144085997-dead-to-the-world on 12/01/2024.

Buy Link(s):

My Thoughts:

So what does Fairhaven have that it is chuck full of supernaturals??

So, what exactly IS Lorelei?

What is that raven doing in the cover? Is that the black bird hanging around the Castle? What is it's story?

I do not like inconsistent plotting. She did her due deligence so she knew the way. That tells me that she did a recon (reconnaissance) so she knew the place before the meeting. But she does not know that the trail climbed? So what kind of recon did she do??

This is not my first Vivienne Leheny audiobook. Not even the second. Or third. With previous audiobooks, this narrator seemed ok. But for some reason in this one, Vivienne Leheny seems to pronounce words a little to quickly at times. Too "heavily"? Like, I thought she said "ha", instead of "hello". And I thought the character was being rude. But the ebook clearly says "hello" and not "ha". What was that all about??

Quantitative Evaluation:

Story telling quality = 3.5
Character development = 3.5
Story itself = 3.5
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = (7 hrs and 23 mins listening time)
Plot = 3.5
Narration = 4

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries

Books In The Crossroads Queen Series:

Meet The Author

About Annabel Chase:

Annabel Chase is the author of urban fantasy and cozy mystery novels. She would love to live in a magical town where she can shop at Ready-to-Were for the the perfect outfit, flirt with hot angels and vampires, and cook gourmet meals without exerting any effort.

The Narrator

About Vivienne Leheny:

For over two decades, Vivienne Leheny has worked professionally in New York City and Los Angeles as an actor, voiceover artist and writer. She’s appeared on Off-Broadway and regional theatre stages, been screened at numerous film festivals (including Sundance in the 2019 opening night film: AFTER THE WEDDING), toured the northeast doing stand-up, and her writing has been published in national publications.

Vivienne has built a successful audiobook narration business, reading under her own name as well as under the pseudonyms, “Nola Zandry” and “Lily Collingwood.” She has a home studio and records using punch & roll software. Currently narrating six ongoing series, she also has numerous stand-alone book narrations, all of which are doing brisk sales on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. She’s narrated titles for Harper Collins, Macmillan, Recorded Books, and Simon & Schuster, among other audiobook publishers.

Vivienne will soon be recording her 150th audiobook narration.

Her audiobook narration course, The Voice in their Ear, has been a sell-out Maine Media Workshops+College, where she’s also taught her Putting Your Voice to Work: Building a Career in Voiceover curriculum, while her Breaking Into Audiobooks seminar for the SAG Foundation fills up quickly and with long wait lists. She’s also taught audiobook narration at the Caymichael Patten Studio.

She’s recorded over a thousand promotions for NBC programming (Saturday Night Live, Nightly News, Days of our Lives, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), including over a decade with The Today Show. She’s also done promotional spots for HBO, Showtime, and Bravo. Vivienne has voiced numerous national commercial campaigns, including Coca Cola, Fruit of the Loom, Florida Orange Juice, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Maxwell House and Revlon.

Her narration work has run the gamut, from Chain Gang Girls on Oxygen to Charles and Di: Once Upon a Time on TLC, from Fine Living’s Esquire’s Man at His Best to the six-part series Killer Outbreaks on Animal Planet, where she was the voice of the Bubonic Plague and West Nile Virus. She’s also the voice for the mysterious and disturbing “Phoenix Project” in the popular video game Assassin’s Creed, Unity.

www.vivienneleheny.com | twitter | facebook | goodreads

FTC Disclosure:
The ebook and audiobook were bought with private funds.
No money received for this review.

Sunday 10 March 2024

WILD KNIGHT

Wild Knight by Annabel Chase
Book 1 in the Midnight Empire: The Tower series
Narrated by Suzanne Elise Freeman
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Wild Knight:

In a world of darkness where royal vampires are in charge, I spend my days working as a knight in the city formerly known as London. Instead of a lance and a horse, I rely on my trusty axe, Babe, and ride the occasional dragon. Every day new threats emerge that require a dash of magic and a dollop of attitude.

Good thing I have both.

Naturally danger comes with the territory. What no one knows is just how dangerous it is for me. If our vampire overlords discover what I am, they’ll execute me on the spot — no questions asked — which is why I avoid them at all costs.

Until now.

If only this one didn’t have a lethal reputation, a princely pedigree, and a quest that leads to more questions than answers. The heat between us doesn’t help matters.

Unfortunately I can’t refuse a royal command, so I’m stuck until the job is complete.

And even if the job doesn’t kill me, the truth just might.

Source: Info in the About Wild Knight was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59513802-wild-knight on 11/05/2022.

Buy Link(s):

Trio

My Thoughts:

Hey! This book actually has a plot! How about that??!

The first book that I read of this author is the Endless Knight and I enjoyed it so I went digging for more books by this author and found out that the Midnight Empire: The Restoration is in fact an off-shoot series from this one, Midnight Empire: The Tower series. I like reading books from the start. I'm kinda anal that way. So finding out that I read a book which is essentially the fifth book in the Midnight Empire series was a downer! I pouted!! I read this book anyway. And I'm glad that I did because I enjoyed this book too!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 4
Story itself = 4
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 4.5
World building = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = (6 hrs and 57 mins listening time)
Plot = 4
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

Books In The Midnight Empire: The Tower Series:

Amazon

Meet The Author

About Annabel Chase:

Annabel Chase is the author of urban fantasy and cozy mystery novels. She would love to live in a magical town where she can shop at Ready-to-Were for the the perfect outfit, flirt with hot angels and vampires, and cook gourmet meals without exerting any effort.

The Narrator

About Suzanne Elise Freeman: