Review: THE BURNING SOUL

The Burning Soul by John Connolly
Read by George Guidall and Tony Ward
Book 10 of Charlie Parker series
Genre: paranormal crime fiction
Format: hardback, unabridged audiobook

About The Burning Soul:

Randall Haight has a secret: when he was a teenager, he and his friend killed a 14-year-old girl.

Randall did his time and built a new life in the small Maine town of Pastor's Bay, but somebody has discovered the truth about Randall. He is being tormented by anonymous messages, haunting reminders of his past crime, and he wants private detective Charlie Parker to make it stop.

But another 14-year-old girl has gone missing, this time from Pastor's Bay, and the missing girl's family has its own secrets to protect. Now Parker must unravel a web of deceit involving the police, the FBI, a doomed mobster named Tommy Morris, and Randall Haight himself.

Because Randall Haight is telling lies . . .

Source: Info in the About The Burning Soul was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9721102-the-burning-soul on 02/11/2012.

Review:

This book started out rather slow for me which was a bit of a disappointment after having just came off the excitement of The Whisperers (Book 9). So I stopped-and-started and it made it seem like this book was a whole lot longer than the 13 hours it was suppose to be.

I've listened to audiobooks with two narrators once before and I was happy with Jenna Lamia and David Ledoux in Shiver. But for some reason, in this case it took a lot of getting used to. A lot. And sometimes the two narrators confused me because they seem to sound almost alike except for the "ish" sound that one of them makes when he gets tired. Or it gets more obvious as he reads along. This distinctly diminished my enjoyment of the book. I practically end up reading the paperback with only intermittent bouts of listening to the audiobook. This obviously brought the rating of the book down a bit.

I like the complex plot though. Unlike The Reapers where the plot is straight forward, this book is not. It's twisty and threw me a surprise or two. Layers of plot over plot. Multiple deception and motives. Evil forces coming from every direction. Lots and lots of kudos for a complex story!

This book might have started slow and even have a bit of a slag time in the middle, but by the end of it, I was looking forward to reading further and diving into The Wrath Of Angels!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4.5
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4
Pace = (12 hrs and 58 mins listening time)
Plot = 5
Narrators = 2.5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries

Review: THE UNQUIET

The Unquiet by John Connolly

Read by George Guidall
Book 6 of Charlie Parker series
Genre: paranormal crime fiction
Format: hardback & unabridged audiobook

About The Unquiet:

"But that is the nature of revenge. It escalates. It cannot be controlled. One hurt invites another, on and on until the original injury is all but forgotten in the chaos of what follows."John Connolly's originality and talent for storytelling have quickly made him one of today's preeminent thriller writers. Now, in "The Unquiet, " private detective Charlie Parker returns to untangle a horrifying story of betrayal, unclean desires, and murder -- a story of never-ending evil whose conclusion is not yet written.

Daniel Clay, a once-respected psychiatrist, has gone missing. His daughter insists that he killed himself after allegations surfaced that he had betrayed his patients to foul and evil men -- but when a killer obsessed with uncovering the truth behind his own daughter's disappearance comes seeking revenge, long-forgotten secrets begin to emerge. Hired by Dr. Clay's daughter to protect her from the predator on the loose, tortured and ingenious private detective Charlie Parker finds himself trapped between those who want the truth to be revealed and those who will go to any length to keep it hidden.

John Connolly masterfully intertwines secret lives and secret sins with the violence that so often lies beneath the surface of the honeycomb world in this gripping page-turner. Fast-paced, hypnotic, and elegantly written, The Unquiet is John Connolly at his chilling best.

Source: Info in the About The Unquiet was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175247.The_Unquiet on 28/10/2012.

Review:

George Guidall has a slurring or "-ish" quality to his words. I find that this is not to my liking. Don't get me wrong, the words are clear and distinct, they just have that slurring or "-ish" added sound to it. It took a lot of getting used to which I think contributed to my diminished enjoyment of this book.

I enjoyed the last book, The Black Angel, a lot but I've read neutral to negative reviews about this one so I was kinda dreading going into this book. Maybe it was my dread or maybe the expectation bar were set too high that this book is not a 5 out of 5 for me. Or it could also be due to a bit of confusion I encountered with this book. As in, in Book 1, I complained that the author has the tendency to go off tangent and confuse me. Then that feature sort of went away with subsequent books. However it came back with a vengeance in this book! John Connolly introduced a new character about three quarters into the book which left me wondering... "where did that one came from??!"....

The last book was all about the symbolism with human remains, i.e., bones. This book involved symbolism of dolls. Of course both books do involved the paranormal elements of the angels versus demons theme, or what other literary academics call as the "War In Heaven" theme. And it seems that things are moving along quicker now on that front (the paranormal element). Key players are being brought to the forefront and new developments seems to be happening. And me being a fantasy geek more than a crime fiction girl, is hooked and most likely would be reading this series quicker!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 4
Story itself = 3.5
Ending = 4.5
World building = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = N/A (14 hrs and 45 mins listening time)
Plot = 4
Narrator = 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

Thank you to RCT Library for letting me borrow the hardback edition of this book.

FTC Disclosure:
The audiobook edition was purchased with private funds. The hardback edition was borrowed from the library. No money received for this review.