Unabridged audiobook. Narrator was an odd choice, there are a lot of young female characters and the narrator, Seán Barrett*, sounds like he looks like a grizzled British grandpa. (He had a great voice, just not particularly suited to this story). There are a lot of characters with names starting with M. I understand the reason behind the choice (not giving away spoilers), but I feel it could have been handled in a less confusing way. Interesting premise for a story, medium verging on slow pacing. I didn't fall asleep, always a plus.
*edited review solely because I initially typed the wrong narrator's name. Also I looked up the narrator and funnily enough, HE LOOKS exactly like he sounds!
Listened to unabridged audiobook. Narrator was fantastic, but the story was tedious and boring, extremely rural, pastoral setting, without the charm of a Lochdubh-esque (Hamish Macbeth series) village. The pacing is slow and there are a lot of animal husbandry and farming terms that might, or might not, be specific to the era or location of 1950s Lancashire (I can only say I read a lot and I was unfamiliar with them). Lastly, the choice of names - both of characters and locations made the plot harder to follow. (Betty Fells in the fells and fen, the Hoggetts and Hodges in High Gimmerdale and Hawkshead on holdings.). I don't feel I should need to keep notes about which name meant whom or what... And when the denouement came I couldn't remember which character they were talking about. Was Hawkshead a town or a name? Were they talking about a sheep or a farm implement? Who knows??
If you appreciate books in the way of the James Herriot's 'all creatures great and small' and Clark's 'the oxbow incident', I suspect you'll probably have a grand time.
Intriguing plot, interesting characters, although a bit convoluted, expected a fantastical ending and was let down and utterly confused.
Unabridged version, narrator, David Thorpe, was FANTASTIC. As in, I'm shocked he isn't more known and used. I forgot it was not a full cast audiobook.
Abridged original Francis Matthews version was fantastic, versions with Bill Nighty are a horror. (Nighty is a great narrator, The problem is he seemingly only narrates severely... Butchered, works. That is to say, works so edited and woke-ified they give little resemblance to the original item. (This is not limited to Simon Brett's series).
Unabridged version I could not get through, I fell asleep. 🤷♀️ (do plan on trying to read it, will see if It makes a difference).
Review applies to whole series.
Borrowed through LIBBY (OVERDRIVE / library)
Unabridged audiobook, narrator was fantastic, well written, ending was a letdown.
Review based on original version. Not woke post insane TV garbage show edited version.
boring.. characters were very immature and annoying (while series is set in high school, every other book/ hero/heroine in series is easy to imagine that they are in college, making it less creepy) . This book is a skip in an otherwise great series.
Written for college students on tiktok who liked the tripe sophmoric writing of EL James, who think they want it "dark" but really want it sanitized. MMC was supposed to be dark and dangerous- but what the reader "sees" is a guy that behaves like a beta playacting Too xxx for teens, but really that's who's going to enjoy this. Think the author got a checklist of what's going to offend the terminally offended, and tried to cut anything that might cause backlash. Storyline and characters could have been great. Too bad.
Read in 2 languages. It was just as funny in translation!
