*Have You Heard? * Audiobooks For Your Listening Pleasure* Blood Kiss by J. R. Ward

Posted December 10, 2015 by RobbieLea in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

*Have You Heard? * Audiobooks For Your Listening Pleasure* Blood Kiss by J. R. WardBlood Kiss (Black Dagger Legacy, #1) by J.R. Ward
Also by this author: The Shadows, The Bourbon Kings, The Bourbon Kings (The Bourbon Kings #1), The Beast (A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood), The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings, #2), The Chosen (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #15), Devil's Cut (The Bourbon Kings, #3), Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy, #2), Prisoner of Night (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #16.5), The Savior (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #17), The Sinner (Black Dagger Brotherhood #19), The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp, #1; Black Dagger Legacy, #5), A Warm Heart in Winter (Black Dagger Brotherhood #18.5), Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #19), Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #20), Lassiter (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #21)
Published by Signet, Penguin Audio on December 1st 2015
Genres: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 397
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 0451475321
ASIN: B00UG8RBGC
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five-stars
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The legacy of the Black Dagger Brotherhood continues in a spin-off series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author…
Paradise, blooded daughter of the king’s First Advisor, is ready to break free from the restrictive life of an aristocratic female. Her strategy? Join the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s training center program and learn to fight for herself, think for herself…be herself. It’s a good plan, until everything goes wrong. The schooling is unfathomably difficult, the other recruits feel more like enemies than allies, and it’s very clear that the Brother in charge, Butch O’Neal, a.k.a. the Dhestroyer, is having serious problems in his own life.
And that’s before she falls in love with a fellow classmate. Craeg, a common civilian, is nothing her father would ever want for her, but everything she could ask for in a male. As an act of violence threatens to tear apart the entire program, and the erotic pull between them grows irresistible, Paradise is tested in ways she never anticipated—and left wondering whether she’s strong enough to claim her own power…on the field, and off.

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audiobook1This  is a bit of an addendum since Lover Karen has already written a thorough review of the book with which I agree completely! Many thanks to J. R Ward for taking us back to the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood! This is pretty much a tribute to narrators in general and authors who use the same narrator for a series in particular. Because I have listened to all the books in the BDB series in audio, I’m just going to briefly address the importance of the narrator to these audiobooks. For me, when I listen to a book, the narrators voice for a character is one of my first steps to envisioning that character. I begin to form a mental image of the character based on the author’s written description, but just as I form an opinion of an unseen person whose voice I hear on the phone, the narrator’s voice for the character is key to feeling the characters temperament and attitude. I have listened to some series’ which had a different narrator for each book. If there are only a couple books in a series that probably isn’t a critical problem, but when you have a saga like the BDB with numerous books containing the same characters, it is very disconcerting to hear a favorite character, or even an unfavorite character, read in a different voice in each book. So, having said that, I say kudos to whoever chose Jim Frangione to narrate the series.  He has a great tough guy sounding voice that lends itself well to accents as well as the subtle nuances that must distinguish the female from the male voice when the narrator is a male reading a female part. I think readers will love hearing him do Butch O’Neal! Another of my favorites is the doggen Fritz. Frangione makes him sound so lovable, just as he makes the brothers sound so deadly. And Lassiter? His dialogue sounds just hilarious being read! For those who are intrigued by the art of narrating audiobooks, here is an interesting interview with Jim Frangione.

About The Narrator

Jim-Frangione

Jim has recorded over 100 audiobooks. He loves being part of the Recorded Books family. In addition to Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie Mysteries and his new young adult series, the Bowser and Birdie stories, he is also the narrator for J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood Series and many others. Jim is an NYC-based actor and co-artistic director of the Berkshire Playwrights Lab, a new play development forum in Great Barrington, MA. He’s performed on TV, in many of the plays and films of David Mamet, with NY’s Atlantic Theater Company, On and Off Broadway, and at many theaters across the country.

five-stars

About J.R. Ward

J.R. Ward is the number one New York Times bestselling author of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series of vampire books. She is a winner of the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA award for Best Paranormal Romance and is a multiple RITA nominee. A graduate of Smith College, she was a double major in History and Art History with a medieval concentration in both and she still longs at times for a return to those days sitting in dark lecture halls, looking at slides of old triptychs and reliquaries. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, she was a corporate attorney, serving for many years as the Chief of Staff of one of Harvard Medical Schools premier teaching sites. Her idea of absolute heaven is a day filled with nothing but her computer, her dog and her coffee pot and the Brothers, of course.

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