Friday, October 5

Audiobook Review: Secret of the Wolf by Susan Krinard

Author: Susan Krinard
Narrator: Vanessa Hart
Title: Secret of the Wolf (Historical Werewolf #3)
Genre: Historical Romance, Paranormal, Fantasy
Pages: Audiobook
Published: January 1st 2001 
Where I Got It: My shelf (Audible)

Amid the lush vineyards and majestic hills of Napa Valley, hypnotist Johanna Schell has founded Der Hafen--a sanctuary for those who know the pain of being "different." For desperate, frightened people whose souls are lost to grief. For lonely, tortured men like Quentin Forster....

Frightening spells of amnesia have plagued Quentin for years, and Johanna wants nothing more than to ease his unspeakable pain--and find out if his claim to werewolf blood is just a delusion. But she is horrified to discover that, under hypnosis, this tender, thoughtful man becomes violent, vengeful ...evil. And now--caught in the balance between reality and illusion, truth and deception, simple desire and absolute destruction--she must find the courage to trust him. To love him. To save him... 


Finally back on track with this series. I read the first two and now this one. I've been nervous about Quentin's book because I liked him (from what I remember) and know he has a lot of demons and I was scared. 

But yes, Quentin is the twin of Rowena (from book 2) and the younger brother of Brandon (book 1). He ran away to America for a numerous amount of reasons. The main is that he is having issues with his brain. He drinks and blacks out. He has lots of blank spots in his memory and he is suffering. During one of his blackouts, he finds himself waking up in a bed of a sanctuary and a woman doctor, Johanna, who is there to help him. 

It was a curious and unique storyline. Not a lot happens at first. We get to meet all the patients along with our hero and heroine. I liked that a lot! It was nice to feel like I was there. It was really fun. The patients all have their own issues. I want to see more of them in the future. Maybe some short stories! Especially Logan (?gods I am blanking on his full name). There has to be more to his story! That actress needed a good kick in the romp. I get she is insane and full of delusion....but she is mean. HORRIBLE. I liked Louis even though he is a psycho priest. May was cute. Johanna's dad was cute. I feel so bad for him. 

Okay - enough about the side characters. 

Quentin was sweet. I liked him. 

Johanna was a fun character. I liked her a lot. I saw a lot of myself in her, but she is for sure the doctor version of me. I'm not smart enough for that ;)

The drama was good and you could see it slowly coming but what could anyone do? So good. I loved it. It was well paced. Sure it takes to get there, but there was a lot of character building, world-building, and tension to be built. It was so good. I had no idea how everything was going to be fixed. 

The romance was done well too. 

I do have ONE issue with the ending...I wanted more of an epilogue. Like...what do they do?  Do they go to England? Do they stay? Maybe there will be more of a conclusion for them in the next book? I really want to know!!!!!!!

Now...the narrator...I had to grow to like her voice. It was hard to hear her half of the time and some of her accents were off. The American and German were okay. The Russian and English? Ehhh. For the accents she could do, she did well and I enjoyed that. So yes - not a huge fan. 

In the end, I enjoyed this quite a bit! I wanted more of a conclusion and the narrator was eh to me. However, the story and characters! Loved it. I would encourage reading the other two before this one though. Not a great standalone for sure. Now....the rating???? I will still give it a 5 since the story and characters outshined the two issues I had. 







2 comments:

Blodeuedd said...

Russian accents tend to be dreadful, I read one that I had to dnf cos the person just could not get it right. They become too stereotypical

Carole Rae said...

Yess they are rough. This one sounded more German.