spoilt by the narrator

These are good light hearted stories but the naarator...ugh. That voice! Far too high pitched and grating. Might be ok reading children's stories. I had to return this one and buy it on kindle.

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The most engaging reverend you'll ever meet!

Reverend Annabelle starts off turning a city parish around, but hankers for the country - so from the second book she's taken up a residency in a Cornish village where her talent for tripping over dead bodies brings her and Inspector Mike Nicholls head to head a little too often for her peace of mind ...

A wonderful series of thoroughly engaging mysteries that, as the author says, won't scare you to death - but will no doubt have you laughing as Reverend Annabelle makes her madcap way through to a thoroughly satisfying solution each time!

I 'read' an ARC copy of these books and this review is my honest opinion.

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loved it

I have fallen in love with Annabelle. it has been a brilliant series. I love that she just happens to be involved or discovering murders. it is also a love story between the vicar and the police officer. Set in some very lovely locations. In felt like I was right there with annbelll each step. A great listen.

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Spoiled by dreadful narration

Wow! This narrators voice is high pitched - as I gathered from other reviews and the snippet I could listen to before purchasing- but boy does it get squeaky! Im having to fast-forward through swathes of these books because the narrators chosen voices for some characters are positively ear splitting! I’m stunned that the author had all the books narrated by the same person. Imagine a female children’s tv presenter doing a “mouse voice” and you’ve got it! It’s absolutely unbearable in places. I’m going to slow the narration speed down to x0.7 and attempt to plough through the rest of them because the stories themselves seem quite interesting.

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Screaming female voices

These may be good stories in a genre where one does not expect too much seriousness and realism. Cosy Crime is for relaxation and entertainment, after all. But the reader of these books makes the female characters sound like children’s TV at its worst, and brings the stories into caricature. Especially the nun Mary sounds like a stupid 5-year old. A less “cartoonish” approach on the the readers part would have brought the book within what I could have swallowed. I gave the first book a chance, but then decided I could not stand any more and tried to return the title, which was not possible for this book. Now I am stuck with 33 more hours of screaming, and my credit is lost.

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Disappointing

I turned the speed down to 65% which helped quite a lot with the rapid and rather high pitched squeaky narration. I don't think I've ever used this feature before, because I've never needed to. It was a desperate attempt to improve the narration and I was pleasantly surprised how much it improved this book. I wonder if there has been a mistake with the original recording speed.
Sadly, despite doing this, and although I usually really enjoy who-dunnits in the cosy genre, I just can't seem to get involved in the plots (which seem clunky) or care about the characters (which I didn't find very believable).
I'm not even sure I will finish this audio book which is rare for me, and I certainly won't buy any more of these.
I'm sorry to give an audio book such a negative first review. It may delight someone else.
Note: the blurb says there's no swearing. There is a bit.

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