Mary

I thoroughly enjoyed The Twelve Clues of Christmas and am looking forward to more Rhys Bowen Royal Spyness novels. This is the first I have read in the series. The story moves quickly and is engaging all the way. If you enjoy entertaining mystery novels, I highly recommend this one. The narrator, Katherine Kellgren, is excellent and I look forward to listening to more of her narrations, including this series. Great fun book!

I really enjoyed this book. It was a lot of fun combined with mystery and suspense creating a fun lighter spy novel. Barbara Rosenblat narrates beautifully and brings the book even more to life. This is the first Mrs. Pollifax novel I have read (not the first in the series, but the first I have "read") and was delighted to find it and I am eager to purchase more of these books. Mrs. Pollifax is a wonderful character and the other characters in the novel are also interesting and entertaining. I greatly recommend!

I was disappointed in this listening experience. As this is an historical account of actual events during WWI, the narrator read it much too fast for my preference. It made it difficult to absorb many of the details of the information and difficult to understand some of her words at times. I felt like the reading was taking place under time constraints or as a contest in speed-reading the book. Additionally, the narrator added more characterization and dramatization than I found preferable for an historical account. I was relieved to finish the book (which seemed to take 3 times longer than actual time). The book itself provided a lot of information regarding this particular event and multiple events and scenarios prior to the telegram. It included many years prior to the telegram and, for me, it seemed more than necessary. Or perhaps if the narration was better for this type of book, it would have proved more interesting.
I recently finished "A World Undone" written by G.J. Meyer and narrated by Robin Sachs. It is a complete account of WWI and though it is lengthy, both the book and narration were very well done and held my interest. I thought The Zimmerman Telegram would be a good supplement to it, but I could have skipped it...this version at least. Perhaps if the book was shorter and/or had more effective narration, I would have enjoyed it.

I truly enjoyed listening to this biography of a most extraordinary woman/person. It was a great listen about the life and heroism of a woman who often seemed to "stumble" onto the amazing and fascinating path her life followed. She was a woman of great tenacity, perseverance, and courage as well as flair and wit. The book spans her entire life but is primarily focused on the period prior to and during WWII. I am glad the book covered her early and later life as well. I highly recommend this book and would enjoy reading more books about similarly extraordinary real women during WWII and otherwise.

Wonderful story and narrator! The only issues I have had with this recording/narrating is the balance of sound. From time to time, the narrator's voice is softer and I need to increase the volume to fully hear what she has said. I am not sure if this is just the narrator or if the engineering of the recording could have addressed this issue. Otherwise, the book and recording are terrific!

I was taken with this book about a young woman's life in 17th c. Iran. The narrator was quite good, though there were a few issues with English pronunciation and not being able to understand what she was actually saying at first. However, most of the mispronounced words I could still understand or decipher through the context, though there were a few along the way I did not understand. Still a very well performed narration and could certainly listen to another narration by Aghdashloo. The basic story was reasonably good and the setting in 17th c. Iranian culture including the rug-making aspects were quite interesting. I enjoyed her overall writing style and found it beautifully descriptive which helped the story to flourish as well. The side narratives (stories told by the characters) were a little hit and miss for me...some truly engaged me and others seemed to be more of a distraction from the main narrative: I would say that mostly the side narratives added to the book for me. Overall, I definitely recommend!

This is the first Debbie Macomber book I have "read" and will likely be the only one. The writing is simply not very good for an adult level book. Perhaps it has been written as such with the intention of being family oriented, but frankly I doubt children would be interested in the storyline. The premise of the story held promise, but the book simply does not hold up. The writing is quite simplistic and often redundant. It serms there is very little effort put into describing the characters feelings and experiences. For instance, several times she describes characters reacting by "frowning" rather than more accurately describing if they are upset, angry, puzzled, distressed, etc...there are a number of emotions which could elicit a frown, but she simply does not make the effort to be more descriptive or expansive. The author was also repetitive in her general writing style throughout the book. The idea of the story is pleasant enough and I like uplifting stories, but this was a disappointment. I agree with previous reviews that the angels were portrayed as being very dumb...yet continually commenting on how slow-witted humans are!
The narrator affected my experience as well. The accents seemed possibly incorrect and at times inconsistent. The voice she used for the lead male character of Aren sounded very strange. She tried to speak so low for his voice that very little emotion or inflection could be properly portrayed. "His" voice sounded both strained (constipated) and quite monotone (= boring) so it was VERY unappealing to listen to his parts of the story (which are frequent). The parts of the story with only females were much better. I would certainly recommend to the narrator to try not use such an extreme change in lowering her voice for male characters as it simply does not come across well in the way it was done on this audiobook. The general narration as well as the story I often experienced as too syrupy and shallow.
The resolution between Aren and Lucie occurred, once again, in an over simplistic and unrealistic way. Additionally, for a contemporary book, the way it concluded was very provincial and conservative (narrow-minded even) as far as how the future would play out for the female, Lucie.
I had hoped for more after seeing and generally enjoying a few TV movies based on Debbie Macomber books, but this book did not deliver for me and I get the sense that the movies are perhaps transformed quite a bit from her books (unless this one is entirely different from the others).
Wish I had had a better experience with this one!

I very much enjoyed this book. I love the movie Being There with Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine...it is one of my favorite movies. The movie is quite true to the book overall and I can generally see the reasons for the changes they made for the movie. Peter Sellers performance was superb. In the book, you can really delve into the thoughts of the lead character, Chance the gardener, which is great! I think the movie creates an excellent portrayal, but a book can reveal more "silent" detail as this one does. Dustin Hoffman performs an excellent narration for this book. I feel he portrays the natural tone of it very well: I could say it is a more subdued or subtle narration which was ideal while still being interesting, entertaining and enjoyable for listening. Highly recommend both this audiobook and the movie!!

So glad I purchased this audiobook...I am looking forward to seeing it on screen even more so now that I listened to this wonderful audiobook. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I enjoyed the story overall, but it dragged on in places as I found myself easily distracted at times. It became a bit too preachy for me...especially after having already read the previous 2 books in this series. The "eyes to see and ears to hear" statement was ultimately repeated far too often...as if the reader is either quite dense or forgetful! I am happy to have read the books and am interested in the subject matter, though it perhaps could have been accomplished in a less lengthy format. The narrator was fine, however personally I preferred the narrator for the first 2 books. If the subject matter interests you, I do recommend the series.