Blackberry Winter

A Novel

By: Sarah Jio

Narrated by: Tara Sands

Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Seattle, 1933: Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, good night and reluctantly leaves for work. She hates the night shift, but it’s the only way she can earn enough to keep destitution at bay. In the morning - even though it’s the second of May - a heavy snow is falling. Vera rushes to wake Daniel, but his bed is empty. His teddy bear lies outside in the snow.

Seattle, present day: On the second of May, Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge awakens to another late-season snowstorm. Assigned to cover this "blackberry winter" and its predecessor decades earlier, Claire learns of Daniel’s unsolved abduction and vows to unearth the truth - only to discover that she and Vera are linked in unexpected ways.

©2012 Sarah Jio (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Narrator

I wish the narrators of audible books would just read the books instead of acting out the characters with different voices.
I listened to a book that Tom Hanks narrated and he read it well without using weird voices for different characters and it was so much easier to listen to and enjoy.

Had to skip to the end!

The narrator killed this book for me...He said....she said really?! Stop using different voices for the characters if you are going to read every word!

Overacted Narration, Cheesy Writing, Predictable

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Perhaps people who like a highly emotionally-charged book, but don't care for literary-style writing. Perhaps someone with children. But, honestly, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone I know.

What was most disappointing about Sarah Jio’s story?

It was bothersome how everything just seemed to be such a coincidence, but each "twist" and "turn" was really predictable. The characters the protagonist meets are too convenient to helping her in her story. So much so that it became annoying.

When she tried to create a scene that was light-hearted, or funny, (which the protaganist's best friend was supposed to do) it came off as cheesy, clunky, and unnatural.

The cliche critique of the wealthy and entire theme of the book being poor vs. rich also got old. There are plenty of well-written books about the plight of the poor that don't spell it out so obviously and simply, citing each time a person with any money does something terrible, or would do something terrible, and contrasting it with a person with little means doing something wonderful or having a good heart. It's as if the author believes the reader is too stupid to pick up on what she is trying to say.

What didn’t you like about Tara Sands’s performance?

Her voice quavered the entire time, whether the characters were upset or scared, or happy (which, admittedly, was rare). She over-acted, which got pretty irritating. She definitely varied her voices & some might say she did it well, I just didn't care for her voices & theatrics.

Slogging Through It

I am having a run of bad luck with books!

YET AGAIN a somewhat promising idea turns out to be a sappy, badly written book. UGH. It was so flat and not realistic at all; people don’t speak that way in real life! Not people you’d want to spend time with anyway… it struck me as what a child’s idea is of how grown-ups talk.

I kept reading because I am stubborn about finishing books, and I always hope that despite the eye-rolling, predictable, cliché and banal dialogue – there might be a redeeming story buried down deep in there somewhere!! But it was a lot of sappy drama to slog through – barely worth it.

I concede that perhaps it was the narrator that ruined it for me. Her overly-dramatic over-acted performance was just too much.

At the risk of sounding obnoxious, I would qualify this book as a “Beach Read”. Lower your standards. Think: light & fluffy and you might not be as disappointed.

...And a Long Whiney Winter It Was

This novel is highly praised at many review sites. I can’t imagine how so many people fell down this long contrived tunnel and came up claiming it a good read. Some of the labored manipulating of the plot is really so unnecessary. The author forces comparisons using magically appearing contrived characters that leave to never appear again just as fast. To show relationship the author mentions a bracelet that the 1933 protagonist and the current one mention so often and so forced that when it later becomes as a point that is not a surprise and has long lost all meaning. Chapters are spent for no other reason but to work in that the two generations ate the same meal.


This is a fine example of the role of the narrator when reading through an audiobook. The languished writing, the highly concocted plot, and the predictability of this book were negatively enhanced by the overacting of the narrator and her labored voice repertoire.