Mandy

Reach for the Dead, Book 1

By: Shani Struthers

Narrated by: Penny Scott-Andrews

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Fall in love with a brand-new set of books from the author of the best-selling Psychic Surveys and This Haunted World series.

There is a doll. There is a legend...

When museum curator Annie Hawkins walks into a diner in Idaho Falls, seeking the help of 22-year-old Shady Groves with an old broken doll named Mandy, life takes a dramatic turn for both of them. Psychometry is the ability to sense or read the history of an object just by touching it, and Annie has heard Shady has this psychic ability.

Mandy may look harmless, but Annie believes she’s possessed and, after handling her, Shady can only agree. She feels tainted by the doll that now invades her thoughts and dreams, terrifying her. There’s only one solution: to understand the doll, her history, what has possessed her, and why. Knowledge is power, Annie tells Shady. It’s protection.

The pair set off on a road trip - along with Shady’s old high school friend Ray - one that will take them from Idaho into the depths of Canada, desperate to trace Mandy’s past, to find out something, anything, about the demonic doll that accompanies them in the trunk of the car.

The truth, when it comes, is far deadlier than any of them could have realized.

©2020 Shani Struthers (P)2020 Shani Struthers

Entertaining but not scary. Distracting narrator

The hardest part for me was the narrator. I think it may have been her attempt at imitating a regional accent. But her pronunciation of certain words kept taking me out of the story and her character voices are a bit...one-note?

The story was fine; a bit predictable until the very end. I didn't find it spooky or scary at all. I appreciate that the author used her platform to mention the injustice towards indigenous people in North America (if that's not your thing, don't worry, it doesn't really distract from the story). Overall a decent story, but I wouldn't read/listen a second time.

Please go back to Sheila for narration.

The narrator had an exceedingly strange accent (trying to hide another accent). It unfortunately detracted from the story, which was very good.

Loved the story, really dislike the narrator

I was hoping that this was supposed to be taking place in Great Britain after seeing who the narrator was. I was sorely disappointed. This narrator tries overly hard with her narrations when she doesn't have to fake an american accent. Adding the fake american accent on top of it leads to numerous words mispronounced, or having a strange pronunciation to them. She did not research how many American words are pronounced. For example, mall. Most Americans pronounce it mawl. In Britain, it is pronounced mal. She makes the main character whiney and really annoying. I honestly didn't care if the character made it. I just wanted the whine to stop.

Shani Struthers Doesn't Disappoint!

I will admit it took me a handful of chapters to commit to investing into Shani's take on haunted objects. Speaking as a Shani Struthers "fan girl", this is new territory. She does right by the topic of spiritual transference into objects, and gives them a platform to share the story that created the darkness!
I especially found touching that Shani sheds some light on the injustice upon the Indigenous People of North America. I look forward to more in this series, and hope Shady, Annie, and Ray return as series regulars as with Psychic Surveys.

On the narration by Penny Scott Andrews,nice job with the (Northern)North American accent! I could tell she was British, but she pulled it off believably enough!

Good grief, the narrator.....

In my view, a narrator cannot make a book, but the narrator can certainly break a book. That was the case here. I could not finish. The narrator’s dialect was off. It was as if she was trying to hide her own accent and not being at all successful. Plus, her pronunciation of various words differed through the half of the book I got through. Even worse was her cadence. Her voice is monotonous and much too breathy. What little inflection there was was misplaced. I am not sure whether the story itself was good or not. I could not stand one single minute more of the narration. I suppose that means the story wasn’t that good. I hope Ms Struthers engages a new narrator. I may give her another try then.