Just One Look

By: Harlan Coben

Narrated by: Angela Dawe, Luke Daniels

Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

An ordinary snapshot causes a mother’s world to unravel in an instant. After picking up her two young children from school, Grace Lawson looks through a newly developed set of photographs. She finds an odd one in the pack: A mysterious picture from perhaps twenty years ago, showing four strangers she can’t identify. But there is one face she recognizes—that of her husband, from before she knew him.

When her husband sees the photo that night, he leaves their home and drives off without explanation. She doesn’t know where he’s going, or why he’s leaving. Or if he’s ever coming back. Nor does she realize how dangerous the search for him will be. Because there are others interested in both her husband’s past and that photo, including Eric Wu: A fierce, silent killer who will not be stopped from finding his quarry, no matter who or what stands in his way.

Her world turned upside down, filled with doubts about her herself and marriage, Grace must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past as she struggles to learn the truth, find her husband, and save her family.

©2004 Harlan Coben (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Great story, horrible narraration

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The narrarator! Angela Dawe's voice is so bland and boring and it almost sounded like she was trying to sound that way on purpose.

How could the performance have been better?

One narrarator. There is no need for two; we know there are many characters in the book and that this is just someone reading the book.

Good book but narration was distracting

The female narrator did a fine job performing the characters’ roles, but when performing the narrative portions, the unending lilt is grating to the point of distraction.

Never again will I buy without reading reviews

I love Harlan Coben but the female narrator is horrible. Her strident, flat tone is so distracting and annoying! I’m going to go listen to a recording of nails on a chalkboard to ease my ears.

Woman reader

The woman reader’s voice and style of speaking and accenting words was grinding to the point that I almost stopped listening. But the story was too good to give up.

Worst narration EVER.

I wish I would have read these reviews first. They are spot on with their critique of the narration.

I listen to a lot of audible books and have never found a narrator to be so grating, irritating, and downright terrible as this one was. Her cadence and inflection are so annoying that I had trouble focusing on the story. She ended every sentence by adding 2-3 syllables to a word and doing a weird emphasis on the middle of that last word. My son walked in while I was listening and asked me what was wrong with the person reading. He thought it was like the computer generated voice on the WAYZ app on his phone. Terrible reading skills aside, her acting ability is that of a 5th grader. The male reader was fine and i found that i couldn't wait for the parts where he spoke. A narrator should enhance a story, not detract from it.

I do not like being so blunt, but it was that bad. I almost abandoned the book, but Harlan Cobin stories are are my favorite and I paid 21$ to listen. You should really refund everyone their money for this awful performance.

Great story

As usual a great story from Harlan Coben!
I did enjoy the performance except Angela Dawe made me loose focus a lot , the way she reads is very distracting to me.
It’s the first time I actually did not enjoy a Narrators reading

Many hidden twists

The story is complex with many characters. One of Coben's very (many) good ones.
The disappointment was the female narrator. Virtually every sentence ended with either an oddly higher pitched penultimate syllable or a last word that she drew out to make virtually 2 syllables. Sing songy and really irritating.

Now I Talk Funny

Angela Dawes was the worst!! Unfortunately I’ve been making fun of her ODD way of speaking so much I’m act actually drawing out one-syllable words as 2 syllables!!! Yikes!!! Give me a decent narrator to get her out of my head!!

Horrible female narrator

I never quite review & I'm only a few chapters in but this female narrator is so bad I don't know if I'll be able to finish. She sounds like she was told to wine every line. Her vocalizations don't match the words at all. I literally flinched when she first came on. I have no idea how she got the position - she sounds like a snotty high schooler being forced to read a paper in front of the class & is really pissed to be there. Wish me luck getting through the rest... 🤞

Enthralled

The story line is so gripping that the performance is bearable, I’ll happily recommend this to my friends.