A Gentle Rain

By: Deborah Smith

Narrated by: Suzy Harbulak

Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

A Connecticut heiress learns she's adopted and travels to northern Florida "cracker" cattle ranch to find her birth parents. There she also finds unexpected romance with the ranch's owner.

©2007 Deborah Smith (P)2012 BelleBooks, Inc.

Absolutely great!

This author knows how to make the reader fall in love (or hate) with the characters!
I enjoyed this outstanding book with unexpected twists and turns very much and will look for more books by Deborah Smith!

Get The Paperback, NOT the Audio

What disappointed you about A Gentle Rain?

As a native north Floridian, I was looking forward to this book but found myself very disappointed. This author massacres Florida geography; the book is replete with factual errors; the audio performance and editing are horrendous; and the writing was poorly edited.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

A lot of the story elements were fun, but then, a lot were completely unbelievable. There were numerous factual errors that greatly detracted from my enjoyment of the story.

How could the performance have been better?

I can't imagine how the performance could have been worse. I ended up getting the paperback version from the library to read along with the narrator because she was sooo bad. Her supposedly southern accent was beyond awful. She spoke very rapidly and did not even take a breath between book sections, so the transitions were impossible to follow. She turned the "accent" on and off inconsistently, so it was a struggle to know who was speaking. Someone should have taught her how to pronounce "Ocala," "Ponce de Leon," and various other words and place-names. She occasionally missed or rearranged the author's words. The places where the audio was edited and overdubbed were very obvious; one insertion was so loud it made me jump.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I enjoyed hearing about the Cracker horse, which just established a breed registry in 1989. I also enjoyed the story line overall. This book had the potential to be terrific, but was spoiled by poor research, poor editing, and a frankly terrible audio performance.

Any additional comments?

The book is a pleasant if flawed READ. Don't bother with the audio version.

Could not get into it

Just could not get into to this book. The narrator doesn't give enough voice differences to know which character is speaking. Had to quit listening after an hour.

Horrible Audio

Would you try another book from Deborah Smith and/or Suzy Harbulak?

I have read other Deborah Smith books and loved them... this book seemed a bit far fetched and predictable.

How could the performance have been better?

The audio was terrible. There so many voice-overs that it was distracting. The narrator's voice would have been better received had it not been for the poor audio quality.

Weirdest audiobook I've ever heard.

Would you try another book from Deborah Smith and/or Suzy Harbulak?

Probably not. The story was very far fetched. The author covered too many themes at one time--destruction of the environment, special needs people, and veganism, to name a few. The plot was overshadowed.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I will probably choose a work by an author and narrator that have already proven their craft to me.

What didn’t you like about Suzy Harbulak’s performance?

The quality of the recording was awful. The voiceovers were innumerable and very distracting. At times, she sounded as if she were at the bottom of a barrel. Also, her Spanish pronunciation was very inaccurate. I will definitely make sure she is NOT the narrator in any future audiobook I purchase.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I only paid $4.95 for it.

Did Not Like It.

Have read other books by Deborah Smith but this one is boring and I did not like the
narration. Skip it!