The Rachel Prince Mystery Series, Books 7-9

Rachel Prince Mysteries Collection, Book 3

By: Dawn Brookes

Narrated by: Alex Lee

Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

When Rachel cruises, there's always trouble afoot....

Honeymoon Cruise Murder: It's meant to be the honeymoon of her dreams. Rachel and Carlos have finally tied the knot but their honeymoon spirals out of control when murder interrupts marital bliss. The situation is made worse when Carlos receives a mysterious phone call from an old flame. Will Rachel find the killer and hold on to her new husband with chaos all around? Murder and mayhem are never far away when Rachel takes a cruise.

A Murder Mystery Cruise: It was supposed to be a relaxing voyage with a fun theatre theme. But the curtain just went up on murder… Rachel Jacobi-Prince is happy to be going on another cruise with her octogenarian friend, Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe. Though she’s less than thrilled with her companion’s gift of a four-day onboard murder-mystery event. And play soon turns to work when a thespian’s death scene becomes a scary reality. With a slew of suspects who each have motives, Rachel fears she could be too late to stop the killer’s next target from disembarking in a body bag. Can she expose a murderer before the final act ends in tragedy?

Hazardous Cruise: A saboteur is on board the Coral Queen. Rachel Jacobi-Prince risks all by going undercover to track down a determined killer. On this voyage Rachel discovers a crew under pressure. Not only is Waverley worried what the saboteur will do next, he's received a spate of personal threats. When Rachel's new boss is found dead it appears the saboteur has upped the ante. Buried beneath lies, suspects and conflicting evidence, Rachel struggles to unravel a complex web of deceit. When she finds herself isolated and under attack, Rachel has to call on all her reserves to work through a complex case. Can the clever sleuth find out who is behind these unusual incidents before she too becomes a target?

©2020, 2021 Dawn Brookes (P)2021 Dawn Brookes

Please, no more sound effects!

I have listened to hundreds of books (thousands if you count all the repeated listens) and read countless more in my life, and I have developed my own criteria for judging them. How much I like them depends on several factors, including quality of story plot, story telling, narration (like tone, timbre, accents, male/female impersonation, pronunciation, etc.), and how quickly I leave this world and enter the author's world. Some books are very easy for me to enter, some take a little more effort, some are like giving birth (painful at times but I get there in the end), and a few are just never going to happen. This collection of Rachel Prince stories fits the third category.

I've read the first two collections (books 1-6) and thought they were pretty good. I'd never read this author or heard this narrator, so I wasn't sure how or if the series would appeal to me. I like my mysteries to have some meat to them, but not be filled with fluff (I'm an avid Agatha Christie fan so the bar is set rather high). Rachel Prince mysteries are enjoyable and I can relax with them. In the first six books, I became acquainted with all the characters and their backgrounds, got used to the narrator's delivery, and generally liked the books. But that changed with this collection.

In the first six books, one of the main characters had a habit of coughing/throat clearing when they were stressed, and the character was stressed all the time! The narrator would actually fake-cough whenever the character did so in the story, in addition to reading the descriptive words. This was a jarring interruption. The first time I heard it, I thought it was an accident, that the narrator actually cleared her throat and it was a bad editing job. But no, the fake throat clearing/coughing was repeated throughout the two collections. Irritating but I got used to it.

However, in this collection, the narrator upped her game and included shrill fake "laughs" whenever any character chortled, chuckled, giggled, laughed quietly, laughed heartily, etc. And there was A LOT of laughing! I don't know who told the narrator to do that, but I struggled mightily to finish these last three stories. In fact, I listened to other books in between listening to the three in this collection, just to give my ears a rest. I asked other reader friends if they had ever heard this being done in audio books, and not one of them had, or would want to!

Overall, I enjoyed this collection just as I did the earlier six books, but if I want to continue this series, I will read, not listen to, the future books. I hope the addition of sound effects does not become a growing trend, as it would put me off audio books altogether!