A Murder in Time

Kendra Donovan Mysteries Series, Book 1

By: Julie McElwain

Narrated by: Lucy Rayner

Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

Beautiful and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered, and she herself is severely wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates.

While fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell that promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same place - Aldrich Castle - but in a different time: 1815, to be exact.

Mistaken for a lady's maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a young girl is found on the extensive grounds of the county estate, she starts to feel there's some purpose to her bizarre circumstances. Stripped of her 21st century tools, Kendra must use her wits alone in order to unmask a cunning madman.

©2016 Julie McElwain (P)2017 Tantor

Competent heroine, decent story, lousy narration

Female FBI agent runs into trouble, makes a questionable decision, ends up in 1815 England, where she has to put her profiling and investigating skills to work without technology or backup. The plot is not too shabby. It was easy to figure out who the killer was NOT, but not so easy to identify who it was - or why. Nice blend of fantasy and reality - our Kendra is just lucky she fell in with such a hotbed of women's rights advocates. Also, be warned, this is not for the squeamish.

Nice plot but much too long. The modern day lead-in could have been cut by at least fifty percent, and the rest could have used some judicious editing. I did enjoy Kendra's confusion and education into how the household staff was organized.

Lucy Rayner is not an awful narrator but she was just not up to the demands of this book. The first part is set in America and the accents were so bad I almost quit listening. Once they got to England, the male voices were not very good either. The two male leads both sounded like they were auditioning for a title role in Beauty and the Beast. Rayner needs to stick to British historical romances.

I didn't hate it, and I did finish it, though I stopped halfway through and listened to something else before going back to it. Not something I would listen to a second time, but I'll probably get the sequel if there is one.

Ugh! The Narration is ruining this book!

Granted, I'm not very far into this book, but the narrator is RUINING it for me. She has terrible accents, voice changes, and pronunciations. Also, her voice inflections don't reflect what is happening in the story. I love audiobooks but a bad narrator just ruins a (potentially) great book.

Narration awful

I cannot tell you if the story was good or not because I was so distracted by the narration.

Narration ruined the story

I wanted to like it but after torturing myself for an hour listening I had to give up. Volume of narrator jumps all over the place as well as being over-acted. The plot got lost and narrative gave me a headache. I would have been better off reading the kindle version.

The story line was interesting

I realize that reading an entire book out loud is difficult. I was extremely disappointed in the choice of narrator with this book. I couldn’t even listen long enough to the narrator to get past one chapter. I found the story line interesting enough that I bought the book elsewhere to read and enjoyed it.

Can't deal with the narrator

I couldn't tell you if this book is good or not, as I could not get past the narrator. Only made it through about two hours before I had to stop.

Narrator ruined this book

Story was sounding good but the narration hurt my ears. Returned the book. Just could not hang with it.

Horrible narration

I actually retuned this book because I couldn’t listen to the horrible Mary Poppins accent, then made the mistake of buying it again because the story sounds intriguing, but I’ll never know because I can’t listen to it.

UGH

Absolutely hated the narration. 30 mins in and I could NOT bear another ridiculous attempt at an accent by this woman. For only the second time in 9 years I am going to ask for a refund (first time I double bought the book by mistake).

Time traveling female FBI agent

I loved the story but the narrates cadence when not in character didn't work for me. I found it very distracting.

Play the narration at x1.25 and it’s great!

I’ve had this narrator before and she is actually extremely good! The key is that you need to set the speed to x1.25 and she no longer sounds “drawn out” but you’ll then get to enjoy a great pace with lots of good character voices.

It is also incredibly worth the effort as the book is superb and very gripping! Great concept and addictive listening :-)

Terrible Narrator

Great story thoroughly ruined by the awful narration. The slow, affected, over-the-top voice is so grating I could barely listen for ten minutes. I feel sorry for the author.

Should have read the book

Really enjoyed the story of this book, the idea of the time twist. However the narrator was awful and I found the voice they used detracted from my enjoyment of the book.