Calling on the Matchmaker

Shanahan Match, Book 1

By: Jody Hedlund

Narrated by: Susan Hanfield

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Haunted by the death of her sister, Finola Shanahan has resolved that she's not worthy of a family of her own and commits to spending her days caring for immigrants in the slums. Unwilling to consider marriage, Finola has perfected the ability to sabotage the relationships her parents arrange for her. At wit's end, her father calls upon the local Irish matchmaker, who pairs her with successful wagonmaker Riley Rafferty. After her usual tricks fail, Finola quickly realizes she can't outsmart or outwit the dashing, determined, and daring man.

A candidate in the St. Louis mayoral election, Riley is confident a union with the wealthy Shanahan family will help solidify his chances of winning—and even more assured he and Finola can make a difference together. When a cholera outbreak begins to take St. Louis by storm, they must navigate a burgeoning attraction and growing danger testing all they know about love and sacrifice.

©2023 Jody Hedlund (P)2023 Tantor

Good story - strong characters

Enjoyed the story - and Irish brogue but struggled to listen to the readers strange raspy voice and choppy narration.

Thoroughly Enjoyable

What a thoroughly enjoyable story! The plot and characters are both fun and interesting, and the narrator did an excellent job bringing it all to life. I am looking forward to the next book in this series.

loved loved loved

very good book. A little steamy but clean listen. the voice was weird like she was trying to be sultry maybe? it didn't sound right half the time but I seriously looked over that cause this was a good book

Clean romance

The story is great! Love the romance without the dirty bits. Narrator was good but a little more change in excitement and drama would have been good. Voices were great!

a great read

It was a good story, I enjoyed very much! I liked the narrator. He voice was pleasant. I will read this author again and again.

Trying to finish

This story is, so far, wonderful! However, the very muted, almost whisper like, depressed sounding narrator is ruining the story! She does great with the voices of the characters. However, her narration when she is not speaking for a character is so BORING that the listener almost misses the humor that the author has skillfully written into the story. Because the story is great, I will continue to try to finish this book. But, I am not even a 1/3 of the way in and might just have to give up, return this title, and order the written copy instead. I am hoping the sequel is read by a narrator with a bit more personality.

Not enough story

When I find myself skipping through a book I know it’s not for me. Way too much “tension” building in the characters minds and not enough plot.

Not really worth the credit.

TLDR: Painful accents, flat characters, lack of detail, Irish stereotypes, and a maddening amount of back and forth.
This book is riddled with cliches and nuanced garbage. There are some interesting ideas and historical knowledge that could have been better utilized and expanded upon.

Composing strange situations to set up the desired plot, this story is predictable and flat flat flat.
The naked scene hit my like a truck in the first moments of the book and if I hear the about Finola’s freckles and “soft curves” (what does that mean?) one more time, I think I’ll throw up.

Finola is the typical tragic damsel, who is so contradictory it’s not even funny(not to mention the fact that she’s Irish is forgotten constantly but pops up in strange bits of dialogue) . EDIT: It showed up in the last half of the book oddly enough but was again- terribly performed.
Riley is at some moments very real and convincing as a character but then the horrible voice acting comes in and ruins him.
If you have to tell me who these characters are, then you obviously don’t want to put in the time to develop them and show me who they are. Spend less time describing his ruddy cheeks and her brown hair and show me why she’s tragic through decent narrative and story events instead of just making it obvious and cliche. Maybe even rely on the reader to make connections instead of just stating them.

I kept reading, hoping it was just the beginning that was overly dramatized and cliche but nope it’s the whole story. There are a few moments that are steamy and fun but the general plot just goes up and down in quality.

The performance itself is terrible. Sounds like she has cotton in her mouth at times or is recording this while hiding in a closet. The Irish accent is atrocious and painful to listen to. I don’t know if she was trying to be sultry but it’s just so bad anything good within this story is ruined.
If you like surface level plots and cliched, flat characters, horrible accents, and pining, this is the read for you.

Calling the matchmaker

It took along time to get to the good part..the last 30 mins. I did not like the female lead at all..This book is very wordy..and my mind wondered alot...