Trusted Bond

Change of Heart, Book 2

By: Mary Calmes

Narrated by: Jeff Gelder

Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Jin Rayne is having trouble adjusting to the new life he’s supposed to love. Instead of adapting to being the mate of tribe leader Logan Church, Jin can't get past the fact that his lover was straight before they met. He's discovered the joy in belonging to Logan but fears his new life could disappear at a moment’s notice, despite Logan's insistence that they are forever, end of story.

Jin wants to trust Logan, but that desire will be put to the test both by a rival tribe leader and by a startling revelation about Jin's existence. At stake is Jin's life and his place in the tribe. If he's going to survive to see Logan again, he'll have to release his fear and freely accept the bond, for only then can he truly trust.

©2012 Mary Calmes (P)2012 Mary Calmes

I love Jin

This story just gets better. I loved jin in the first book but in this one, we learn more about his past and I felt so connected to him. I loved Logan too, but there is more going on in this book than just Logan and Jin.
The story is nail-biting, unique and kept me on the edge of my seat,
I do wish Sean Crisden was still narrating but Jeff Gelder did ok.

Not as good with the new narrator

You have to have read book one to read this, so I’m not going into back-story details, this is a continuation of book one and not a stand-alone.

So Mary likes to torture her readers sometimes and this is one of those cases. Our MCs found one another in book one and now she’s gonna rip ‘em apart! (Kind of her specialty, isn’t it? LOL ) But when they reunite – MAN – super, super hot and very touching.

In addition to the external forces that try to keep these guys apart, Jin is still doubting Logan’s devotion. He’s not quite sure how much Logan sees him as his Reah vs an actual person to love.

There are some truly awful things that happen in this story – poor Crane! – and lots of violence. So - for those of you with a squeamish stomach – be forewarned – these are shifter’s whose animals are real and whose traditions are violent and who are capable and willing to do almost anything in the name of what’s “right”.

But… that being said… the relationship building between Logan and Jin is what romances are meant to be. Epic. Bigger than life. Involving the heart, mind, body and soul. They move through their tragedies and tribulations and build something rock solid and forged in steel.

4 of 5 stars

Audio

I’d say this is a matter of taste. Unfortunately, they changed narrators for book two from Sean Crisden (who I loved!) to Jeff Gelder (he does books two and three then Sean comes back for four and five). (From talking with people, I believe it had to do with scheduling and the publishers made the decision to move forward rather than waiting for Sean.) Some people really like Jeff Gelder’s narration style and though it’s nice to have one person do an entire series, having adequate narration is at least a plus. To me, Jeff’s job is only adequate, and not superlative. He doesn’t pronounce things the same as Sean and he’s not great with emotion. He doesn’t do accents and he’s a bit more monotone in his narration style.

Jeff Gelder isn’t bad to listen to and I wouldn’t avoid these two books because of him, but I am sad that Sean couldn’t do the entire series and I don’t think he does them justice.

What I recommend is to listen to the sample before you decide to buy – if you think it won’t bother you (or that you’d like it!) then go on ahead and enjoy. If it will make you crazy just read this and book 3 and go back to Sean for 4 and 5.

2 of 5 stars

Overall 3 of 5 stars

I don't think this performan was edited at all.

I am totally absorbed in this story and completely taken with the talent of the author. Clearly Mary knows her characters better then I think they even now themselves (if that makes sense). It is absolutely enthralling to get sucked into such talent. Lol, not to mention I was looking for something like this to listen to thanks to anime withdrawal. I can feel the manga influences throughout the series, even if that was not the intent. For me it is like hearing it instead of seeing it. Any who, it's a very well done series.

But my issue is with the performance. The narrator has a very pleasantly toned voice IMHO. And I liked Logan's voice a lot, that wasn't any issue. No, it was the way it was read. 1) It was so monotoned at times I could have been listening to the male equivalent of Siri. 2) When there was any inflections at all it was not an appropriate time for them to be used. This made it VERY difficult to follow along. - Now I'm pretty easy going and this in its self would not give the actor 1 (I wish it was zero stars) star, however there where some MAJOR flaws - 3) He repeated sentences that he made errors in and they where not cut from the book! Many of them. 4) He repeatedly said words wrong. Completely changing the meaning of the sentence in the process. - This got me thinking what else was he getting wrong. So I got onto whispersync and followed along with immersion reading - 5) He must have had a different book then me. That's all I can think. 6) He reworded whole sentences. Substituting, switching, and replacing words, names, and phrases. 7) He SKIPPED sentences. 8) He SKIPPED a whole paragraph. And this is just the part of the book I followed along with. This book is unabridged (I checked, repeatedly). In retrospect if there is a typo in the book then sayings something other then what is written to improve the telling of the story, I can forgive. But this is horrible.

The verdict- Great story. Horrible performance.

Nice Performanc by Jeff Gelder

I gave this one a try, in spite of not loving the first one - but it's been a while, so I figured why not. These characters still really didn't grab me, this one just isn't my favorite Mary Calmes.

Audio performed by Jeff Gelder who does a nice job.

Will Jin ever trust the bond?

I enjoyed the story and the development of the characters into the next step in their lives. It's clear that this performance was not proofed. It could have been so good. This was one of the first audios I listened to and liked it, but now that I have a lot more experience with audible, I realize that this could have been so much better. The author did a wonderful job with the story, it's just too bad no one proofed the audio before it was released.

Loved Mary Calmes' Book

Who was your favorite character and why?

I love seeing the emotional journey Jin experiences as he comes to realize how much he trusts and loves Logan.

What didn’t you like about Jeff Gelder’s performance?

I was so disappointed in the narration. There were inflections that made no sense, pauses in the middle of sentences that had no purpose and no changes in voice or tone to accommodate the different characters.

no emotion

I've read the physical book and I just wanted to hear it cuz I did listen to the first and last. Sean Crisden is the better reader. much better. he puts humor and fear and emotion into the story. Jeff Gelder is so dead pan and he's saying all the names and words different.
I don't like him.

Such a shame...

What disappointed you about Trusted Bond?

The narration was appalling!

What did you like best about this story?

The story itself; as in the printed version, is excellent.

How could the performance have been better?

Rerecord the entire thing with a different narrator who listened to the first story.

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

The story is great (when you read it on your own), the audiobook was so terrible to listen to that I deleted it shortly after chapter 1.

Any additional comments?

I read the book which was excellent, but the audiobook was PAINFUL to listen to.

If you listened to the first audiobook "Change of Heart" read by Sean Crisden and expect this one to be just as good- you're in for a rude awakening. Jeff Gelder is an awful AWFUL narrator. I got through chapter 1 and part of chapter 2 and couldn't listen to it anymore, I deleted it immediately. In my opinion it's better to listen to the text-to-voice option on your iDevice or Kindle, that's how bad it is.

1.) Monotone, the narration and lines from all the characters sound exactly the same.

2.) It sounds like one giant run-on sentence, no punctuation or punctuation in awkward places (sounds like a 5 year old reading to you).

3.) I'm not sure where to even start with the pronunciations:
Sean Cristen vs Jeff Gelder
"Ray-ah".............."Ray"
"Semel"..............."Sem. el"
"Shay-seroo"........"Sheshiroo"
"Semel Ray"........"Sem. el-ree"
"Delfeen"............."Del-FINE"
"Ma-heez"............"Maha-zzz"

There are probably more gross mispronunciations, but like I said- it was deleted shortly after the beginning of the second chapter. My advice, listen to the sample from the first book and compare it to the sample of the second. If the second sounds like nails on a chalkboard to you then don't buy it- because I promise it won't get any better. Such a shame, I'm not even going to consider buying the third audiobook just because it was narrated by the same guy who butchered this one.

Awful Reader

I love Mary Calmes and her books. But this reader is awful. He sounds like a robot. Chopped syllables, mispronunciation and no emotion what so ever.

Jin is so annoying

Jin is so annoying in this book, so annoying he always drags things out and doesn’t do the write thing then makes things worse or gets in trouble. How frustrating