Fletcher's Fortune

Fletcher Series, Book 1

By: John Drake

Narrated by: Joseph Lindoe

Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

Jacob Fletcher is unsure of his parentage, but he does know that, as an apprentice, he couldn't legally be seized by the press gang. This particular gang, however, doesn't abide by the law.

Fletcher finds himself risking life, limb, and sea sickness to save his fortune now at risk of being lost to his evil step-mother and loathsome half-brothers.

Public Domain (P)2019 Lume Books

Fun story and characters

Can't wait for the rest of the series. The only issue is the editing. There are out-takes of the narrator left in the audio. It's not a big deal, but I figure you should be forewarned.

I have no known relation to the author.

Great story, lousy production.

Masterful story by Drake, but horrible post production piece of work. still worth the listen

Poor audio recording

I liked the story, but there was something wrong with the recording itself. There were about a hundred or more places in the recording where a phrase or a whole sentence was repeated (said twice in a row). It was very annoying.
I tried deleting the book and downloading again, but that didn’t fix the problem.
Great story, though. Too bad it was tainted by the bad recording.

Author deserves better from Audible

Great story and well performed.
I wanted to give it all 5 stars. Unfortunately, the actual production fell well short of what I had expected from Audible. There were Several unexpected blank spots and annoying repetitions of voice segments.

John Drake knows his business!!

Fletcher's Fortune is a wonderful story of what life was like in the British Navy during the 17th century & John Drake does a superb job in the authenticity of his telling. The characters are clever & we see a fast development in Jacob Fletcher (our protagonist). The web of intrigue around Fletcher is intricate as his "stepmother" & "half-brothers" are seeking to be rid of him. Unfortunately the quality of this audiobook is garbage, it has nothing to do with the narrator himself (Joseph Lindoe). Endeavor Media did a crap job in the editing of the audiobook & you can tell where the breaks are as the narrator reads, as you'll here several lines of prose be read 2 or even 3 times before the story continues. This can be a bit distracting & confusing.

I don't want to take away from the quality of Drake's writing or Lindoe's narration because both a solid, but Endeavor Media should actually review their books quality before making them available for purchase.

An excellent british naval tale.

this is well narrated and an excellent story is as well. It is true to Tales from the Napoleonic era. the British Navy is well represented and factual. this does not get into lots of jibber-jabber between central characters but instead tells a very good seafaring Tale.

Great story

I have read all the Fletcher books and was pleased to see them available in audio. The narrator is good but none of the performance has been edited so you hear him start and stop. I hope he continues and gets some better help with the cuts. If you like good sea going tail you will enjoy this series. It is not technical but winds a great story with vivid detail.

worth a listen

This is a bit different than your typical Hornblower esk story. Fletcher is more human, a bit of a rogue. There is also a bigger plot. It is very much told in a human voice. I can't attest to its literary genius, but that isn't what I want from this sort of thing anyway.

The production has not had a final edit, so there is a sentence repeated every page. A bit like a live reading. A shame because it is otherwise we'll recoded with clear and even sound levels. but it didn't actually annoy me and still worth listening to.

The narrator is good. A little young, I associate him with children's stories (which this is not really). He slightly slaughters nautical terms, but I guess these are arguable anyway. As I say it is still worth listening to.

Point to note, this appears to be most definitely the first book, despite some confusion on Audible that suggested to me that there is 5 unpublished ones before, maybe they are a different character.

I hope they record the whole series (7 in the series so far).