Imago

Imago Series, Book 1

By: N. R. Walker

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

Nerdy, introverted genius lepidopterist, Lawson Gale, is an expert on butterflies. He finds himself in a small town in Tasmania on a quest from an old professor to find an elusive species that may or may not even exist.  

Local Parks and Wildlife officer, Jack Brighton, is an ordinary guy who loves his life in the sleepy town of Scottsdale. Along with his Border collie dog, Rosemary, his job, and good friends, he has enough to keep from being lonely.  

But then he meets Lawson, and he knows he's met someone special. There's more to catching butterflies, Jack realizes. Sometimes the most elusive creatures wear bow ties, and sometimes they can't be caught at all.  

Lawson soon learns there are butterflies he can't learn about it in books. They exist only in a touch, in a kiss, in a smile. He just has to let go first, so these butterflies can fly. 

Imago is the story of finding love, bow ties, and butterflies.  

Contains mature themes.

©2017 N. R. Walker (P)2020 Tantor

/Shrug

I love N R Walker books, she's one of my favorites. Imago is a good book but I was unhappy with the audio rendition. The narrator interpretation wasn't my cup of tea, inflections of words and sentences were disappointing, I was shaking my head a lot while listening to this.

Fantastic story, disappointing narrator

What can I say about Ms Walker? Her ability to create a picturesque world & dynamic characters is unmatched! I loved everything about this book! Intriguing main characters, emotional moments, sexy moments, comedic banter, wit, intelligence, adventure. Imago has it all! 5 out of 5 stars for the story.
Did you catch my caveat there? “For the story”?..... Ya.. the narration was definitely not worthy of a 5 star rating unfortunately. Mr Ferguson does not have the ability (at least not in this book) to differentiate characters. There were several parts where I had to relisten to a segment to figure out who said which lines. It totally took me out of the story. And there was little-to-no emotion thrown into the narration. He literally just read the words out loud. It was disappointing to say the least. Ms Walker has had very talented narrators for her previous audiobooks (Joel Leslie, Glen Lloyd, Nick Russo), so the bar was set pretty high tbh. Hopefully for book two in this series Mr Ferguson ups his game. 2 out of 5 stars.

I love this story but was a little disappointed in

I've read a lot of Ms. Walker's books. She's pretty much an auto-buy for me. I've read this series and I ABSOLUTELY LOVED it so when book one was released on audio, this was a no-brainer for me. I adore both characters. The vocal performance rating could be totally me, but I was disappointed. There were times I couldn't tell the difference between them and had I not known the story I would have not had any idea who was speaking. The characters felt very emotionless which is not the case for either of them. I don't feel this book was done the justice it deserved but it is still a wonderful story. My original review of the book is included below.

Let me say upfront that I am a HUGE fan of Ms. Walker and am not sure I can say anything I haven’t already about how wonderful her writing is and how I feel like she writes books just for me. I am a big fan of sweet romance, low angst stories with characters that melt your heart. Ms. Walker delivers that big time in this book.

I LOVE LAWSON. While it’s usually hard to pick a favorite with Ms. Walker’s books, there is usually one character that has a slight over the other. As much as I love Jack, Lawson is absolutely fantastic to me. He is brilliant, witty, and beautiful. I love that while he may appear shy; he will stand up for himself and will tell you what he wants and how he wants it. He is a force to be reckoned with for sure.

Jack is a sweet man who I automatically loved just for the way he treated his dog. He is immediately and absolutely smitten with Lawson (and I don’t blame him). I bet he looks absolutely fantastic in his uniform too!

They are perfect for each other; both finally finding someone that understands each other’s job and realizing what’s important to the other. Their banter is adorable. I CAN NOT wait for more of these guys!

BORING

Should you have problems sleeping, I have discovered, this book,, is great great for educing hypersomnia. I tried to return the book but even Audible would not accept it back. I then attempted to completely finish the book, however, I could not finish after listing to 3/4 of it and repeatedly falling asleep.

Adorable

Imago was positively adorable and sweet, it was everything I wanted and more. I loved that there was no drama, no games or subterfuge. Lawson Gale is a passionate lepidopterist on a mission to find an elusive new species of butterflies in Tasmania. Colleagues of his thinks it’s a fool’s errand, but Lawson never cared what others thought. By pure chance he met Jack Brighton, a local Parks and Wildlife officer. The two hit it off right away and Jack promises to help Lawson’s search. They set of into the park, taking measurements and soil samples all in order to find the optimal conditions for the butterfly. During the trips we see them fall in love, they fall for each other over their shared love of nature and all her wonders.

🎧 "I came to Tasmania in search of an elusive species. And I found it. But never in my wildest dreams did I expect to find you."

I absolutely loved Lawson, he was what you’d call adorkable, often missing social cues and customs, always honest and straight forward. It was refreshing and fun and it’s no wonder Jack was so enamoured with him, and he wasn’t the only one either. Jack too was such a wonderful character, so lovable with amazing friends and family and his close relationship with them said so much about him. He had this warmth that radiated from him, he drew people in and everyone loved being around him. Lawson and Jack just worked together in every way and I loved how they included Rosemary. I love dogs and she was such a wonderful addition.

Antony Ferguson is a great voice actor with a pleasant voice and accent that’s easy to get wrapped up in. I really enjoyed his female impersonations. So often voices for the opposite sex are overdone and rarely do they seem genuine or credible, but that wasn’t the case here. He does have different voices for different characters, but they aren’t consistent throughout the book. There were several times the voices for our main characters were mixed up or forgotten about all together. It wasn’t ideal, but once you’ve gotten immersed into the story it’s hardly noticeable. You’ll be too busy falling for Lawson, Jack and not to forget Rosemary and having a wonderful time.

Imago is a book that will have you smile, it leaves you with a warm and happy feeling. It makes you feel good and wish that the release of Imagines wasn’t so far away. Highly recommended.

A copy of this book was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review for Love Bytes

So romantic!

I think I love this book a bit more every time I re-read it!
Jack and Lawson are so sweet together, and I love both of them equally. Jack with his loving and easy-going nature, and Lawson, a slightly socially awkward genius, who isn’t afraid to go for what he wants.
Of course as soon as the audio came out I had to buy it immediately and I am so glad I did, Antony Ferguson did a great job!

Bowties, Butterflies and Love in Tassie

I LOVE IMAGO! Jack and Lawson are some of my favorite couples from the world of N.R. Walker. When I saw Antony Ferguson was the narrator, I was so curious to see how he would voice Lawson, Jack, Remmy, Luca, and Nico. He was fabulous as Jacob and August so moving from a thriller/mystery to an audiobook about butterflies and love in Tassie caught my ears. I love his voice and I really adore Jack and Lawson. Sigh all the feels. I know it's a bit short compared to other audiobooks but it's a great listen for a short trip or brisk walk/while you work. You won't regret it. I can't wait for IMAGINES :)

Refrain from reading Georgette Heyer at bedtime

I loved the Australian accent of the reader and felt that his voice was probably more appropriate to the story than the words that were written. If one gave an Australian schoolboy a Regency romance to read, it might produce a similar effect.
The writing has that stilted quality that one might expect from a period romance. Phrases such as 'I probably should apologise for being so bold as to insist' are not what one might expect from any educated English speaking person, anywhere in the world, and are rough ground for any Aussie chap to wrap his lips 'round.
Dear Author, Please refrain from reading Georgette Heyer at bed time.

Almost love at first sight

Lovely story of two men with different lives coming together to find a rare butterfly and falling for each other, a beautiful story from N R Walker.

Interesting story

I liked this story, but I felt that the narrator was wrong for it. The voices for each character was wrong and it turned out to be rather creepy.

lovely story, disappointed by the narration

While I enjoyed this story, an initial misstep by the narrator took away from my enjoyment. The chapters were written in either the head of Lawson or Jack. However, the narrator used the same, near wooden primary voice for both characters and separate Aussie accents for dialogue. I don't get why he did that. If he wasn't good at accents I would have understood, however, the accents used for dialogue between Lawson and Jack were good and distinctive. The robotic British primary narration jarred and at times I didn't know which mc was 'talking'.
It's a shame because Antony Ferguson did a great job with Tallowwood.

Poor narration

I love this Authors books and usually enjoy the audio versions but this felt like Siri was reading to me. Little to no differentiation between characters and anything not said by a character read in a monotone English accent with pretty much no inflection or emotion. I really hope the voice artist isn’t reading all of them, as I really don’t want to hear his Charlie Sutton in the Crossover with Red dirt series.