Lifeless in the Lilies

Lovely Lethal Gardens, Book 12

By: Dale Mayer

Narrated by: Mandy Kaplan

Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

Riches to rags. Chaos calms. Suddenly, it’s quiet. Too quiet if Doreen’s involved!

What was supposed to be a leisurely stroll through a peaceful cemetery after a recent funeral turns into the start of a new case. Someone clobbers Doreen over the head and leaves her facedown among the funeral flowers.

Is it random violence? Revenge? A warning of worse to come?

No one knows, not even Doreen. But one thing is certain: The attack enabled the disappearance - perhaps, the abduction - of Doreen’s beloved African gray parrot Thaddeus. Frantic, Doreen foregoes a trip to the emergency room in favor of heading straight home, where she hopes Thaddeus will return sooner rather than later.

When he does show up, riding a branch down the river, coming right home, he’s different, and all he can talk about is Big Guy. He’s also sporting an SOS message fastened around his ankle. Doreen sets out to retrace Thaddeus’s path, while Mack hunts down her attacker.

Between birds and boys and Corporal Mack Moreau’s brother, the lawyer looking into her divorce situation, Doreen has her hands full. And that’s before her former lawyer shows up unexpectedly at her home! Off-balance by all these events, Doreen opens her door to someone with a serious grudge to take her down.

©2021 Beverly Dale Mayer (P)2021 Beverly Dale Mayer

But why?

When you’ve listened to a series like this for so many books it’s hard to switch narrators. It feels as if the characters have changed. Then add in the mixed up chapters and it makes it very difficult to follow along. Audible needs to fix the formatting of these chapters!

Chapters out of order.

The story is good. It’s a little weird getting used to a new narrator. The main issue is that the chapters are all out of order.

Love this series but something was off in this one

New narrator from previous. And the story seemed disjointed at points like the chapters were out of order.

Poor quality recording

I enjoy this series. This volume carries the story further and kept my interest.

EXCEPT

Is there no quality control in the production? The chapters are out of order, so this makes the story skip around when listening. Additionally, there are multiple times where the reading is nothing. It a jumbled mix of edits. Been finding this with a lot of Audible books lately. This particular instance is the first time that the chapters are out of sequence. Very unhappy about this.

Not in order

I love these books but I’ve never had an Audible book so poorly put in sequence.

CHAPTERS IN BOOK OUT OF ORDER

How did this book get out there without being checked!!! I preferred the previous narrator. The story as always was excellent. The pleasure in this audiobook was spoiled by the hot mess of screwed up chapters.

Switching narrators spoiled continuity

The new voice of Noreen and Nan just didn't work. Nan sounded like a querous old lady in the new voice. Her fun loving spirit was lost in the new narration. The story was good but I was very disappointed with the change of narrators. I hope the original returns with the next book.

Also there were two places where the chapters were reversed towards the end. It was very disconcerting to listen to them out of order. At least I had the Kindle book to go back to so I could figure out what was happening.

Fun Cozy

The story and performance are good. The book is recorded in parts and those parts are out of order in the second half of the story. Hopefully they will get a better editor.

Good book, bad reader

This story, like all the previous stories in this series is a warm, feel good cozy that leaves you eager for the next installment. I bought an audio copy of all the previous books in this series and loved the reader. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK IN AUDIO without listening to a sample from the new reader. Seriously, my sinuses plug up, she talks thru her nose. All future books I will absolutely buy an ecopy of, just not the audio.

Ch 29 & 30 are out of order

Chapter 29 and 30 need to be switched. They are out of order. Liked book

Enjoying the series but not the new narrator

I really enjoyed the first books in the series but this narrator is using a spiteful or angry voice when the main characters are just bantering or just quietly, gently nagging a little. Even when the characters fall out a little (for a few minutes or a few hours at most) it should not sound this bitter. It ruins the relationships - Doreen and Mac sound more like a couple heading for divorce, and a grandchild/Nan who hate each other. I won't be buying any more if they are using this narrator.