Passion Unleashed

By: Larissa Ione

Narrated by: Renee Raudman

Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's Summary

Forbidden temptations.
Serena Kelley is an archaeologist and treasure hunter - and a woman with a secret. Since she was seven, she's been the keeper of a powerful charm that grants her health and immortality... as long as she stays a virgin. But Serena isn't all that innocent. And when a dangerously handsome stranger brings her to the brink of ecstasy, she wonders if she's finally met the one man she cannot resist.

Fatal desires.
Wraith is a Seminus demon with a death wish. But when an old enemy poisons him, he must find Serena and persuade her to give him the only known antidote in the universe: her charm. Yet, as she begins to surrender to his seductions and Wraith senses the cure is within his grasp, he realizes a horrible truth: He's falling for the woman whose life he must take in order to save his own.

Listen to more in the Demonica series.

©2009 Larissa Ione (P)2011 Hachette

This is a good series, but narration terrible!

I do Not know who tells people that they are right for a certain book, but this was WAY OFF! She sounds like an old woman when you pair that voice with sex scenes...OMG! What a book killer. I wanted to hear the story so I finished it. The story is very good, but I had to skip over grandma reading sex to me!

Don't Judge The Series By This Narrator!!!

What made the experience of listening to Passion Unleashed the most enjoyable?

I'm not going to lie, Renee Raudman makes listening to this particular book of the series almost painful. The thing is that I love this series and I love this story!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Wraith is the funniest of all of the Demonica characters. You find yourself just shaking your head at what he comes up with next. He rocks the 'I'm a bad, bad boy and don't give a damn about anything or anyone" attitude as hard as he can, but he isn't convincing anyone, including himself. Gotta love Wraith!

How did the narrator detract from the book?

She made the characters sound like either old men from the wild, wild west or breathy, air-headed saloon girls. Ummm, hello...hot present-day demons not cowpokes from 1815! It was just awful. I find myself seeing her name as the narrator for other books and going right past them.

If you picked this one out of all of the Demonica books to see if you were interested in the series, you may find yourself saying 'never again' just because of her narration. I'm telling you to keep going with the other books and then head over to meet the horsemen because this series has just about everything you could possibly want!

Any additional comments?

The book rocks even though the narration was awful. Don't skip it though...you'll have a huge hole in your storyline if you do.

Why oh why was the narrator changed?!

In an audiobook the narrator either makes or breaks the experience. In this case it broke it. When you were a child did you ever watch the original Cinderella movie? Well, Renee Raudman sounds exactly the same as the narrator of that fairy tale. Making Serena sound like the overly dramatic disneyesque princess was just horrible. An then to make matters worse the evil Baseltov (or something like that) sounds like an evil witch instead of a male fallen angel. The narrator took so much out of the story that it feels like it was written by a different author. The narrator made my favorite paranormal romance series sound like a dramatic old school fairy tale. Pleeease bring Hillary Huber back!!! Please don't kill this series for me. I wish I had the time to sit and read the actual book but I don't so we'll see if this is the end of the series for me since all the next books are narrated by different people.

Great book, poor narration

I wish there was a way to rate the narrator separate from the book itself. The narrator had very strange inflections in her voice and the "sultry" sound of it made everything painful to listen to. It was great during the intimate scenes between the main characters but way too distracting during the normal and fight scenes. She would sometimes whisper and slur her words I would have to back up just to make sure I heard correctly.

The book, however, was pretty good. So far, in the Demonica Series, it is one of my favorites. I'm glad I pushed through the narration to get through it. Unfortunately I started the Eternal Rider series first so I knew more about the Underworld Universe Ione created than I should have going into the first three books but she still did not disappoint. I haven't go ahead to look at any of the other recordings to see if Renee Raudman is a narrator, but if so I'm going to have to break down and buy the book. Not that I mind physically reading, but it takes me twice as long with time constraints.

If you truly love the Demonica books you could probably get around the narrator (it took most of part one for me to) but if you're unsure or get easily distracted by narration you might want to skip this one.

I truly enjoy Larissa Ione's work...

But I couldn't get past a 1/2 hour of this audio book. This narrator is AWFUL!!!! I have really grown to enjoy this series and am terribly disappointed that they didn't use either of the first two narrators to continue. Heck, they could use anyone but Renee Raudman. Not only could I not identify or differentiate the characters but I found her inflections and accents excruciating. I have never heard any of Renee's other work, but this is a clear indication that in the future I will avoid it at all costs. Save yourself the credit and buy the book itself.

This Story Rocks!

There were so many emotional cliffhangers that I felt like I was been tortured instead of Wraith, but I enjoyed every minute of it. It was hard for me to breathe knowing that I was trying to make it to the end. I was feeling the pain and agony of every character. All of their love, lust and loss they went through I felt it as an emotional reader (that’s just not me).

The narrators’ voice was not that bad. I think she did ok as Serena. She brought out the youthful essence of the females but not so much the males and that may have thrown many listeners at to the performance value. The story rocks! I love how the writer passionately details the life of each brother and never strays from their relationship to each other.

I always liked the bad boys

Would you consider the audio edition of Passion Unleashed to be better than the print version?

no

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

yes

Any additional comments?

Starting from the begining of the serie, Wraith was my favorite of the brothers. I always like a bad boy with some dark secret. I don't know, something about taming the lion and carefully peeling the wrapper to see the beautiful present within the ulgy wrapper. This book did not disappoint me one bit.

Weak females abound...

This is my second time listening to this series. This book was just trumped full of the weak females. The MC was just TSTL. She knows she'll die if she sleeps with someone and makes the dumbest choices imaginable for someone who's life is dependent on their virginity. Once again we have yet ANOTHER dumb ass heroine who was wronged in the worst way by the hero and stays mad for about 2 seconds. There's no groveling or earning her back. She just yells at him for a second and then they're good to go. So good in fact she'll sacrifice herself for him...AGAIN! And DON'T EVEN get me started on Gems dumb ass. For 3 books now we've had to see her be a hanger on, weak, pathetic woman. I thought she was finally going to put her foot down and tell Kinan to fuck off for good in this one, but nope instead she tells him "he better be on time". Well she sure showed him. Eye roll. I was really hoping their pathetic story would develop into Gem moving onto someone new and actually finding someone worth herself. It sucks that the heroines in this series are all so weak because I absolutely love everything else about these books. The narrator's in all except this one are great. Renee Raudman is one narrator I have never been able to stand. I hate her voice and over dramatic style. Her voice for males is always the same and always annoying. She makes the heroines sound like little girls usually. Meanwhile she makes most males sound like elderly men. Also, how cringey was it that she continued to call him Josh for pretty the remainder of the book even after she found out he wasn't Josh?? It was just weird.

Couldn't get past the narrator!!

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I was really looking forward to the 3rd Demonica book, but I couldn't get past the narrator. I really prefer when series are performed by the same narrator especially for continuity. I just couldn't hang in there.

If you’ve listened to books by Larissa Ione before, how does this one compare?

Terrible - mismatched narrator.

How could the performance have been better?

More differentiation between male and female roles and less rasp.

Horrible HORRIBLE narration

Good GAWD. I'm not trying to sound immature, but this series has a lot of sexual content, which I LIKE. It's why I buy these books, they are romance novels. However, this narrator makes it feel like your grandmother is reading to you. Its cringe worthy. Horrible. Took me 100% out of the story, suspension of disbelief TOTALLY obliterated. I don't know who signed off on this...