• Hell on Wheels

  • Black Knights Inc., Book 1
  • By: Julie Ann Walker
  • Narrated by: Abby Craden
  • Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (456 ratings)

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Hell on Wheels  By  cover art

Hell on Wheels

By: Julie Ann Walker
Narrated by: Abby Craden
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Publisher's summary

Black Knights Inc. - Behind the facade of their tricked-out motorcycle shop is an elite special ops team assigned the jobs too hot for anyone else to handle.

Ex-Marine Nate "Ghost" Weller is an expert at keeping his cool - and his distance - which makes him one hell of a sniper. It's also how he keeps his feelings for Ali Morgan in check. Sweet, sexy Ali has always revved his engine, but she's his best friend's baby sister ... and totally off limits.

Ali's never seen anything sexier than Nate Weller straddling his custom Harley - or the flash of danger in his eyes when she tells him she's in trouble. First, something happened to her brother, and now she's become the target of a nasty international organization. With Nate, her life is in the most capable hands possible - but her heart is another story altogether.

©2012 Julie Ann Walker (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"In her riveting debut, Walker delivers a mystery laced with red-hot romance." ( Publishers Weekly, starred review)

What listeners say about Hell on Wheels

Average customer ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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    186
  • 4 Stars
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Performance
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Story
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Bad Narrator-Good Story.

I didn’t believe the previous reviews about the narrator. I listened to the sample and it appeared fine. Unfortunately, the sample didn’t include the narrator’s interpretation of any male dialog. It was so incredibly bad that I wanted to laugh. It is like a mix of a monster and Sesame Street. With that being said, the story was pretty good (if you can get past the narrator).

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Poor narration - Story ok

The story line was ok, but I would much prefer the 'angst' to end sooner so the story can move along.

I have come to the conclusion that there should be two narrators in an audio book - male and female. Nate sounds like he is 5 ft tall and weighs 100#, with a very sore throat. It really takes away from the story. Allie's voice is too childish.

There were parts where I was laughing out loud - I like it when the author feels it is ok to put humor into a story when the main theme is romance/thriller. After all, life is not all one or the other.

I will probably purchase the next book. I really hope the angst has calmed down and will not be the predominate theme in all the books to come, but from the ending in this book, I am thinking book two will have a great deal of self-doubt (I love him/her but he/she hates me). Hopefully it won't be drawn out like this story was.

I hope there will either be a different narrator, or this narrator will adjust the voices.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting Narration

Would you try another book from Julie Ann Walker and/or Abby Craden?

I liked the story but, oh my, the narration was hideous, The voices of the main characters were very difficult to listen to, the main female voice was similar to Minnie Mouse, very childish and annoying, and some of the male character voices sounded very unrealistic and forced. Abby Craden's normal voice in the 3rd person was much easier to take, pleasant even, but her attempt to launch into other variations of tone of voice was most distracting and spoilt the audio book experience for me, it is for this reason that I cannot recommend it.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Pretty good start to the series

3.5-4 stars

This was a pretty good story. It's the first I've read by this author and I liked it enough that I've already bought the second book in the series to read next.

Ali is a very nice woman. She's the sister of one of the Black Knights and was crushed by his death. She's very sweet but TBH, there were a few times when she seemed too soft and sweet but as the story progresses she does show some spunk and backbone that made me like her. Sometimes she came across a little ditsy too but through most of the book she was working on major lack of sleep so it's kind of excusable. Regardless I liked Ali. She met Nate years before through her brother but he always acted like he didn't like her which is too bad because she's always been attracted to him. When strange things start happening to her after her brother's death, she knows she has to go to Nate and the Black Knights for help.

Nate is a good guy but he can be a jerk, especially when it comes to Ali. He's been attracted to her since he first met her but couldn't go there because she was his best friend's little sister. He's acted like a jerk towards her to keep her at arms length but this becomes a problem when they find out that she's in serious trouble due to something he brother was involved with. Nate does have what he thinks (faultily) is a solid reason that him and Ali could never be together so he keeps pushing her away. The problem is that by doing this he's just hurting her more.

There's a mystery to uncover and there's some exciting times trying to track down what Ali's brother was involved in and why someone's after her. Nate and Ali do the back and forth dance pretty much the whole time...one step closer, two back. They give in to their attraction but then Nate pulls the butthole card on Ali the next morning (because of his "reasons"). Things aren't easy for them and on either the personal or professional fronts but they do manage to get the needed info to stop the bad guy and bring the danger to Ali to an end. Unfortunately, as soon as things are settled, Nate disappears and Ali can't get a hold of him at all. Fortunately, someone interferes and helps prompt a resolution that ends happily.

This was a very good story. The characters aren't prefect in their actions but then who is really. I still liked them even with their flaws. The action plot was interesting but not so complex that it pulled away from the rest of the story. I enjoyed this story and will be reading the next book in the series. I'd recommend this book. Thumbs up. :D

*Note - I listened to the audiobook version of this. The narrator was alright but her male voices were very growly. I got used to it after a while but at first it was a little weird.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Bad narration

I loved this book when I read it, so I was excited to buy it on Audible. And I even sampled it. The narrator's reading voice is fine but the voices she uses for the characters in the story are absolutely ridiculous. The girls voice sounds like a ninny headed idiot and the guys all just sound outrageously stupid. Way to ruin the book narrator

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Hell on wheels

I sorry to say but the narrator didn't do this book justice. She done the girls voice fine but not all men sound like they have damage to their vocal cords. The story is a very good story but with all the men sounding almost the same it just doesn't work. If you want a good narrator J.D Hart is excellent can do both voices.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Narration ruins it

I generally dislike Abby narrating and this is one of her worse attempts. She goes between sounding like she is ready to cry for no reason to a horrible gravel voice for the H. Seriously I had to listen at 2x the entire story just to make her annoying storytelling tolerable. The actual story had potential. Some serious sexy and humorous moments the story had some interesting plot points. My advice just read it

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

narrator wasn't right for this book

Very Disappointed. This one was just meh!
This one was kind of boring to listen to. She was a great narrator for the House of Commare series by Kristin Painter. Her male voices in this book were awful. i have book 2 and I think I will read the ebook instead of listening to it.

It started with Ali Morgan being mugged and followed by someone. She turned to Nate “Ghost” Weller and the Black Knights Inc, her late brother's co-workers. Ali had a suspicion that whomever was after her had something to do with her brother's death and the Black Knights were the best equipped people to protect her.
Black Knights was a covert military ops team posing as a motorcycle club. They do jobs that the CIA or military wanted plausible deniability on.

Of course, Ali has had a crush on Ghost for ever but he always kept her at arms length. Well, except for that one time on the beach (a phrase repeated over and over and over again till I thought I would just scream), Ghost had tasted of her nectar but since then he barely acknowledges her existence. Very cliche stuff because it was quite clear Ghost was nursing a similar crush on his best friends little sister.

Anyway, Ali was in possession of some files that her brother sent her before his last special ops job where he was killed. And someone was willing to kill in order to get those files back from Ali. What was on it? Who in the government was conspiring with the enemy? Nate was going to find out before they got to his Ali.

I listened to it and I am cringing because I bought books 1-4 on both audio and e-books. I will try book 2 before I give up, but the writing was very average, the story has been done and done much better than this. I didn't really feel the connection between Ali and Nate.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Weak narration was secondary to the story line.

What disappointed you about Hell on Wheels?

With most characters, a nickname, the first name, and the last name were used interchangebly way before the listener had a fix on who was who. Also, there were several disconnects in the story line that made me think that it was over-edited or poorly written. For example, two characters were being chased by "villians" and found a temporary refuge -then, after a night of passion they are back at base having suceeded in thir mission. No mention on how they evaded the villians getting back on the road or the ones posted at the destination of their mission.

Would you be willing to try another one of Abby Craden’s performances?

No

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Hell on Wheels?

If I were editor, I would make sure the characters and story flowed in such a way that made sense to the reader. Also, I would have had the story critiqued by persons who had more knowledge of the subject matter - such as - the U.S. President invites a private citizen and a tribe of unauthorized "Black Ops" to an Oval Office interogation of a U.S. Senator. Get real!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Awful narrator

Almost couldn't finish this one because of the awful narrator!! But I struggled threw barely.

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1 person found this helpful