Greywalker

Greywalker, Book 1

By: Kat Richardson

Narrated by: Mia Barron

Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Kat Richardson excels at creating vivid, fast-moving novels that blend urban fantasy with paranormal mystery. In Greywalker, Seattle P.I. Harper Blaine is viciously attacked and murdered - but after exactly two minutes, somehow she returns to life. Now she's seeing strange things all around her - dark visions from the shadow world - and living a normal life may no longer be possible no matter how hard she tries.

©2006 Kathleen Richardson (P)2008 Recorded Books

Gotta start somewhere.........

This book was in my wish list,it is 2 credits so I let it sit there.It went on sale so I got it for 5$.Im glad I waited(saved my credits)! It was OK.Its the first book in the Greywalker series and is dedicated to alot of setup for that series.How Harper became a Greywalker,what is a Greywalker,what she can and cannot do.I love books in a series, I love getting to know the characters so I will at some point get book 2.I hope its better now that the ground work is laid.

Now, I hate to pick on the narration but this is the MAIN problem with this book.The supporting casts voices were bad.Harper was fine.The rest either sounded like someone with the croup or any one of the seven dwarfs( sleepy, dopey, ect)I know the narrator changes tone so the listner can distinguish characters but some of these were really bad.

Very good story but awful narrator

This was a very enjoyable story; my wife and I agree. However the narrator is absolutely horrible when attempting to do me voices. Why didn't someone stop this person or re-record these sections.

No one who listens to the book can honestly say they don't know what we are talking about.

It would normally be an automatic to purchase for the book but NOT if it is the same narrator.

Wow.

Vampires and ghosts?!!?

Decent enough urban fantasy. Didn't exactly grip me right away, but grew on me after a while. Interesting protagonist and a fresh take on the supernatural world makes this kinda unique.

One thing that I can't understand is the technology level of this book. Pagers and modems?!?!? I believe cellphones and high-speed internet was pretty normal in 2006...especially for businesses. I have no clue if this is intentional, but I felt this book was more early 90's than 2006. It doesn’t ruin the book in any way, and I remember the pager days well, so I didn't really notice this until I had read a third of it.


If you have a gap in your to-read list, or just want to try something new. Consider Greywalker :)

Greywalker very good

I will look for more because I liked this one so much, although I did not particularly care for the narrator. Narrators with high pitched voices always make the male voices sound geeky, more like mice that men. jd

Just "meh".

I generally like the urban fantasy genre, but this book dragged. Perhaps it was the slow, uninspired narration? Or the fact that I didn't develop any connecton with the characters...Well, I bought this in a sale, and I blew a few hours listening to it, but I won't be buying any more of the series.

Not a bad first kick at the can.

This is one of those series that’s been on my radar for a while now; it also came highly recommended from a number of reviewers who know how much I LOVE Urban Fantasy, so I decided to give it a listen in audio. The narration took some getting used to, as did Kat Richardson’s grungy poetic writing, but once the action started flowing I was quickly swept away by Harper Blaine’s story. GREYWALKER reminded me a lot of Kalayna Price’s ALEX CRAFT novels in that the main heroine is a PI with a penchant for seeing dead things.

I liked how the author introduced readers to her paranormal world by having the protagonist undergo a Greywalker 101 course if you will. Harper hooks up with Ben & Mara, two professors who dabble in the supernatural, and they use her as sort of a guinea pig to test their hypotheses while also helping Blaine to learn about her new gifts. It was entertaining observing the differences between theory and practice, and getting to examine some of this series’ supes from an academic perspective as well as from a witch-y one. In doing this, Richardson gave a nice overview of the main components in her GREYWALKER universe from multiple perspectives.

The writing style reminded me a bit of a spoken word artist on open mic night; as ugly as this book’s cover is, it does kind of have that gritty “feel” to it. That, and this quote from the blurb: “foggy grey mist, snarling teeth, creatures roaring”, describes the tone of this story fairly well. The plot moved along at a decent pace, and all of the 1990′s fads which were not meant to be funny, but were actually accurate at the time of publication, made me giggle. I mean, when’s the last time you saw a pager? I really enjoyed the secondary characters, especially Mara, her Irish wit was spot on. Ben, Quinton, Will, and Cam all contributed nicely to the narrative as well, and I look forward to encountering them again.

I wasn’t immediately wowed by Mia Barron’s narration, but like a pair of new shoes, starting an unfamiliar series is always an adjustment. Her tempo was a little slow for my tastes, and some of her character voices were kinda off. Cam for example, sounded like he was constipated which was rather comical, but made it difficult for me to take his dire situation seriously. Mara’s Irish accent on the other hand was very well done, and I expect that Barron’s narration will improve with each installment.

GREYWALKER wasn’t an insta-favourite, but book 1 rarely is, so I won’t hold that against Kat Richardson because I think that I probably would have enjoyed it slightly more had I read this one instead. Still, not a bad first kick at the can.

Dark and light at the same time.

Where does Greywalker rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Greywalker ranks high for lighthearted entertainment value even with some dark elements. The author didn't dwell on the dark parts and did a good job of developing the characters.

What other book might you compare Greywalker to and why?

I would compare this with the Jane Yellowrock series in the sense that it has a female heroine that is strong and smart. No whimps here.

Have you listened to any of Mia Barron’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Lousy narrator

What did you like best about Greywalker? What did you like least?

She sounds whiny and can't pronounce simple words. Almost all 'ng' words include a hard 'g'. For example when she says words like "singing" she pronounces it 'sin Gh ing". Sometimes her pronunciations are so bad it makes it hard to focus on the story.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Whiny and bad pronunciations.

Walking along the Grey

Very well written story. The characters were believable and the narrator managed to make you both hate and love the characters when needed. if you happen to like ur an fantasy and get annoyed with overly graphic sex scenes that don't really add much to the story, then this is good because it doesn't get bogged down by that.

Fun story, easy to follow characters

Would you listen to Greywalker again? Why?

No, I don't relisten often, there are just too many good stories out there.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Harper Blaine, I liked her style, she was tough and practical but still afraid.

Did Mia Barron do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

The characters were differentiated well, I just didn't really like most of the voices. Cam sounded like Scooby Doo and some of the vampires were just annoying.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No