ShadowLove Stalkers

Shadow (Vampire) series, Book 1

By: Claudy Conn

Narrated by: Valerie Gilbert

Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

What do you do when your father wants to turn you into a vampire and the man who offers you protection has his own, dark agenda? Shawna Rawley has no choice but to run. Pentim Rawley, one of the most evil vampires who has ever lived, has just discovered that she is his daughter. Now he's obsessed with finding and turning her. She doesn't want Pentim to find the people she loves and use them to get to her. She doesn't want him to find and turn her. She has only one ace up her sleeve. The human in her may be at risk, but in addition to being half vamp, Shawna is also a white witch! Chad MacFare has an offer for Shawna he thinks she can't afford to refuse: he'll protect her from Pentim and his minions. But Shawna doesn't trust the sexy immortal. She knows he has his own agenda - he wants to kill her father, and he wants to set her up as bait...

©2011 Claudy Conn (P)2014 Claudy Conn

Loved This Audio!!!

Any additional comments?

I read the book awhile ago, but listening to Valerie Gilbert's narration, the story and characters come alive!!! Her inflections really add to the overall emotional aspects of the story. Shawna and Chad are one of my favorite couples…..they were a hoot to read. This story had the right amount of romance and naughtiness to keep you engaged. I really enjoyed it!!

Amazing!

Would you consider the audio edition of ShadowLove Stalkers to be better than the print version?

Yes in a way because I feel like the narrator added to the already alluring tale

What was one of the most memorable moments of ShadowLove Stalkers?

I think the whole new twist on the Dracula tale. I loved it

What about Valerie Gilbert’s performance did you like?

Her performance added to this amazing tale, it brought if to life. She allowed the scenes to play out like a movie in my mind

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book had it all. Laugh out loud moments and emotional moments that made you sigh in contentment

Any additional comments?

This was the first book Ive read by Claudy Conn's and its the first book I have listened to of hers.
I loved Claudy's new twist on Dracula's tale.
Claudy knows how to write dangerous and mysterious men leaving you wanting to read more of them.
So much is going on in this unique tale. All of it blends together perfectly.
Shawna and Chad are both independent, secretive and complex individuals. They are a perfect match. Chad comes into Shawna's life just in time to help protect her. They both try to fight the passion between them. Neither want to trust the other completely until they are forced to.
Chad is so sexy and his accent is such a turn on making you want him more. He is so confident. The way Claudy describes his chest with his tattoos has you picturing it in your head making you want to rub your hands down his abs just like Shawna wants to.
If you are a lover of paranormal and fantasy with a romantic twist you will love this tale.
This book was really refreshing. It was very light in the sex department but that didn't take away from the story at all.

Very good story, but needs a better narrator.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would recommend this book to a friend, but I would not recommend the audio version.

Would you be willing to try another one of Valerie Gilbert’s performances?

I was distracted from the story by Ms. Gilbert's performance. While she did a very good job with the different voices, her timing was atrocious. I think she decided that the end of a line was a reason to pause, on EVERY LINE. And and using a soft g sound in the words longer and younger was much more annoying than I believed it would be.

PARANORMAL ROMANCE AT IT'S BEST

For me, this awesome story was a "just one more chapter" listen then during the wee small hours it turned into a "I can't just stop it here" listen until finally, as dawn was breaking, it eventually became a "there's only four chapters left I might as well finish it" listen..... thank God for lazy Sundays.

It was well-written with well described and vivid paranormal world-building as humans share the world with vampires, immortals, witches, entities, magic, Dracula and his sons and much more. Shawna's a half vamp witch and she's on the run from her evil vampire Father... yes she's strong, capable and has magic abilities but she's not stupid. In walks Chad a charming, handsome, sexy but very mysterious Scotsman claiming that he can save her....... the trouble is there's a big BUT and he's got his own agenda - revenge.

Non-stop action with pulse-pounding scenes, suspense, humor, mystery, unfolding secrets, great secondary characters, intrigue, lust filled sexual chemistry, an evil villain or two, sex and, of course, romance.

Dual POV's and the narrator did a great job with the characters and all the accents needed. There's a HEA and the main characters are all set to continue the story in book2.

Worth a credit? Exciting arcane adventure and romance..... Mmmmmmm gimme more please and if you like PNR then I'm sure you'll be saying the same. I'm very happy that I spent a credit on this and I'm now off to start book 2.

Just OK!

This book was OK. I thought it started off quite rough, but did eventually smooth itself out. I enjoyed the H & h (though I did want to slap Shawna on more than once occasion). Oddly, my favourite character was Dammon. He was just a side character (and apparently the H of the next book in the series), but I quite enjoyed his calm demeanour.

Though I generally enjoyed the book, I am not without complaints. I hate making this criticism, because I think it is horribly over used, but a lot of the book is told instead of shown. I think a full 10% goes by in the beginning before the reader gets a single sentence of dialogue that isn't in someone's memory. The reader is also told repeatedly how skilled Shawna is, but we don't really see her fight or defend herself at all. We're also treated to quite a lot of internal dialogue as both Shawna and Chad tell themselves how sexy the other is.

Though I imagine it comes into play in future books I also didn't see the importance of the Dracula connection. It is set up in the prologue and he shows up once in the book, but doesn't seem to have an active role in the plot. I was left wondering, 'what's that all about?'

I also felt that the two dangers to Shawna didn't seem to line up. She's supposed to be running for her father and that's the basic framework of the story, but a good 75% of the book goes by before there is any real threat present to her by him. Most of the action centres around a demon she randomly encounters when she moves to Scotland (and amazingly and coincidentally moves in next door to Chad). This demon has nothing to do with the whole father situation and really felt very out of left field to me.

I also never understood Chad's attitude toward Shawna. If you were meeting a woman for the first time (and all subsequent encounters with her) and needed to convince her to trust you to protect her while she endangered herself for the greater good, would you're chosen method be antagonism and smug arrogance? He keeps trying to get her agree to his dangerous plan, but never gives her a straight answer to anything and purposefully goads her at every turn. Yes, it made for some amusing verbal sparing, but compromised his own goal repeatedly.

I will happily say this isn't a case of insta-love. At least not on Shawna's part. It is however a stunning example of sex = love. Shawna doesn't trust Chad and he only admits to lusting after her. Then they have sex and voila, sudden boundless, eternal love exists. I got a little whiplash I think.

Then, after 250+ pages of supposedly running from her sociopath father (that we almost never see) the whole book wraps up in about a page and a half. The climax was a little underwhelming I have to admit. Despite all of the above, I did enjoy most of the book. It took a little while for me to settle into the story. But once I did it rolled along well enough and it presented an interesting new birth of vampires myth.

Valerie Gilbert was good with the female voices but her male voices were not so good. Also she missed the g's in words like "Long" which was pronouced "lon" that was distracting and annoying.

Received free- FB group Free Audiobooks for Review

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The story was alright, it didn’t call to me as some stories do though. I listened and that was it. I never really felt a connection to the characters and cared what happened to them. In my opinion, maybe it’s because the story dragged? I don’t know.

There was a lot of the story that was told rather than shown. ‘She did this. He did that. They went there.’ When a story involves more telling than showing, I tend to get bored. But since I had just stopping a story without finishing, I pushed myself to finish this one.

Needless to say, this story did get me distracted so I could exercise. lol

Would you be willing to try another book from Claudy Conn? Why or why not?

Perhaps. Although I wasn't a big fan of this story there could be other stories that Mrs. Conn has written that I'd like.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Valerie Gilbert?

Yes. In this story, she did a pretty good job, although there were many times when she would either talk slower or sound robotic. Otherwise, she was great with the variety of accents the characters had in the story.

Could you see ShadowLove Stalkers being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

A movie? Maybe. I'm sure there would be a lot more action and lovely-dove stuff in a movie version. I could easily see Wes Bentley playing Damon's part,Gerard Butler/Bradley Cooper for Chad, and a non-funny version of Seth Rogan. I have no clue who would play Shawna's part.

Any additional comments?

When it came to killing the blue, electric light lady aka the Squire’s dead mother and Pentim it almost seemed too easy. Chad is able to kill both with his magical sword and that was that.

There were so many references to Chad’s ‘tawny’ hair. For whatever reason, it just annoyed me. The author couldn’t have said ‘he ran his hands through his hair’ instead of ‘he ran his hands through his tawny hair’? Maybe it’s just that I’ve never heard hair described as tawny? I have no clue.

So after Shawna is taken, Chad and Damon shift into the upstairs of the house that the bad guys are in. Did they shift outside first to confirm no one was upstairs? I just found that part strange. Plus, when two vampires appear Chad isn’t subtle about killing them. He chops their heads off and there’s the loud drop of their bodies to the floor. Plus, Chad’s war-cry and Shawna’s yelling. Were they not trying to be quiet?

Shawna is part white witch. She’s supposed to be really powerful and whatnot, so why didn’t she ever do anything magical in the story? I think the most magical thing she did was unlock a locked door.

What was the point of the blue, electric lady though? We’re told near the beginning of the story that Shawna’s father is after her, yet he never appears until a good chunk of the story is done with.

Shawna picks a random place to move to (Scotland) and just happens to move right next to Chad?

The Slayer meets her match

What made the experience of listening to ShadowLove Stalkers the most enjoyable?

I have read the book but the Narrator brought this book to life

What did you like best about this story?

Nikki is a slayer who thinks she is immune but alas love has no immunity

Which scene was your favorite?

When her brother jack becomes involved

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

Oh yes it was wonderfully done

ShadowLove Stalkers

First of all, let me say that I love reading vampire novels and have read a ton of them. But, this one just didn't really grab me and make me love it.

Shawna is a half-vampire/half-witch, trying to stay hidden from her vampire "prince" father. Somehow, two different men learn of her and try to keep her safe. One is a vampire named Damon and the other is an Immortal named Chad. Chad wants to use Shawna as bait to draw out her father so that he can kill him.

The story was very slow, with lots of unreasonable and unexplained things along the way. I never really understood how Damon came into the picture. Shawna was supposedly a very powerful person all her own, but we are never really shown her strength. Instead, she is mostly an aggravating person who just goes off without a thought to her own safety.

The beginning of the book was interesting because it talked about Vlad Dracula (although it wasn't very accurate historically). However, this prologue was never really tied into the rest of the book.

Also, the narrator spoke so slowly that I had to speed up my device in order to make myself listen to the book. If I had listened at normal speed, I would probably have fallen asleep.

All in all, not a horrible book, but not a great book. I will probably give Ms. Conn another chance to win me over, but I would never listen to or read this book again.

Vampires, Witches, and Intrigue, OH MY!

Shawna is an intriguing heroine with a truly unique lineage. Her father is a psychopathic vampire and the man who wants to protect her is also a vampire with an agenda.

How can you not love the concept, creation, and execution of such an amazing storyline?

Claudy consistently makes you love even her most vile characters. She makes them so evil, that you love to hate them. And she makes the heroes and heroines so amazing, that you wish you could be part of their world.

I am a huge fan, and am slowly addicting my daughter to her work as well!

Thank you once again, Claudy, for delivering an outstanding story. You always keep me salivating for more!

Claudy Conn is amazing.

What made the experience of listening to ShadowLove Stalkers the most enjoyable?

Love, love Claudy Conn books. This was my first audio experience. Enjoyed it immensely. Valerie Gilbert did an excellent narrative job.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Chad, of course.

Which scene was your favorite?

Entire book.

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

Oh yes.