Shutter

De: Courtney Alameda

Narrado por: Pamela Lorence

Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat - a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual. The corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film.

She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a technowhiz and the boy who developed her camera's technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever. When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. As the ghostly chain spreads through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn't exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she's faced before - or die trying.

Lock, stock, and lens, she's in for one hell of a week.

©2015 Courtney Alameda (P)2016 Forever Young Audiobooks

Karrie's Kritiques rates this 5 stars...

I truly enjoyed every minute of this book! I wish I could have had a sequel to look forward to! The narrator was believable as a young female and managing to incorporate the tale of Dracula into the story was a delight! And of course, Van Helsing was wonderful as well. This has been one of my favourite Audible Books thus far so I feel like I have a duty to let others know that this is not one to pass up!

Loved it!

This was honestly a really great listen! Loved the action and adventure. Give it a listen!

Great clean fun

Ghost aren't usually my thing, Zombies are!
However I really enjoyed this world. Jude, Micheline, Ryder & the rest of the gang are pretty bad ass.
The book would be great for teens. No sex & no cursing that I can remember.
The world created is very well fleshed out. I love that the Van Helsing, Harker & other vampire genre lineage fill up the cast. There is even a sweet love story for all the romantics. I am pretty certain there could be a sequel continuing this story line or creating a new one. Not to say there is a cliff hanger because it is pretty well wrapped up only a few ends not so tightly wrapped.
Courtney is set to be a great story teller & I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.
Pamela did an excellent job as narrator.

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobook Boom.

Utterly Wonderful

Shutter is modern day Gothic horror at it’s best. Quick to pull me in and keep me enthralled with moody language and hauntingly creepy scenes.

Micheline Helsing is a part of the legendary Helsing corporation which takes on the undead head first. She’s headstrong and a bit brash, and after some rather horrifying events of her past she wants to prove to herself and others that she can hold the Helsing name on her shoulders. She is also tetrachromat, meaning she can see ghost light and tell what sort of undead she and her team will be dealing with. I found everything about the technical aspects fascinating; from the ghost light to the use of mirrors and silver in luring and trapping the entities. There is a bit of a romance angle, and in a gothic horror that’s to be expected, but it is one that hogs bunch of page time. Instead we get plenty of time to see them work together and build upon their relationship slowly. I really love Ryder ad Micheline together. They both know their strengths and their weaknesses, and despite the danger around them they know that they are both capable hunters. That’s really I ever ask of romance in YA. I just want the chemistry to be strong and for them both to understand each other limits, no over protecting and no constant ‘saving’ of a character who can handle themselves a vast majority of the time.

The world building is pretty phenomenal in my opinion. I love seeing the frame work of Dracula being built upon and used in a really cool way. The Helsing’s, Harker’s, Seward’s, and Stoker’s are all prominent and important families responsible from the creation of the Helsing corps and the medical facilities used to prevent infection and stay on the cutting edge of ghost light tech. I think the coolest thing about this is that all the added tech it never loses it’s Gothic moodiness. Even the more modern horror elements really fit well with the mood and atmosphere, so not only do you get that gloomy and creepy feel to the entire story but there are some genuine freaky parts that i wouldn’t recommend to the feint of heart. I’m sort of in love with the monsters in this, as weird as that may be. The necros are terrifying and gross, but there are a few scenes that involve them that I’m kind of happy with haunt my nightmares.

The narration is another big accomplishment for me. Pamela Lorence’s treatment of the book is clean and crisp, with plenty of attention paid to the perfect amount of emotion. She keeps the story moving at a nice clip and really knows when to slow down and focus in on those tiny little atmospheric details.

I’m so glad I requested this one! I finished it up in a matter of two listens and immediately wanted to buy a physical copy for my shelves! I’m looking forward to more books by Courtney Alameda and more audios from Pamela Lorence.

A very interesting concept

I really enjoy books having to do with hunters of the supernatural. I especially enjoyed that it had to deal with the descendants of Van Healing and his team. I liked that there was a darker side to the book while keeping some humor to the story. The only thing that caught me off guard was that it sort of turned into a teen heartthrob novel. Besides that I really liked listening to this book.

The narrator for this book had a very good voice but I was disappointed that it never really changed throughout the book. All the characters sounded the same so I had a hard time knowing what character was speaking. Also her volume never changes when it came to exciting or tense parts of the story.

I received this audiobook from the author narrator or publisher for free via audiobookboom in exchange for an unbiased review

Amazing

I loved this book. I loved the subtle ties to the original Dracula book while still developing a whole new world. 10/10

this doesn’t quite hit the horrific mark

Micheline and her team are a group of ghost hunters. They have been trained since they were young teens, to attack and remove paranormal entities. At the beginning of the story, Micheline decides to dive in and catch this new ghost on her own. The idea is there, she doesn’t want it killing anymore, but the technique is not. She rushes in purposefully, knowing full well she’s leaving her team behind, even though they’ve been trained to do the opposite. It’s frustrating because when it goes wrong she blames herself and starts whining about it.

The narration by Pamela Lorence is amazing but also picked up on Micheline's whine and the first portion of this was difficult to listen to. The narrator and narration were fantastic, as audios go this is top notch, but the character herself was driving me nuts. I blame the main character for this, not the narrator! The first portion of the book was extremely difficult to get through. Every time she whined about something else, I just wanted to stop! It drove me crazy. Especially since it was all her own doing.

Admittedly, the girl is going through a lot but in the first few pages, I didn’t know that. Still, it drove me nuts just trying to get past her constant worry. Much like Bella Swan. It’s a weird comparison, but this is exactly how Micheline Helsing acts in the first few chapters. If this were just Kindle Unlimited and not something for another website, I probably would have put off reading it even longer!

This is page 60. Ok, again, Micheline is going through quite a bit, and the backstory is starting to come out, although it’s slow. I think the second biggest reason the first part failed, for me, is that there is a lot of explanation about how to capture these entity's. Too much information. Later in the book, Micheline has a succinct explanation that was much better, easier to understand, and easier to read than the first half of the book.

That said, once I got to Night two, I started getting more interested. There are still some cliche moments, getting better though. Micheline is starting to come into her own and is willing to risk her own skin to save her friends. This is where her strength really shows. It takes nearly half the book to get there, but once she does, not only is the plot getting better, but her characterization, and the girl I thought was in there, is surfacing. She is kick ass. Still vulnerable, like all characters are to a point, but not so vulnerable that she’s going around whining about it, even when it is completely acceptable to do so!

The other characters had decent characterization but the blended too easily together. I needed something a bit more to make their voices shine. There are four guys on her main team and they are all contaminated with this soulchain. I would imagine they would all react differently, but for the most part, they blindly follow Micheline. They are also sort of ordered to do so, but still, having a chain of command does not mean you cannot fully voice your opinion on how screwed up a situation is. I think having their voices heard, even a little bit more, would have gone a long way into creating a memory of these guys and what they would do for Micheline.

What I loved was as Micheline digs deeper into this mystery ghost, Courtney Alameda’s imagination shines! The horrific portions of this, and what Micheline’s team is up against, is fantastically imaginative and on the edge of horror. Much like Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. It’s unique in the ability of catching the ghosts, but also in the ghosts themselves. They come up with a myriad of ways to freak the team out, and in turn will freak out many readers!

What frustrated me in the beginning with Micheline, was forgotten as the story went along. The narration by Pamela Lorence did help, although Micheline still sounded a bit wounded (ALL THE TIME), but there were plenty of pauses and the tempo was perfect for listening. I did like Ryder's voice. I think he sounds more confident, even though Micheline was the team leader. The audio itself was perfect, no background noises or anything that took away from the story.

As a lover of horror, this doesn’t quite hit the horrific mark as much as I would like, but I had some moments where I was cheering. Not only for Micheline but also just for the imagination of all of this.

In short: I’m glad I finally got to this. It was an interesting story. A bit long winded at points, but that is before it really gets going. Once it does, it’s a great ride!

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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So good!

This book is amazing. I loved it from beginning to end. All the feels! Buy it. 😀

I liked it

The overall story was good. fairly predictable but it had a couple of surprises. If it was made into a series I would listen to it for sure. the teen love story part was meh but tolerable

exciting

This book is so cool, perfectly put together. I love the narration. This author has an amazing imagination. I am hoping and begging this book becomes a series.