The Darkwater Bride

An Audible Original Drama

By: Marty Ross

Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Donal Finn, Jamie Glover, Freya Mavor, Adrian Scarborough

Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

Late Victorian London. When the most respectable of Scottish businessmen is pulled, dead, from the Thames, his daughter is drawn into an investigation which reveals a whole world of secrets and corruption and leads all the way to the tragic truth behind the ghostly legend of The Darkwater Bride – in an epic drama combining the genres of the Victorian mystery thriller with the equally classic Victorian mode of the ghostly tale.

Featuring: Rachel Atkins, Amy Cooke-Hodgson, Clare Corbett, Stephen Critchlow, Donal Finn,Jamie Glover, Peter Gold, Joel Gorf, Chris Grahamson, Edward Harrison, David Holt, Frances Jeater, Yolanda Kettle, Fiz Marcus, Freya Mavor,Gerard McDermott, Nina Millns, James Parkes, Richard Reed, Adrian Scarborough, Lizzie Stables, Mark Straker, Ben Whitehead, Sarah Whitehouse and Sarah-Louise Young.

©2018 Audible, Ltd (P)2018 Audible, Ltd

spooky audio drama / sex & violence crime fiction

I'm a big fan of well made audio drama and would probably listen to a one about pottery. This was definitely technically strong enough performance to keep me listening.

The mood is gloomy to fit a really disturbing story that also attracted my interest as a fan of 19th century horror. Throughout the story is underlined the struggle of the female protagonist in a man's world where she's either overlooked or threatened, often sexually. This combines well with the crime story which is related to violence against women. The theme of women's emancipation is well developed throughout the story, even if sometimes the constant and relentless abuse of women by men felt a bit over the top to me. It was very disturbing, which was probably the purpose, but same time I also felt that the picture it painted of the world was too negative and sometimes it got me questioning the likelihood of the turns of events.

[EDIT: Since this review, I have been reading and listening to the history about the culture in the era, and it turns out that English culture really was incredibly male chauvinistic at the time and women's position extremely poor, rather exactly what it is described to be in this story, so much so that the non-supernatural content in this story now appears to me rather plausible.]

This is basically a detective story that combines elements of fairy tale sort of fantasy horror and violent sex crime fiction. Not exactly my cup of tea. I'm not completely against the use of supernatural in fiction per se, e.g. I love Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Lovecraft's work. But here I was left with a feeling, from very early on, that more realistic choices could have been more to my taste in this story, maybe because of its strong detective story nature. I'm also not a big fan of this sex and violence crime fiction. However, these elements were not badly woven together if you like this stuff.

The drama was bit broken by protagonist being also occasionally the narrator. This means that time to time she was telling the story instead instead of living it. This could be backed up by her being the only living witness to the story, but not actually witnessing all parts of it. So far so good. However, I felt that this was slightly inconsistent, since parts of the story seemed to be acted without her presence or narration. So, in the end, maybe better narrative solutions could have been made.

The performance was really fine. My only complaint would be that early to the story I sometimes was not sure who were the characters in the scene and where it took place. In the whole this was not a problem.

Men are bad, mmkay?

Story starts out strong then drones on for the rest of the book. The sound design and performance are alright, but not enough to save the book. I can tell who's the main character, is it Kat? Cause she has the least amount of lines compared to every other major monologuing character. She's also 1 dimensional and boring.

The icing on the cake is the message of the book: men are bad. All the male characters in the story are 1 dimential asshats and the characteristic for every female character is that they were hurt by men.

Would not recommend.

Erratic and Loud

The acting (voice) of female lead was abrasive and her script was simplistic. The story focused so much on depravity and shock rather than development of the story.

If you hate men you'll love this one.

If I could unlisten I would be ahead of the game. The essence of the story is there are no good men, women are noble victims. The structure of the story is pretty good. The presentation is some times busy but all in all engaging.

GRAPHIC

I made it about halfway through this and wanted to get to the end because the mystery factor really roped me in, but it contained truly graphic violence against a child and I just can’t find entertainment in that. It’s too disgusting and too dark.

Take it easy on the sex, Marty!

While I appreciate the old style and settings, the author went overboard on the disturbing sex scenes. I wish I’d known—I felt like I was stuck in someone’s fantasies, supposedly justified by some version of inappropriately insistent Girl Power. AND...the amount of times the characters say, “Huh? What? Oh” or “Wh—where? Wh—why? Oh.” “What did you say?” Lord, they are a highly distracted bunch.

Well that was uncomfortable

The performances and production of this was spot on, just excellent voice acting, pacing, and effects. The premise had a lot of promise, and I expected to be delivered of a gothic, sexy, maybe supernatural yarn.

Instead I got modern sexual sensibilities shoehorned into a period setting in a way that ruined any authenticity the atmosphere provided. Instead of sexy I got grossed out.
Side characters were all over the place in a way that made them seem opaque and confusing, not complex or real. Connections between people just - poof - appeared out of thin air. I didn't care about any of these people enough to even dislike them. Things could have been included and pulled off if the author had just left some veils over the nastiest bits. So dissapointing.

Thought it would never end

Child mutilation, sexual predator, violence, cruel sex, profanity, boredom. This performance has it all . The plot drags on and on. This book uses every opportunity to bring in lurid sex and sick behavior. I should have just stopped listening to it. Audible usually does much better than this performance

I couldn’t finish it

I love audio books because my commute to work is so long that I rather preoccupy my mind with a book. But this is more like a theater show that was recorded. I didn’t get to envision myself in the scenes because there wasn’t a description of the places or of the people as a narrated book would have. This would be amazing if I could see what was going on. I listened to about 10 minutes of it and left it. It might’ve been a great story but this is def not my style of audiobook. Sorry, my ratings are biased. Good thing it was free no credits wasted.

A bad insubstantial story of a weak ghost

This audio drama is, in a plain and accurate word BAD. A not awful, not the worst, even at being bad, it's unremarkable.
The acting is dull, they can't convey the simplest emotion, and I ended iou up not caring about the protagonist, her sidekick, the antagonists. The "plot twists" are boring, this story could've used half a dozen less chapters. The sound effects, rather than immersive, are distracting and make even more difficult to engage into a story that fails at every step into painting a believable scenario. The character development is non existent. And the protagonist is an out of time strong willed woman that doesn't make it to the kind of rebel she and the writer aspires her to be.

The supernatural element is poorly developed, a vengeful ghost that falls in love with the same kind of man that tortured her in life, and that seemed at some points an unstoppable force and later a soft damoiselle in need of and controlled by the man by her side.

I feel I waisted my time forcing me to finish this book. Sometimes, being committed to have things completed is an awful defect, specially when it comes to bad books and bad audiodrama.

Ghostly Thriller With a Dark Heart!

This is another deeply atmospheric Audible Studios offering coupling a rich soundscape with some high quality acting which evokes a feel of the darkness that was much of Victorian London. It would be fair to call it a piece of Victorian Noir as what begins as a young girl's attempt to find out what happened to her father descends into the seediest and darkest corners of a depraved city. It's also truly a ghostly tale and most definitely not one for those who like "cozy" mysteries.

I wouldn't rate it quite as highly as say the wonderful "Scarlet City" out of these Audible productions as it is a little repetitive in terms of the relationship between the two main characters; the poor hapless Culley striving to keep his feisty female companion in what he saw as her place. And some of the acting is also perhaps a little overwrought at times but it's a very enjoyable play all the same overall which builds up to what I thought was a thoroughly satisfying climax.

A genuine ghostly thriller with a dark heart, well worth a credit.

Wooden melodrama

This was like a first-year student production : the plot meanders to a pointless conclusion, and the production went way over the top with clunky, seriously un-frightening effects. Someone, everyone, needs to learn that less is more.

An excellent storyline, extremely well performed

An excellent and novel story, extremely well performed and executed. I really couldn't put this one down. It's great to hear the sound effects and dramatisation, nice one.

FIRST TIME I TRULY FELT CAPTURED!!

First off. I HATE horror stories or crimes on audio books. Most of them are boring or not scary at all. And this book was for me personally not scary or super complex with crime...
...But.

Thru all my entire list of audiobooks (I got too many) this instantly landed on my top 3!! Never expected; as I felt like a child hearing his first ghost story, like a young adult feel his first love to women's voices, and the love for true good old British accents. I still can't believe I was so captured.

Acting and the narrators: I sometimes end a book quickly if a narrator breath too much, make too much S'hissing noises or being too flat and lifeless. But these performers made me truly laugh on my bus home, in public, as I got so impressed by the sound and their performers. Honestly I don't know if I if I would read this book on my own as it quickly would dismiss it as another average book (which is just me being too rude and impatience as it's a well written book). But, knowing how good a theatre performance can sound like, I gave it a small chance, and I TRULY found a hidden gem!

Good story overall, with lovely descriptions, not too much and too heavy, but greatly added actions in between. I find "great readers" often describe way too much, so I close the book or audio-book way before the end. The combined creepy descriptions of eels, blood, corpses to touch of love, sensuality and the focus of courtesy in this era... well I just love it!!

Thank you so much for making me stay up all night for this astonishing performance! Well worth the money!

ps: sorry for the long review, but I don't care. It's well deserved!

Best listen since getting Audio

Really enjoyed it scary at times always a thriller,well read by several readers to keep tension going

Unrelentingly Miserable.

I don’t blame the actors, they perform this terrible story well, but it’s unredeemable. This book fetishises the awful treatment of women in the 19th Century, but seems to give them no agency. None of the characters has a decent quality to speak of and by the end I didn’t care.

The main character is a wilful idiot who despite repeated near misses in with dark alleys with men who want to sexually assault her, never learns from her mistakes. It would be one thing if she extricated herself from these awful situations but it is always a man with lucky timing who rescues her as she stands by in helpless fear.

The story is muddled and doesn’t seem to have been written by someone with much knowledge of 19th century middle class women. The main character is the daughter of a moderately wealthy banker from a small town in Scotland. In the first few chapters of the book we learn her mother has tried to shield her from the harsher realities of life. The fact that she travels to London unchaperoned, in the company of a young policeman & then insists on accompanying him on his enquiries as he dives through the brothels & bawdy houses of London, investigating her father’s murder, beggars belief.

Save your credits and read something better.

Predictable

Well performed. The story was a little 2 dimensional. it qas wntertaining, but nothing amazing.

Superb

A brilliantly dark ghostly tale that examines the sexual perversity of men in the Victorian era and, let's be frank, today at a time when misogyny is on the rise and violent crime against women remains high. Given the subject matter, it makes sense and balance to have a strong female narrator who combines a certain vulnerability with a dogged determination to find out about her father's secret life and how and why he died.

Very poor writing

brilliant acting talent sadly couldn't transform this story in to something worth finishing. Story is grim and joyless without being believably "victorian"...

Fabulous cast for old fashioned horror story

Loved it but I thoroughly enjoy Victorian gothic. Excellent story with terrific ending that made perfect sense if, like me, you can suspend belief and revel in the supernatural., you will find this reading totally immersing and well worth a listen - so enjoy.