The Wrong Girl

1st Freak House Series, Book 1

By: C. J. Archer

Narrated by: Lucy Rayner

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

It's customary for Gothic romance novels to include a mysterious girl locked in the attic. Hannah Smith just wishes she wasn't that girl. As a narcoleptic and the companion to an earl's daughter with a strange affliction of her own, Hannah knows she's lucky to have a roof over her head and food in her belly when so many orphans starve on the streets. Yet freedom is something Hannah longs for. She did not, however, want her freedom to arrive in the form of kidnapping.

Taken by handsome Jack Langley to a place known as Freak House, she finds herself under the same roof as a mad scientist, his niece, a mute servant, and Jack, a fire starter with a mysterious past. They assure Hannah she is not a prisoner and that they want to help her. The problem is, they think she's the earl's daughter. What will they do when they discover they took the wrong girl?

©2013 C. J. Archer (P)2017 Tantor

Good story but...

Be prepared for the females to have SUCH SHRILL VOICES! I had to turn it off twice just because she was giving me a headache!

Read Instead

I don't want to be mean, but the narrator made this book feel like a punishment. The voices she tried to use were so annoying it was like nails on a chalkboard. It made me cringe. The story itself did not seem to have much of a plot. The concept sounded funny and caught my attention, but it never lived up to my hopes. Sorry, I think I'm going to return this one.

Screeching and singing at the same time!

I could not get past the narrator's tone! If she wasn't screeching, she was sing-songing at the most inappropriate times. It was so random and just terrible.
I couldn't finish this book because of the narrator, so I can't comment on the story, but I assume it's as good as all of CJ Archer's other books! Sadly, as long as this narrator is reading, I'll never listen.

Too much talking and not enough resolution

Based on this book, I removed other CJ Archer books from my wishlist. A pretty cover and a good name for any book, doesn't quite make it worth the time lost listening to a story poorly told. Almost the entire book was conversations between the main character and other people - and almost none of those conversations came to a resolution. The story goes no where and starts in one place (with the girl who starts fires) to completely somewhere else (the guy who stole the papers - which is focused on entirely too much). This was really my first audible book that I didn't care for at all.

As for the performance of the reader, while very talented, the voice she gave to Jack was odd and off mark if you ask me. He sounded like an old arrogant man. Other than that, she's obviously very talented.

A pleasant surprise

Would you listen to The Wrong Girl again? Why?

Yes, i have just bought the second book in the series

What did you like best about this story?

The twist and turn to the story, I like the way it is positioned in the past and the innocence and properness of that era. Refreshing from all corset buster in the super natural genre recently

What about Lucy Rayner’s performance did you like?

She really makes the characters come to life. Will look for more of her work

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

No

Any additional comments?

I have just finished listening to Glass and Steele series, anticipating book 4.
I looked for more work from the Author. Whilst I did not enjoy this series as much as glass and steele it is still a great series

Narrator Pacing!

I could not finish the audiobook. The narrator’s pacing was terrible & her voice wasn’t pleasing. Written word is excellent, though!

Basic story, narrator ruins it.

The biggest issue with this book is the narrator, male voices are quite poorly done and it distracts from the story. I never got used to them despite sticking through the whole story. Not enjoyable, just endured it to get through.

This narrator is terrible

Her voice is fine her tempo is sing song and annoying. Her male voices are far too contrived. If she read it as if she were telling a story to a person it would have been much better. But I could predict the timing and tone of every word of the narration between dialogue. She is very good at the accents though and her voice is pleasant.

Love this ❤️

Great English characters. I was intent on finishing the whole story. Not a lot of characters to confuse a first time listener. I can't wait to hear more from this series ❤️

enjoyable story

I enjoyed the story., but I have to say that the narrator's voice was so very high pitched and shrill with some of the characters that it was hard to listen to. Specifically Sylvia's character...painful.

A Good Historical Story With A Paranormal Twist.

I don’t usually choose historical genres or those aimed at a young adult (YA) audience – The Wrong Girl is both. However, I've read and really enjoyed Archer's The Last Necromancer that was also set in Victorian England. I went into this audiobook with an open mind.

The Wrong Girl is good but didn't live up to all my expectations.

Lucy Rayner is a new-to-me narrator.

I liked the pace at which she read the story. Lucy also created a number of distinctive voices for the characters that were appropriate for their station in life. However, my issues with her performance include the rhythm she employed throughout and a couple of the voices she chose. I'm not sure how to explain why I found the cadence and rhythm so tricky but I struggled to hear everything clearly. Having to rewind often because something was read too quietly or jumping at suddenly loud words. Lucy's performance was a distraction.

Our protagonist, Hannah Smith, is a product of her time as are all the characters in this book. Women cannot be academics or achieve status. The head of the household is Lord and Master and what he says goes. My modern sensibilities always struggle with the restrictions, prejudices and social injustices of times past. (We have enough inequality in our modern world for my spirit to contend with). However, Hannah does have many of the traits I look for. She's resilient and certainly has plenty of gumption. So much was "kept secret for your own safety" and "you don't need to know that" it got me as frustrated as she was.

The plot wasn't as exciting or gritty as I was hoping either. I found myself easily distracted or falling asleep while listening. The Wrong Girl is the first book in a trilogy. Some questions were answered but many more are left to be resolved later.

I find the narration irritating: Hannah's accent

The beginning of each phrase too loud and unnatural and other words too soft so I was constantly adjusting the volume. this sounds too faked and snooty an accent, thus irritating. Although Hannah had the benefit of tutors her accent is more like a snobby duchess even more than Sylvia. Thus I found it artificial and forced. The other personalities ok. it was this that almost made me desist. The cover picture of a dark haired girl with straight hair in dark evening dress unrealistic and as neither Windermere with pale brick nor Freak house with an east wing and as the only clue as to the story this was not helpful.

The story is good enough to forgive the narrator

I was a little hesitant to purchase this, given the reviews I was reading about the Narrator and to be fair, for the first couple of chapters she did grate!! Her female voices are a tad shrill and her leading males voice is just odd and a little amusing!!

How ever to be fair to her, she is not monotonous and does inject character into her narration and after 2 chapters the story is so great, that you really get in to it and enjoy the story enough not to notice her narration!

I do find playing it at speed 1.25 to help a lot! But genuinely worth the credit as the story is fab!! And am immediately downloading the second book ;-)

Narrator

I like this author, but this particular series of books is very disappointing. My dislike is entirely due to the narrator, as her cadence is too monotonous and extremely annoying. I cannot follow the story as she delivers each sentence in a high pitch and then drops her pitch so low that I cannot either hear or understand what she says, making it very difficult to even follow the story. Sorry! I’m afraid I had to be blunt in an attempt to help her.

Great story

Written well with interesting story line but narrator sounded too old for the characters with odd accents.

Good story if you can ignore naration

Good story but the different voices were too much. Too shrill! Ok if you can ignore

Awful narration!

I found the narrator of this story dreadful. It was so bad I got the kindle book as the story was good and I wanted to know what happened. The voices were so inappropriate for the characters.