This Side of Murder

By: Anna Lee Huber

Narrated by: Heather Wilds

The Great War is over, but one young widow discovers the real intrigue has only just begun.

England, 1919. Verity Kent's grief over the loss of her husband pierces anew when she receives a cryptic letter suggesting her beloved Sidney may have committed treason before his untimely death. Determined to dull her pain with revelry, Verity's first impulse is to dismiss the derogatory claim. But the mystery sender knows too much - including the fact that during the war Verity worked for the Secret Service, something not even Sidney knew.

Lured to Umbersea Island to attend the engagement party of one of Sidney's fellow officers, Verity mingles among the men her husband once fought beside and discovers dark secrets - along with a murder clearly meant to conceal them. Relying on little more than a coded letter, the help of a dashing stranger, and her own sharp instincts, Verity is forced down a path she never imagined and comes face-to-face with the shattering possibility that her husband may not have been the man she thought he was. It's a truth that could set her free - or draw her ever deeper into his deception.

©2017 Anna Lee Huber (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Lack of inflection mars story

The reader's voice is pleasant enough, but so lacking in inflection that she kept putting me to sleep. Really got in the way of enjoying an otherwise decent story.

Best novel to Date

This Sde of Paradise I feel is the best of Ms. Huber’s novels to date. Her characters are becoming more three-dimensional and plots less predictable.

It’s ok … good idea but drawn out

I wanted to like this more than I did.
The author is very “wordy”. I feel like she could tell a story clearly with about half of the words.
I figured out most of the ‘mystery’ early on and I’m not unusually intelligent.

Excellent

I really enjoyed this story. I thought the characters were great and I definitely didn't guess the ending. I loved Verity as a strong female lead and I thought the author did a good job bringing all of the other characters to life.

I really hope a different narrator is chosen for later books though. She sounded like she was going up and down a hill with every four or five words regardless if it was the end of a sentence or not. She also did not observe punctuation in between sentences so it could get a little confusing if you weren't giving the book 100% of your attention especially with the aforementioned rise and fall of tone. Kind of frustrating but the story was good enough to keep me engaged despite the narration.

Sydni

No complaints. Couldn't put it down. This would make a great movie. Highly recommend this book.

Wow

Liked
Everything about it. The time period, the mystery, all the characters, the h, two equally interesting men, that I would have been ok with either, as her love interest.
Narrator did a good job. And by that I mean , she was a good fit and didn't distract me from the story.
On another author's series I couldn't finish the audio book because the narrator was so horrible.
Most memorable moment was the shocking reveal and the satisfying way it was wrapped up.
Good job Anna Lee Huber. Thanks

I CANNOT hang with this narrator

The narrator. Oh my god. I loved the plotline of this book!!!! But this NARRATOR!!! I can't hang. I might actually buy this series hardcopy because it's excellent but this narrator. No. I just can't. It's the type of British accent that's just too pretentious which might've been offset by literally anything but she ended every sentence in this way that I cannot subject myself to another of these books. Anyway if you can get past this narrator (this one is worth the sample listen just to gauge because it's that irritating) then enjoy this series because it has a lot of promise.

Pretty darn good

Pretty good storyline. Enjoyed the murder mystery challenge all the way through. The narrator was, sadly, not very good -having little inflection and consistently ignoring paragraph pauses, sentence periods and any character voice changes at all. A bit disappointing but not so bad that I couldn't listen to it imo. She didn't grate on the nerves quite so much as some poor narrators have done. Overall I enjoyed this tale of post WWI rich kids' struggles and those dramatic consequenctial developments.

Narrator inflection was distracting

interesting storyline with mostly satisfying resolution. (I was personally torn over the heroine and what she was faced with at the end.)
The narration was irritating to me. She spoke the end of almost every sentence with an upward inflection. (Similar to a question.) I was able to push through listening because the story was intriguing.

Horrible narrator

So sad, because I loved the story but that woman was the most monotonous reader and boring. I almost quit hearing but I really wanted to finish to see what happened.