Whiskey & Roses

The Xander King Series, Book 1

By: Bradley Wright

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

The Navy SEALs trained him. The CIA wants him. America needs him. Start the journey with a man hell-bent on revenge, but destined for so much more....

Imagine Mitch Rapp meets James Bond.

The world knows him as a handsome, charismatic, and successful young businessman. The CIA knows Xander as the US military's most legendary soldier, turned vigilante assassin, who sharpens his skills in the shadows until he can exact revenge on the monster that murdered his family. They have watched his double life go on long enough, and now the government wants their weapon back. Xander has different plans.

After a passionate night with Hollywood sweetheart Natalie Rockwell is violently interrupted by a surprise attack at Xander's home, those plans are set in motion. Xander's experts say it's suicide, but with the CIA closing in, he must sidestep them and take the fight directly to his rival. With unlimited resources and unimaginable skills, Xander's enemy will need an army to survive his wrath. Turns out, that's precisely what he has. This is no longer just about revenge, this is war.

If you enjoy Brad Thor, Daniel Silva, David Baldacci, Lee Child, Tom Clancy, Stuart Woods, Nelson DeMille, Ken Follett, Vince Flynn, James Patterson, Tim Tigner, or Clive Cussler, my fans believe you'll have a blast listening to my books as well.

©2016 Bradley Wright (P)2018 Bradley Wright

Ah, the juvenile personalities of man whores

Let's get the narration out of the way. It's terrible. His conversational lines all end whisperingly swooping upwards. Kyle sounds like a Scooby-dufus, and X is sanctimonious. Shawn (or Sean perhaps) sounds like a blithering idiot. So I can't be too sad that all but the main characters were killed off. It may be that, with a better narrator, the story would come off better.

The characters-- Bromances all over the place. Too many hugs, and too many "I love you"s among the men. too much use of the word "sexy". He says that what's her name, the actress? is funny and smart, but I don't see any evidence of that in the conversations. Her sexy voice, her sexy legs, she walks away sexy. Use the same word too much and it loses its meaning.

They have doctors and therapy for Xander's issues, and with help he could get beyond thinking he could have saved his parents from being killed--he was 15. He could get beyond revenge, and perhaps even trust he could love someone. Sigh.
I thought Kyle had been a Seal also, but apparently he's no good at anything other than being X's dumb tag-along, and picking up pretty girls. I sure hope those guys use condoms or they're gonna be known as King's STDs. And poor, under-appreciated, great body but still not good enough Sam. " 'I love you Sam', but we're still not gonna hook up cuz, see, I got this actress who is my soulmate after I saw her once, and you, well, you, Sam, you just save the day every day. What can I say?"

The story-- It helps that your people are unimaginably rich, then you can go anywhere and do anything without having to worry about logistics like gas money. X loses all his weapons several times, so is reduced to the primal basics. Ooo-gha. He is stupid and doesn't listen to the expertise of his friends because he, well, he, never fails. 8 enemy, and me with no weapons? No problem.
And it seems he gets the wrong guy. Which will necessitate another romp in the gore to try to get the real killer and finally, finally get his revenge. Then he can get down to, you know, just killing regular bad guys. Gonna be a vigilante like the Arrow, or Orphan X, but with dumber conversation.

this is not an action thriller

The story line is a joke and this is more a parody of an action thriller. Further, the narrator choice is totally wrong and that negatively affects the book. The author has better series to read / listen but this book is disappointing, waste of credit unfortunately.

Sadly

I enjoy the Xander King books…the horrible narration almost killed this one. Try again, please.

Good book, horrible narration.

Good book and story, I would READ the whole Alexander King series, but I wouldnt listen to another chapter of this series with this narrator. Its too bad, I can only imagine how many people were turned off of Bradleys books after attempting the audiobook. Adam Verner would be better suited to narrate romance novels for young girls. He reads with a breathy singsongy and cartoonish voice, its beyond bad. his voice and inflection for X's best friend is as if he is a sniveling, winey 5 year old. everything else is read with a breathy teenage girly type voice and inflection. I cant imagine the author had any say in the choice, unless Bradly is a woman who has mostly written romance novels for teen girls and is used to this childish breathy reading.

I would buy tbese books to read but most of my books need to be audiobooks and I listen on the road.
Sad when a narrator destroys a book so badly. There are plenty of narrators out there more appropriate for this genre even a lot of the not so good ones are tollerable enough to get through the book and still want to do another if the book was good, but not this guy. Sad!

Bad narration

Literally the worst narration I have ever heard. This guy should be reading a self help book and certainly not thrilled. The men that are supposed to be hard killers all sound like they are nerdy high schoolers. Having said that after listing to the Alexander King books which are a thousand times better, it’s worth listening to just to get the back story. The narrator for those books is very good. The writing of the Alexander King books is also way better.

Should have known better

I don't listen to this genre because I believe everything the heroes do are realistic, but this one is way overboard. I like the Sam character, she should be the center of what is happening, although she might not be able to kill or subdue 11 terrorists in her underwear. Couldn't finish the book, so hopefully no spoilers.

Worst reader ever!!

I can usually get past a bad reader but this was awful!!! It truly ruined the story!! I don’t know if I can do it again for the second book.

Narration made it unbearable for me.

I haven't been into 60's cartoons since the 70's.
The story may have been okay. I really cant say, because I could not finish the book.

wrong title

this book should be titled "I love Natalie and my mom." not really into romance novels. did not finish

Very cliché

The performance is mediocre. The story is very cliché of a super hero.
Not a very exciting book to read.

A little bit of a parody

It’s ok, but far too many overtones of being written by a frat boy. There is some ability there in the author but he strays into parody too often. Plus the narrator is terrible at accents which doesn’t help