Wicked Beginning

By: Lily Harper Hart

Narrated by: Angel Clark

Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

Ivy Morgan is a witch with a mind of her own. What she doesn't need is romantic entanglements. That's why Jack Harker's appearance in her life is such a conundrum.

Jack Harker has a haunted past and all he wants is peace and quiet. He's left a life of violence and despair behind for the comforts of home and country. He might find peace in Ivy's presence, but he'll never find quiet.

Ivy and Jack are on a crash course for love, but they also have murder and mayhem in their way.

This omnibus includes the first three books in the Ivy Morgan Mystery series. Sit back and enjoy Wicked Days, Wicked Dreams and Wicked Times.

©2015 Lily Harper Hart (P)2015 Lily Harper Hart

Good price for the first 3 books

I adore the character development of the Ivy Morgan series but detest the performance by Angel Clark. There are periods of time when her voice shrieks so badly that you have to turn down the volume.

But, in saying that, I keep on going back to listen to the series. That is how you know the writing and character development is good, now we just need to remove the narrator.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Whiny

The whiny voice of the narrator made the story annoying. I know the point of the story was that the couple like to argue, but some of the arguing just didn't make sense. if Ivy Morgan is that whiny I don't think I'll listen to her anymore.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Story might have been decent

The lack of skill from the narrator kills this set. I found it difficult to stay interested in this series because of the narrative, she is unable to successfully carry off multiple voices with any type of effectiveness, and emotion

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Good story terrible narration

It took 45 minutes for me to acclimatize to the narrator. Her whinny voice was so bad I almost returned the book. The stories were pretty good. I can't believe I made it through all three.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Delightful Series, Enjoyable Listen

What made the experience of listening to Wicked Beginning the most enjoyable?

The story was a good balance of mystery, romance, humor, sarcasm and magic. The characters were delightful. The story held my interest through all 3 books.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Jack...reminded me of one of my favorite people.

What does Angel Clark bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Angel brought the characters to life with good intonations and midwestern speech patterns and accents. Having spent a lot of time in midwestern small towns, I think her nay sayers have not spent any time there. The characters were very believable, albeit a little immature for their ages.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I listened to each book pretty much in one sitting. It was not so complex that it prevented me from getting some other household tasks finished. It's an easy listen.

Any additional comments?

There was just enough magic to make it fanciful, but not heavy fantasy or occult.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Robotic performance

The story was OK but the performance was very poor. The voices were robotic and monotone.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

good read

liked the story line but the narrator was hard to get used to but if you stick it out it is a good story

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

How do I get my money back?

I have never wanted my money back on an audible book so bad before! The narration of this story was so hard to follow. The narrator does not have enough range in their voice to sustain a book with more than 2 characters. Other than the narration of the store the characters sounded like they were having a hard time with the cue cards they were supposed to be reading. (very robotic) When there was a conflict with any characters the raised voices just turned into high pitched screaming and just made it so hard to push through the story. Might have been better to read these stories the old fashioned way... With my eyeballs!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Irritating Narrator

Do the authors not have any input, or is the author ignorant too? I have to believe one of the top ten pet peeves of all listeners is an obvious lack of knowledge of the communities they are writing about. Grrrr. Tra verse (like cat) City, not Tra verse (like up). Recommend getting the brother-in-law’s Home Depot discount in one sentence, and then say it’s 2 hours to the closest mall in the next? Annoying. Otherwise humorous and a good story.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Juvenile and annoying

I don't know what age group these books were intended for but they are stupid. The narrator is very hard to listen to, she has the worst voice ever. It's like listening to someone run there nails along a chalkboard. the author's over use of the word non-pulsed and the bad use of "honey", leads me to believe she doesn't have command of the English language, or has never heard of a thesaurus. The repetitive nature of the books overall is not entertainment, it is torture. How it ever got published is beyond me. At times I wonder if the author has a very twisted idea of love and romance as it seems like she is not familiar with how relationships should be.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Potentially good but actually very disappointing

[{ "answer" : "Angel Clark's narration is great but I would be reluctant to try another book written by Lily Harper Hart", "type" : "Overall", "question" : "Would you try another book written by Lily Harper Hart or narrated by Angel Clark?", "id" : 226, "typeString" : "overall" }, { "answer" : "", "type" : "Story", "question" : "What will your next listen be?", "id" : 195, "typeString" : "story" }, { "answer" : "Angel Clarke seems to be a consistently good narrator, judging by the other series I've listened to which she has narrated.", "type" : "Performance", "question" : " Have you listened to any of Angel Clark’s other performances? How does this one compare? ", "id" : 214, "typeString" : "performance" }, { "answer" : "The scenes I would cut are the ones where the supposedly strong-willed Ivy allows the obsessive and controlling Jack to walk all over her - for example, the occasions when he refuses to leave her house (knowing he's bigger and stronger than she is so she can't physically eject him) and she does nothing to prevent him from getting away with it.", "type" : "Genre", "question" : "If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Wicked Beginning?", "id" : 253, "typeString" : "genre" }, { "answer" : "Sadly these books have a consistent thread of a supposedly strong woman allowing a controlling man, who is obsessing over her, to walk all over her. He spies on her, stalks her, openly follows her, and refuses to leave her house, Beyond making a few token verbal objections, she does NOTHING to stop him. She even stops her brother from beating him up and prevents him from throwing this man out of her house!

And it's all written as if this "relationship" is meant to be a Good Thing for her. Her relatives encourage it, apparently because having a contolling obsessive for a boyfriend is better than not having a man in your life...!!!

I couldn't continue to listen to it.

I didn't finish the third book because I could see that, despite his abandoning her when she'd been shot, accosting her in the woods, following her home and forcing his way inside, and then climbing into her bed while she was drugged to insensibility, she was going to take him back and continue to allow him to be controlling and dictatorial toward her.

This author seems to have peculiar ideas about what constitutes a good relationship and to what a woman should allow a controlling partner to do to her.

Teddy", "type" : "Misc", "question" : "Any additional comments?", "id" : -1, "typeString" : "misc" } ]

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Cringe-worthy

Would you try another book written by Lily Harper Hart or narrated by Angel Clark?

No!

Would you ever listen to anything by Lily Harper Hart again?

NO!

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Wicked Beginning?

Every scene where Ivy and Jack interacts! My God, this was bad! Really bad! How on earth can this whiny thirteen year old egocentric girl (I know she's older but it's hard to see) and this totally incompetent male police man who sounds like a thirteen year old boy even... Oh, so bad!

Any additional comments?

I didn't have very high hopes for this book but I was willing to try it for some light reading. It was really bad. It's supposed to be about two adults and they are sooo silly, like unmature teenagers and they just keeps on whining! The characters are unintresting and the story is unlikely and not very intresting at all, which if the charachters was some people you did want to read about doesn matter, but now it's so obvious. I will never read another book by Lily Harper Hart nad I don't think I will listen to a book narreted by Angel Clark either. Her very hig pitched voice really emphazises the whining.