New narrator improves the listening experience

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys well written, early 90's, romances. This is an excellent example of Jayne Krentz romantic suspense; ... probably not anyone's choice as the best book she has ever written, but definitely a very good one. Characters are well defined and the behaviors are plausible if you accept "impulsive", but imperfect, heroines.

The first audio version of A-P did a disservice to the book. This Richard Ferrone version lifts it back into my personal "audiobooks I enjoy listening to again" list. (I do have all of the Krentz audiobooks except the 4 recent Stephanie James releases, so I have some basis for the assessment.)

This is not a book of memorable moments or can't put it down suspense. It is a light quirky tale of the adventures of a likable "wanna be a detective" young woman and of the family company CEO that the family wants her to marry. It serves as a setting for some fun characters. Ferrone gives us those characters clearly and in the spirit it that Krentz apparently wrote them rather than turning this into the sound track of a movie.

Ferrone has a fairly distinctive style. It's an enjoyable style, but it can overpower the story in a rapid succession of books that you do not expect to be similar. I suspect it works well with series books where you expect the characters to sound like they did in the last one you listened to, but it can be wearing after too many unrelated titles.

I have the three Krentz novels that he has done and I would rank them as:

Trust Me - six stars, the book is perfect for his strengths and he hits a grand slam home run with it.

Absolutely, Positively - a 3.9 star text performed extremely well to boost the book toward 5 stars.

Grand Passion - a 4 star text with a good but not great reading.

11 people found this helpful

Absolutely, positively a good listen

This is the story of a Harry, a sexy Science Professor, who has been hired as a Consultant by Molly to advise on the worthiness of new inventions to receive a grant but the trouble is he's more interested in Molly than the inventions. Harry is, initially, only interested in a brief no string attached affair coupled with that he is gifted with ESP but is in total denial of his abilities.

It's funny, lighthearted, a sweet listen but with a good plot that has a few twists to it and you just can't help liking Harry.

Worth a credit? Yes, if you're after an easygoing romance.

8 people found this helpful

Absolutely a Good Listen

Molly is intrigued by the unconventional Harry. Harry has come up with a scientific plan to seduce Molly. Molly’s father was an inventor who finally hit it big with one of his inventions, upon his death he leaves instructions to set up a foundation to fund up and coming inventors. Molly hires Harry to weed out the unscrupulous ones, and to recommend the ones that have a sound scientific basis. Harry irritates Molly because he hasn’t approved anyone, claiming they are not scientifically sound. In the meantime, someone begins to harass Molly in the hopes of her turning the day to day administration of the Foundation over to someone else. The harassment takes a murderous turn leading Harry and Molly to try to find out who is harassing her, while doing this amid the myriad problems besetting Harry by his family. I really enjoyed this story, it was fun, had love scenes that weren’t explicit and a whodunit.

5 people found this helpful

rdragon

Would you listen to Absolutely, Positively again? Why?

yes, i love the story line and character see like friend

What did you like best about this story?

i like that, dr. and molly kept trying to get together and family keep get in the way. kind of like life.

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

he make it's seen like i'm watching a movie instead of just listen.

Any additional comments?

no

3 people found this helpful

I really, really wanted to love this. Sigh.

I have been on a major glom of Krentz's backlist and have really enjoyed them. I have not found this at a UBS so I thought I would use one of the credits that was burning a hole in my virtual pocket. Not such a great idea.

First, I enjoyed the book. It is what you read vintage Krentz for. Strong angst-filled hero with dead family members by the seeming score but yet still enough family members remaining for heaping spoonfuls of guilt to be applied daily. There is always at least one young male family member that sees him as a father figure. Never female, always male.

Next, our heroine, just as strong but more of the get-it-all-on-the-table sort. She, too, has family drama, almost always female, both older and younger.

Oh, let's not forget the tea. There is always tea. This time, our heroine owns a very successful tea shop.

So yeah, if you love this era of Krentz, you won't be disappointed.

Now, the narration. I love Richard Ferrone...with a different style book. He has a strong voice. But it is not a romance voice. It is not a voice that does the female characters well, especially if there are multiple females to be voiced.

There were multiple oddly placed pauses. I don't know if these were editing issues. I don't know if they were paragraphing issues. There were long breaks between chapters, but the unexplained breaks seemed even longer.

Pardon me while I pull out my soapbox. What were TPTB thinking to let a typo remain on the cover of this audiobook that was reproduced for Audible. Seriously, even if (and I say if) the actual book cover has a typo, it needs to be corrected. And in this case, the typo is egregious. They have misspelled "Krentz" on the cover blurb. Come on, people. Give me a break. "Krantz at her insightful and entertaining best" should not be on the cover of a Krentz book.

Putting soapbox away now (knowing full well I have angered the typo gods and fully expect to see a glaring typo in this as soon as I hit send).

Will I keep this book? Probably. Do I wish they had cast the narrator better? Definitely.
Will I continue my Krentz glom? For sure. Will I get another Ferrone-narrated Krentz? Gosh, I do hope not.

2 people found this helpful

Story was ok but had some weak parts.

The audiobook narrator was awful.

It’s been a while since I read a Krentz book, but this book reminded me that she frequently writes similar things. I’m not complaining, just noticing.

1. The importance of family. And using family names as character descriptions, as if all family members have the same abilities. You hear a lot of he’s a Trevelyan, or The Trevelyans this, The Trevelyans that.

2. Paranormal/psychic ability. Harry has this, but he refuses to admit it and tries not to use it. But that ability solves the mystery and saves the day.

TWO LITTLE THINGS BUGGED ME:
1. Heroine does not admit logical things. Someone leaves threats for Molly. Instead of being worried she says Oh I’m sure it’s just a prank from one of my sister’s friends. When her sister offers to ask her friend about it, Molly says Oh you don’t need to ask, lets just forget about it. A car tries to run her off the road. She says Oh it was probably a drunk driver, nothing directed at me. Several things happen like this, and Molly makes glib comments and does not believe she’s being threatened. It didn’t sit well with me. Is this stupidity? I’m not sure what it is. Instead of using the word “probably” I’d feel better if she used the word “possibly.”

2. When Harry is meditating to get a psychic answer, Molly walks in and interrupts him, and then keeps talking. This happened twice. I was all set for a psychic answer, but it’s interrupted. I don’t mind delaying the mystery, but don’t do it with Molly being insensitive and interrupting. Just say the vision didn’t come or something.

This is like many romantic suspense stories. Neat hero and heroine. They quickly fall for each other and that was fun to watch. A bad guy is after her which is the main mystery. Hero does some neat things to save the day.

My favorite part was what Molly did to the two feuding families toward the end. That had me smiling.

AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR - Richard Ferrone.
All his female voices were awful. And sometimes his emotional interpretation of Molly sounded like a little girl instead of a smart successful business woman. But his male voices and general narration were good.

Narrative mode: 3rd person.
Genre: romantic suspense.

4 people found this helpful

More fun than a carnival

: contemporary-romance, magic, suspense, relationships, attempted-murder, inventions, reread, murder
Read from July 24, 1997 to July 24, 2016

I love this one so much that I reread it every so often just to clear my mind.
See publisher's blurb for plot clues.
Molly is in awe of Harry's brain power, thinks he's hot, and is totally exasperated by his attitude towards aspiring inventors. Harry is a super-educated control freak with warring families and who adamantly denies that he has any paranormal abilities. Toss in some old and new murders and attempted murders, crazy family dynamics, former lovers, and hot erotica, and you have a fun but suspenseful romantic read!
Richard Ferrone does a great job with the male characters

1 person found this helpful

did not order this book. doing these absurd thing

did not order this book. doing these absurd things is why i cancelled my subscription once before. seems I'll need to do it again

Best Book

This is one of my favorite books. Read it when it first came out. GREAT book in Audible!

A very well written book, funny, interesting and very likable characters.

I very much enjoyed this book? If you like suspense, romance and entertainment of a good plot you will enjoy this book and any other book written by Jayne Ann Krentz!