Narrated by Hollis McCarthy

I read and loved The Will last year so I was happy to get the opportunity to review the audiobook. It’s one of Kristen Ashley’s self-published books, so it is long, funny and celebrates not only romance but female friendships and family too. The hero is an alpha male but he’s a little toned down compared to some of the other heroes Ms. Ashley has produced. In print, it took me a little while to warm to Josie but having had the benefit of reading the book already, I was in the zone straight away with the audio.

Josephine Malone is a 47-year-old single woman who comes back to the small town of Magdalene, Maine, after the death of her beloved grandmother, Lydia. She is gobsmacked to find Lyddie added an unusual codicil to her will – she bequeathed Josie to a man by the name of Jake Spear.

On the surface, Jake and Josie are as alike as chalk and cheese. Jake has been married three times already and has three children. He is a former pro boxer and runs a boxing gym in Magdalene, as well as a strip club. He’s a hard worker, good looking (of course), he likes processed food and he doesn’t mind his Ps and Qs.

Josie is all high style. She has worked for the past twenty-three years for superstar fashion photographer, Henry Gagnon. She flies first class, hobnobs with the fashion elite and wealthy rap stars. She’s travelled all over the world, is an excellent amateur gourmet chef and she is very proper in her language.

Josie and Jake mix a lot better than oil and water however. The Will tells the story of how Josie finds a home in Magdalene and a family in Jake and his children, but not without some challenges – which is what makes it all so much fun. I loved it.

The narration wasn’t as good as the content however. I thought Hollis McCarthy did a very good job of Josie’s characterisation. Given that the story is told mostly in Josie’s first person POV, that was just as well. Here and there were some slips where Josie didn’t sound right or the words were fluffed but this part of the story would probably rate a B.

However, I wasn’t always in love with the way Ms. McCarthy portrayed Jake. He sounded, often, like a combination of Mae West and Edward G. Robinson. It wasn’t particularly attractive or sexy. The way he was voiced was variable and sometimes he slipped into Josie’s voice (or vice versa) and there were a number of inconsistencies in his pronunciation of certain words. By far the worst offender was the way Jake (aka Ms. McCarthy) said “Lyddie”. In my opinion (and my vox pop on Twitter agreed), the name is meant to sound “Lid-ee”. Ms. McCarthy started off saying “Lie-dee” which was all kinds of wrong. To add insult to injury, the way it was pronounced changed between those two (there was even once instance of “Lay-dee”). About three hours in (I’m guessing), Ms. McCarthy settled on the correct pronunciation. I was disappointed this wasn’t corrected in post-production. It was a really obvious error.

Jake’s three children are Connor (17), Amber (16) and Ethan (8). Ethan was given (mostly) a suitably high pitched childlike voice which I liked very much. However, sometimes he sounded like he was 20 and way past puberty. I liked how Connor was depicted but Amber was again inconsistent. Sometimes she sounded like a female doing a very bad impression of a male.

The portrayal of the many other characters in the story (it’s a Kristen Ashley book – the cast is large) was effective, especially the elderly – I thought Ms. McCarthy did particularly well here.

It has to be said that most of my complaints were toward the beginning of the listen. The audiobook runs more than 23 hours so I suppose I could grade based on the ratio of good execution vs. not good execution – but the errors which made it into the final book were unacceptable and I have to go with a C for the narration, even though most of Ms. McCarthy’s performance was quite good.

The story alone makes this worthwhile however – it really is charming and funny and sexy and sweet all at once and Ms. McCarthy does a good enough job with the narration that I can recommend it, albeit with some qualifiers.

Kaetrin

Narration: C

Book Content: B+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: Reference to domestic violence (off page) and some Fighting (boxing)

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Audible, Inc.