Hello, wonderland in. Happy Sunday I hope that the start of your week is great. For me it’s about 10 AM so I have been up since six finishing this amazing book. I hope you guys really enjoy this review and I hope your week is going great and that I’ve inspired you guys to pick up this awesome book.
Author: Nicola R. White
Narrator: Elizabeth Tebb
Length: 9 hours 2 minutes
Series: New England Furies, Book 1
Publisher: Strange Roads Press
Released: Sep. 18, 2017
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Tara Walker dreams of more excitement than slinging plates of seafood for Cape Cod tourists, but as she learns when she is attacked and forced to fight for her life, fate sometimes has a funny way of giving you exactly what you wish for. Faced with strange new powers and embroiled in a murder investigation, Tara must now race to uncover the secrets of the ancient Fury that has woken inside of her – and of the evil that stalks her.
As if Tara’s life hasn’t gotten complicated enough, she is forced to ally herself with Jackson Byrne, witness to her assault and uncle to a pint-sized oracle whose fate is intertwined with hers. Skeptical, stubborn, and oh-so-sexy, Jackson wrestles with demons of his own. He is determined to ignore the attraction rising between them even faster than the body count, but like it or not, he and Tara need each other if they are to unravel the mysteries that surround them.
Nicola R. White comes from a small city on the east coast of Canada where ghost stories and superstitions abound. Although she is a lawyer by profession, her passion is reading and writing fiction. In 2016, Nicola’s debut novel, Fury’s Kiss, won the $10,000 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Romance. She is currently producing her first graphic novel.
Nicola is a member of Romance Writers of America and Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada. She is a frequent guest and speaker at literary events such as Word on the Street and Hal-Con, the largest sci fi/fantasy convention east of Montreal.
I am a literacy specialist with experience performing in a number of roles. Having spent a great deal of time speaking publicly as both an educator and an administrator, I have accrued a varied skill set that I feel confident I can use to advance and advertise bodies of work. My passion for literature drives me to bring the voices within it to life.
- Tell us about the process of turning your book into an audiobook.Fury’s Kiss was the first audiobook I produced. Since I self-published this book, I wanted to do the same with the audiobook. I used a marketplace service offered by Audible.com for authors and narrators to connect and produce audiobooks that will be distributed through the site. Potential narrators submitted auditions and I selected the wonderful Elizabeth Tebb!
- Was a possible audiobook recording something you were conscious of while writing?Absolutely! I always think about the possibility of my books being adapted into all sorts of different mediums, whether audio, film, graphic novel, or something else I haven’t thought of yet.
- How closely did you work with your narrator before and during the recording process? Did you give them any pronunciation tips or special insight into the characters?Elizabeth and I kept in contact by email and touched base every month or so, but I don’t like to micromanage anyone so I trusted her to let me know if she needed support from me. I provided her with a character sheet and notes about accents and pronunciation of some unusual names, but that was pretty much it! When she was done recording the book, I listened to the chapters and provided feedback for minor revisions.
- How do you manage to avoid burn-out? What do you do to maintain your enthusiasm for writing?My problem tends to be the opposite of burnout – I always have more enthusiasm than time! I usually have several projects on the go at one time so that I don’t get bored with any one project in particular. Right now I am working on a comic book and a game script in addition to my usual romance writing schedule. For me, burnout is more of a problem in relation to my day job, so I have taken steps to make sure I have enough energy for my work as a writer (which is my real passion).
- Are you an audiobook listener? What about the audiobook format appeals to you?Of course! I love the way a good narrator can make you feel as if the story is coming to life. I also like the convenience of being able to multitask while listening to a good book. My favorite place to listen to audiobooks is in the car.
- How did you celebrate after finishing this novel?I don’t know that I did actually celebrate at the time. I am a lawyer by profession and I finished the first draft while I was studying for the bar exam. I started writing this book as a way to de-stress while I was in law school and didn’t start seriously thinking about publishing it until I had re-written most of it several times over. The real celebration happened when I published Fury’s Kiss and it won the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize a few years later.
- In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of writing a stand-alone novel vs. writing a series?As a reader and an author, I prefer a series to a stand-alone. From a reader perspective, if I like a book, I want more! From an author perspective, books in a series are easier to sell and readers seem to prefer them. It’s fun to create and explore a world in detail, although the con is that it can get hard to keep track of everything (especially if the series is based on mythology, like in the New England Furies series!).
- What bits of advice would you give to aspiring authors?Don’t give up! Even if it seems like things aren’t working out the way you hoped, writing is really just a numbers game. If you keep working at it long enough, you will eventually enjoy some degree of success, whatever that looks like for you. Learn as much as you can about the business side of publishing and never sign a contract you don’t fully understand. Finally, don’t compare yourself to other people. Roosevelt was right when he said that comparison is the thief of joy.
Nicola whites wrote an amazing story. I have found myself gravitating towards Greek mythology and fantasy-based stories recently. I don’t know if it’s just the kind of mood but I am really into it right now. Fury’s Kiss is an amazing story. I have never really thought about fury in terms of books before. I have seen a lot of TV shows that have to do with Greek mythology and furious were in them. I think Elizabeth Tebb really brings the story to life. When a voice actor takes on the role as a narrator for an audiobook I really honestly believe that they will either make or break the store him. It’s all about the experience when listening to an audiobook.
Nicola as I said wrote an amazing story. The overall mythology I found to be really interesting and I really want to sink my teeth into the next Book this way I can just keep myself immersed into this world. I really like the idea that furies aren’t just to these killing machines. I know that they are meant for revenge and justice. I learned that they can also help people and well into justice they can help protect people as well. They don’t need to just kill. To learn about the sisterhood of the fury is really cool. In some sort of way they kind of remind me of Valkyries I know that they’re not the same thing but if I had to think of something comparable it would be the Valkyrie. Again I know completely different jobs but at the same time Valkyries or women and there’s a sisterhood there and they need one another to help bring warriors to help that final battle. I would love to get more into the mythology side of all of this. And where the furies ever just themselves?
Also, I think I should’ve mentioned that this book in my opinion would be classified more as a new adult novel. So if you are under the age of 17 I would ask your parents because there are sex scenes in this novel so and they get pretty hot and heavy so please keep that in mind if you want to read this book I would definitely get the parents permission if you are under the age of 17.
This is just one of the many questions that I have and I hope that will be answered in one of the later books. I know that there are four books out total and this one that I currently read is the only audiobook.
When I was a kid I hated reading physical books so I always turn to audiobooks. Even as an adult I still prefer audio box to regular reading because to me it’s so much easier to visualize and I really think that Elizabeth does a very good job in Helping me create such a visual that is not only pleasing to me but really helps immerse myself in the experience of listening to this book. This is the first book that I’ve ever read by Nicola and this is also the first book that I have heard Elizabeth narrate.
Elizabeth does an amazing performance. Her voice is so rich and smooth that I had to stop myself from nodding off a time or to. For me this is a really good asset when it comes to an audiobook because it means I can just fully relax and let my mind wander back into this world and having a voice actor who is able to do that I love. I have a lot of go to narrators that I will listen to and a lot auto buy storytellers that I will buy their audiobooks. For me I just want to immerse myself in the box that they are narrating and Elizabeth has definitely become one of them for me. I will have to say though that I found the range of voices for males to be kind of limiting. There were a total of two different southern accents that were good and one British accent that I foundTo be authentic sounding. Now for me when I listen to an audiobook I typically tend to listen to it at double the speed or triple the speed. That’s just how I personally tend to listen to my audiobooks. When I do start off though I will started at 1.6 times the speed just so I can kind of hear what a narrator really sounds like and their speech patterns. When a voice actor tends to talk really fast I don’t have to speed up the audiobook too much because then I won’t be able to catch what they’re saying. Elizabeth when she speaks she enunciate every word so it’s a bit of a slower tone. Which is great for people who can’t really keep up with fast talking. I find for me that if a narrator talks a little slower it really impacts my view of the story. And I really don’t enjoy myself as much. Having the ability to speed up the track I find that for me it just makes it a more enjoyable experience.
When I first started listening to it I did hear a lot of white noise. And when Elizabeth was going into the fury’s Voice she had to make her sound more snake like and I found that when she exaggerated her ass a little bit I really didn’t like what I did to the audio. If that made sense when I did end up speeding it up I found that that went away. Another point I would like to bring up is that because I do speed up my audios it’s important for me that the tone of the story doesn’t change too much. I know that when you speed something up the voices time to go a little bit higher in page and it doesn’t sound like how the voice actor should sound. I have to say I didn’t find that with this book. Which for me is pretty phenomenon.
I would definitely highly recommend this audiobook to people who I love audiobooks or somebody who wants to get in to listening to audiobooks. Whether I can say I would prefer this over the physical book I definitely have to say I prefer this over the physical book. I have the choice I would always prefer to go for the audiobook.
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Nicola R. White. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
Fury’s Kiss Giveaway: 3-month Audible Membership
Also available from Nicola R. White
Thank you all for joining me here in our little part of wonderland. Please do not forget to feed the unicorns on your way out.
Until next time
Much love
Ashten
