meggiemine's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
2.5
I first came across this series on Hoopla while looking for audiobooks narrated by Will Thorne, a new-to-me narrator I’d been wanting to try. I tagged the book for my October TBR list because of the gothic and paranormal elements.
One of the first things I noticed about the book was the head hopping. It wasn’t jarring enough for me to DNF it right away, but it did lead to some confusion and annoyance. I think listening to the audiobook made it easier for me to keep going and eventually I became quite engrossed in what was going on. And I love romances where the main characters are working together to solve a mystery.
Not knowing whether the strange occurrences are a hoax or supernatural leads to some great suspense in the first half of the book. The hero and heroine start experiencing shared dreams, which heightens the sexual tension, as well. As more was revealed, however, I began to lose interest. By the end, I honestly was only half-listening and wasn’t paying enough attention to catch details, so I’m not even sure if all of my questions were answered.
It looks like this series was originally published under Harlequin’s imprint MIRA, which from what I gather is geared more towards romantic fiction than Romance. I’m not sure why the new editions were moved to the HQN imprint? I obviously haven’t read the whole series, but I think Mesmerized leans more towards Romantic Fiction, rather than Romance. I would recommend Mesmerized to a Romance reader who doesn’t mind if the romance story is a bit overshadowed by superfluous plot.
It looks like this series was originally published under Harlequin’s imprint MIRA, which from what I gather is geared more towards romantic fiction than Romance. I’m not sure why the new editions were moved to the HQN imprint? I obviously haven’t read the whole series, but I think Mesmerized leans more towards Romantic Fiction, rather than Romance. I would recommend Mesmerized to a Romance reader who doesn’t mind if the romance story is a bit overshadowed by superfluous plot.
As for the narrator, I liked Will Thorne’s voice a lot. (The hero’s voice had a gruffness that gave me pants feelings 🤤.) But Thorne’s intonation was just plain weird and, unfortunately, I don’t know enough about linguistics to explain what was weird about it. It was kind of like a gradual rising intonation with a sharp falling intonation at the end of the sentence? And he used that same intonation over and over again, no matter what the sentence was conveying. Anyway, I didn’t hate the narration. I wasn’t a fan of Cornell Collins at first either, but now he’s one of my favorites. I am willing to give Thorne another try or two before adding him to my narrator blacklist.
Endnotes
Narrator: Will Thorne
Series: The Mad Morelands #1
Genre: Paranormal-Historical Romance
Categories: M/F, gothic
Length: 9h 12m, 373 pages, 101k words
Format: audiobook, borrowed from Hoopla
Published: June 2, 2020 by Tantor Audio
ISBN: 9781541436961
Read Date: October 16, 2022
Setting: August 1876, in London, and at the hero’s country estate
Hero: Stephen, Lord St. Leger (I think he’s an earl)
Heroine: Olivia Moreland, the daughter of a duke, investigator of paranormal phenomena and mediums
Point-of-View: 3rd person limited, past tense, both hero and heroine’s perspectives but it’s inconsistent (head hopping!)
Heat Rating: 1 🌡️(low)
Details:
Spoiler
🔥Flames: 1 (no. of full sex scenes). ❌Partial Scenes: a couple of kissing scenes, at least one with some groping. 📑Flame Index: 1 (“feels like” flame count which factors in the book’s page count). ❤️🔥Intensity: 2 (mildly explicit). 💨Burn Speed: 1.5 (sex scene is after 75%).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief, Confinement, and Death
Minor: Murder, Violence, and Sexual content
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