A review by lilyn_g
Shadow's Embrace by A. I. Nasser, Scare Street
4.0
In Shadow's Embrace, we're back in the town of Mellington, seeing the continuation of Alan Carter's quest to find out what happened to his sister and the other missing kids. The familiar characters from the first book are back. A.I. Nasser fleshes some of them out a bit more in this book. It was interesting to see who stepped up to fill certain shoes, and who (rather surprisingly) gentled a bit. A couple new characters are introduced to spur the story forward. The author gives the readers a bit of a reward for sticking with him into book two, but still leaves some threads hanging for the last book in the trilogy.
The book begins with the narrator directly addressing 'someone' and catching them up a bit on all the events that have happened in Mellington. I wasn't a fan of this. I don't think it works well for this type of novel, and it felt completely unnecessary. I can see where it serves a purpose if you haven't read the first book in the series. However, I wouldn't recommend just leaping in to Shadow's Embrace. Definitely take the time and read the first book. It sets up everything nicely, and gives you a satisfying read.
Jake Urry has a wonderful voice for setting the atmosphere with horror reads. He’s easy to listen to and I feel like he really enjoys doing the narration. His vocal range is somewhat limited, I think just due to how deep his voice seems to naturally be. He relies more on pacing and slight changes to indicate character voices rather than the wide and obvious swings you’ll see from a narrator like Ray Porter. My only complaint is that I wish he’d talk just a tiny bit faster. This is the third story I’ve listened to that Urry narrates, and I instinctively set the speed to 1.5x now. On Audible, it doesn’t matter much, but on an audio CD where I couldn’t adjust the playback speed, it would drive me nuts.
Overall, it's a good listen that perfectly fills up a week long commute. I'm curious to see how things resolve in the final book - Copper's Keeper. I definitely have a couple characters I want to see get what's coming to them. It's not a series I can rave about, but it's definitely a pleasant way to pass a car ride or ten.
Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of this audio book by the narrator.
The book begins with the narrator directly addressing 'someone' and catching them up a bit on all the events that have happened in Mellington. I wasn't a fan of this. I don't think it works well for this type of novel, and it felt completely unnecessary. I can see where it serves a purpose if you haven't read the first book in the series. However, I wouldn't recommend just leaping in to Shadow's Embrace. Definitely take the time and read the first book. It sets up everything nicely, and gives you a satisfying read.
Jake Urry has a wonderful voice for setting the atmosphere with horror reads. He’s easy to listen to and I feel like he really enjoys doing the narration. His vocal range is somewhat limited, I think just due to how deep his voice seems to naturally be. He relies more on pacing and slight changes to indicate character voices rather than the wide and obvious swings you’ll see from a narrator like Ray Porter. My only complaint is that I wish he’d talk just a tiny bit faster. This is the third story I’ve listened to that Urry narrates, and I instinctively set the speed to 1.5x now. On Audible, it doesn’t matter much, but on an audio CD where I couldn’t adjust the playback speed, it would drive me nuts.
Overall, it's a good listen that perfectly fills up a week long commute. I'm curious to see how things resolve in the final book - Copper's Keeper. I definitely have a couple characters I want to see get what's coming to them. It's not a series I can rave about, but it's definitely a pleasant way to pass a car ride or ten.
Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of this audio book by the narrator.