I have listened straight through up to the end of this book and I’m thinking I am no longer interested in this series.
My reason is that the storyline is convoluted, meanders and I find it difficult to stay focused while listening. The differentiation of the characters is getting very muddled. Although the descriptive language used for various characters, their emotions and motivations are good, they don’t connect me with the characters and situations any longer.
I have listened on and on hoping to see some crescendo to a compelling momentum that would make we want to find out what will happen next, but the pace and storyline itself is so shallow, I find that the “payoff” at the end of each book now seems purely self serving in order to hopefully, (with little care form me now), to want to listen to the next book.
I am very selective about which readers I will listen to and Kevin Pierce is one that I like a lot, but I feel he is just not the right reader for this work. Mr. Pierce’s style is like a the words of a small child when he says, “Grandpa, tell me a story?” He’s great for certain types of material, but not this one. Sorry Mr. Pierce. I know you are doing your best and I don’t feel it’s really your fault.
One reason I started listening to this series was Ray Porter, who I always throughly enjoy listening to. He was such a perfect fit for these books that it overcame many of the short fallings for me with these works, but towards the end of the book before this one, I could see the effectiveness of this series to hold my attention was waining. Then with the switch in readers, I could see this was not going to go well. As with all acting, even the best performance does not make up for a poor script.
Maybe others of you see this series differently, but I am done with this series.