November 5, 2017 – Dab of Darkness Book Reviews

Author: S.M. Blooding

Narrator: Kalinda Little

Series: Whiskey Witches, Book 2

Length: 9 hours 17 minutes

Publisher: Whistling Book Press

Released: Jul. 5, 2017

Genre: Supernatural Thriller

Going back to Denver should have been easy. Old life. Old routine. Ten kinds of “all good.” However, with her gifts open, the paranormal world isn’t going to let her have that easy life. It turns out her partner of the last five years is a vampire and has been for several decades. He’s also the regional paranormal protector. So when a few shapeshifters go missing, he gets the case. But there’s also a demon killing those shapeshifters, a demon she can’t hunt because she’s still an open target for possession. Not to complicate matters, Dexx isn’t about to let Paige out of his sight. Bringing a demon hunter to a shapeshifter party only makes things that much more interesting. But when he gets bitten, the entire game changes.

Frankie lives in beautiful Montana with her Darling Dork, his two part-time girls, and their cat, Tesla. She enjoys creating with her wonderful husband, doing everything from crochet, to sewing, to art, and, of course, writing. She’s lived a pretty colorful life, giving breath to her stories.

She’s dated vampires, werewolves, sorcerers, weapons smugglers, U.S. Government assassins, and slingshot terrorist. No. She is not kidding.

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Kalinda Little is a 28 year old web developer who started playing around with audio and never stopped. Currently based out of Portland Oregon, she has spent time all up and down the West Coast, including several years is Ashland where she worked backstage at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is a chapter leader for the Nine Bridges Writers, a nonprofit that aims to assist and support writers in all genres, by providing resources and critique.

While she only started recording professionally in April of 2016, she had over two hundred hours of amature recording and editing available before that point. To date, she has narrated 27 books, with another 3 set to come out before the end of 2017.

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Note: While this is Book 2 in the series, it works mostly OK as a stand alone. The author does a good job of recapping past events that are relevant to this tale.

Paige Whiskey has returned to Denver after spending time with her family in Georgia. It’s only been a week since she did some demon fighting and regained some important memories. But she’s getting back into the swing of things as a homicide investigator with the Denver police department. Dexx Colt came to Denver with her and he’s picking up some handyman and mechanic jobs with Paige’s neighbors. Toss in her detective partner, Tony, and then FBI agent Jack, there’s a full monster hunting party.

I like the Denver setting, all the action, and the shifter magic that comes into play. Tony was also a worthy addition as I can relate to his skepticism. Dexx provides humor and some heat (though not as much as in Book 1). Jack’s role became important at the end of the book. Paige’s pregnant Texan sister provides some worthy research via the phone. Then we get a small-town sheriff, Carl (a woman) who acts as gatekeeper to the shifter community. Paige is the single woman in a boy’s club but these other ladies give the story some gender balance.

Paige is one of those people that can create her own drama. She’s got lots of self-doubt and spends time second guessing herself. I didn’t really like these traits about her but luckily she’s got murders to solve and supernatural beings to combat. Her powers grew exponentially in Book 1, which was fine. However, by the end of this book she has yet more crazy powers and these are used to get her out of a very difficult spot. So I felt that her powers were too convenient. I am hoping that Book 3 finds Paige having to do a little more than fling magic around.

Tony is the character that fascinates me. He’s hesitant to give up his secrets but eventually it becomes apparent that everyone would be better off if everyone put some of their cards on the table. I loved his reveal, his snide comments, and his dry sense of humor. Perhaps there will be a Tony miniseries spin off? (looks hopefully over at the author).

Sven was the big tricky demon from Book 1 and he has followed Paige to Colorado where he continues to torment her (or is he trying to woo her?) by leaving bodies. However, now he has a new trick up his sleeve and it involves the Denver area shifters. His trap he laid for her is multi-layered and I liked that it wasn’t a slam dunk to defeat him (even if I found that Paige’s sudden new powers made things too easy right there at the end).

Overall, I enjoyed Book 1 a bit more. Paige is sassy and her cussing makes me chuckle. There was a touch more unnecessary drama in Paige’s head in this tale and I found that repetitive. However, we get to meet Tony and he’s my new favorite character for this series. I really hope that Paige gets laid next book so she can stop riding the waves of desire and self-doubt. 3.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Kalinda Little continues to be a very enjoyable Paige Whiskey. I like her slightly rough voice for Paige. I also love her big lovable voice for Dexx. Her voice for Tony fluctuated quite a bit. Sometimes he sounded like he was sneering all the time and sometimes I kept getting him confused with Jack. Her male character voices are masculine though which is a good thing with so many male characters. I like how Little made Paige’s inner telepathic communications sound a little different so it was very easy to tell when the character was using that skill. 4/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by S.M. Blooding. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Q&A with Narrator Kalinda Little

How did you end up recording audiobooks? I remember listening to audiobooks from a very young age. I still have cassette tapes of some of my favorites. There was a full cast rendition of The Hobbit, all the Harry Potter books and a lot of Redwall. The stories seemed to come to life when they were being read like that. I could tell each of the characters apart just by how they were read. Later I found a collection of Sherlock Holmes radio dramas in my local library and that added a whole new flavor.I did a bit of acting in high school and then worked with SOU and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and quickly learned that while I’m not great on stage, I have a wide vocal range. If anyone ever asks voice acting is very different from regular acting.At some point I stumbled onto a community that recorded Podfic: fanfic as audiobooks. These people aimed for fandom to be all inclusive and it served as a practice field for those readers who wanted to become professionals. I loved it hearing new stories featuring my favorite characters, and if these people could do it, then I could too.I started with a couple of my own stories. Looking back it’s obvious I had no experience, but there it was, I’d proved I could do it. And I kept doing it. There are nearly 150 fanworks that I recorded out there on the internet if you know where to look. Some of them are better than others.I was eventually pushed into the professional market by someone in that community. They were talking about how they had taken these skills I had and gone professional. I put out a few auditions on a lark. I’d heard all the stories about rejection and how you have to apply hundreds of times before you get anywhere. Except all that practice paid off. I was asked to produce a book from the first batch of auditions. The book was One Night With A Dragon, and it was the kind of easy Romance story that I knew I could handle. After that, well, I’d done it once, I could do it again. I’ve kept recording and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.
What’s your favorite part of recording a new book? The same part that anyone would be happy about when getting a new book. I fall in love with the characters and fight with them through their troubles like any reader, and I try to put that into my reading. If it’s a tense action scene I try to keep that tension in my voice. If it’s a happy scene I’ll read with a smile.But I guess what makes recording a book different from reading it (at least for me) is figuring out the characters. I love doing voices and picking the right voice is definitely important to me.
What’s your process? Whenever I get a new book I try to ask for the author’s thoughts on the characters. What they think the tone should be. Once that’s settled I read maybe the first few chapters, but no more. Other professionals may look down on me for it, but I find recording a story without knowing how it’s going to end helps me put more of my first reaction into the recording. More surprise when something unexpected happens, more pain when someone is hurt, more passion and relief and joy.Editing is a whole other mess. I do all my own editing. That means going through, taking out mistakes, and choosing which take was the best one. An audio file that ends up being half an hour long, might start out being 45 minutes. Then once I have a clean copy, I get to the fun part: adding effects. Writers have so many tools they can use, be it punctuation, italics, capitalization, formatting, all of which will let a reader know something is happening. Sometimes I can translate those choices into audio: speaking louder and more forcefully for caps-lock. Other times it’s not so easy. The Whiskey books have been a great chance for me to stretch those skills. A demon shouldn’t sound like a shifter, a memory should sound different then when someone is possessed. I’ve done my best to both keep things clear to the listener and add an extra element to the story that you wouldn’t get just reading words on a page.
So character voices? I know a lot of narrators don’t do voices, but it’s always seemed natural to me, maybe because of my early exposure to full cast audiobooks and radio plays. Once the author tells me what they think of the character I take that and the physical description from the book to choose a voice. I try to pick voices that both fit the character (do they have an accent? What’s their personality and profession?) and set them apart from the other characters. The listener should always know who is speaking. This goes beyond just accent. The volume, cadence and personality all affect what voice I choose. I once had a character that thought of the world as one big joke, so I wore a half sneer whenever they spoke. I A Barrel of Whiskey we were introduced to a whole new set of characters. I gave detective Gomez a slight accent, because of her name and description, but she’s also a dryad, so i gave her a softer more flowing voice. Chuck made his entrance as a wolf-man so he got an accent where I spoke through my teeth. There are times when I’ve changed my mind and re-recorded, but it doesn’t happen often.
What equipment do you use? I record and edit in Audacity. I have several microphones, my primary setup is a turtle beach headset, but I now have a Mikme as a portable alternative. I’ve heard great things about snowball mics, but I tend to move around too much to get consistent audio. I talk with my hands.
What do you have coming down the line? I’ve got a few stories I’m working on at the moment. I’ve been recording a lot of Pulp stories recently and the next in that vein is Lady ACTION: The Sands of Forever. An action / spy novella by Ron Fortier. Then Plausible Deniability: Book Four of The Chronicles of the Harekaiian by Shanna Lauffey, a novella about time travel.Then of course there’s Witches of the West where Paige comes to my hometown of Portland Oregon to once again up the ante between the Witches, the shifters, and the rest of the supernatural community.