#31. Includes A Personal Phobia – The Narrator by K L Slater (Audible)

Given how many books I've listened to on Audible, I thought it would be interesting listening to a book about a voice-over actor who was narrating an audio book. 

I enjoy psychological thrillers, and I wasn't sure how this book would fit into my 2024 challenge. It wasn't long before I realised that it would fit perfectly into the phobia bracket. I don't have many phobia's. I dislike snakes, but I can just about cope with them and I've held a tarantula, so that's arachnophobia out of the window, but the idea of being kidnapped and waking up with no idea of where you are, or what will happen to you, is a horror that would make the bravest person question themselves. 

Despite this being the 19th book written by K L Slater, I’ve not read any of her previous work before, so this is my entry for #31 - which includes my personal phobia of being trapped in the dark.

 

“What if the chance of a perfect life… put your daughter in grave danger?

Being a single mother is tough, but I’d do anything for my little girl Scarlet. I’d given up on my career as a voice actor when the call came, but suddenly I was the new narrator for a secret book from bestselling author Philippa Roberts, who has been missing for eight months. It was a lifeline for me and my daughter.

I hated that it meant leaving Scarlet with my ex in his perfect new home with his perfect new girlfriend. But I knew it was the right thing to do.

But as I start reading Philippa’s new novel, I start to wonder if it’s no coincidence that I’ve been chosen to narrate it. There’s something hidden in the pages of this book, I’m sure of it. Some clue to Philippa’s disappearance. And I don’t feel safe. I think I’m being watched. My room has been searched.

And then my ex’s girlfriend calls in tears and everything starts to click together. If I don’t find answers fast, I’ll lose more than my second chance. I’ll lose my daughter.”

 

Voice actor Eve Hewitt's career and life has hit an undeniable rut. She is divorced from her husband and has a 5 year old daughter called Scarlet. Scarlet and Eve have moved back home to live with Eve's mother. With Scarlet having problems at school and Eve having problems finding any work, she feels like a complete failure; that is, until she gets a call asking her to record the last instalment of a series of best-selling books by author Philippa Roberts. Eve has recorded all of the previous Jane Tower detective novels, but little does she know that by agreeing to record this latest novel, she will be playing the detective in real life too.

Ten months ago, Philippa was last seen en-route to an awards ceremony. No ransom demands were ever made after she suddenly vanished, and both police and media interest in the disappearance has diminished. Her editor, agent and publisher no longer show signs of  concern about their missing author, but they are delighted when Philippa's wife announces she has stumbled across a final unpublished manuscript. Eve is delighted to finally have some paying work, but that delight quickly changes to apprehension as she realises that she will have to leave her daughter with either her mother, or her ex-husband, whilst she moves to London to do the recording. When she receives an email attachment of the book, Eve notices that the main character in the Jane Tower novels has changed her persona from the previous books which she thinks is a little strange. When she arrives at the recording studio, Eve is handed a fresh copy of the book to read from, but the anomalies she noticed have been amended. Eve becomes concerned when she is told to delete the emailed copy of the book. Why is the publisher being so secretive? What really happened to Philippa and why is she the only person to worry about what might have occurred?

Eve wonders whether the original errors in the manuscript were intentional and that perhaps a message or clues to her whereabouts had been encoded in the story. As she looks for differences between the two texts, she draws up a list of potential suspects who may have wished Philippa harm and comes to the conclusion that not many people actually liked her. As far as she could see, Philippa was a money making machine with her books, but that was as far as the niceties went. As she delves into Philippa's past, Eve tells various suspects that she is only looking into Philippa's disappearance as an aide to narrating the book, but soon after, she starts to receive threats that put both her and her daughter in danger.

Whilst I enjoyed listening to the book, there isn't a great deal of complexity to it, which is echoed in the short runtime of 8 hours. The book is split between Philippa's narrative of her abduction and incarceration, and Eve's story as she tries to piece together what happened when Philippa disappeared.  I thought that both Clare Corbett and Kristin Atherton handled their characters well, and the use of two voice actors aided the narration as it aided clarity on the storylines. The prologue sets the disturbing abduction scene well and leaves you with a dark sense of foreboding, but the book twists and turns in a manner that takes it in a different direction.

I found the level of description in the book superficial, by this I mean I got a sense of where Phillippa was, and a sense of how scared she was, but I didn't feel I was with her on her journey. I wasn't in the room with her, I felt like she was telling me her thought's but she remained distant, and the same could be said for the rest of the characters. I never really formed an emotional attachment to them, so it's hard to imagine them as real individuals other than seeing them on a perfunctory level. You begin to understand that the people who are targeting Eve are not necessarily the same people who are targeting Philippa, but there is nothing in the book to advance that theory. This lack of depth means the characters are not particularly well developed, which is a shame, because I'm sure there are many reasons as to why they behave as they do.

I liked the protagonist Eve. I thought the book gave a nod to a single mum who was being unnecessarily punished for wanting to pursue her career and showed how she tried to manage after her narcissistic husband left her for one of her colleagues. She was the type of character many people would be able to relate to, so it was a shame we only scratched the surface of her. She made a good amateur sleuth, and I'm thankful that the book kept her in that role and didn't give her an unnecessary love story trajectory that many books repeatedly do. Eve was a strong, intelligent single mother, who had a sense of justice, but she was also vulnerable, unsure of herself and almost broken by her ex-husband. For her to be the only person interested in finding out the truth about Philippa, showed what a determined and caring person she could be. But again, I kept asking myself why she was like this, the bits we had been drip fed about her past made me think she'd probably just want to remain in the shadows having a quiet life and I felt pangs of sorrow for her when her dream job quickly turned into the stuff of nightmares.

Eve's ex-husband was an awful character, but again lacked any depth. He showed no interest in his daughter, always letting her down, not visiting when he said he would and being emotionally unavailable for her. He left Eve for one of her colleagues who is now pregnant. The pair of them live in an impressive dwelling which he wants to show off, so when he hears Scarlet is living with her gran whilst Eve is in London he is furious. He ensures Scarlet moves into his house and promises her the earth and the story hints at how controlling and devious he is, so you start to imagine how life might have been for Eve when she was married.

Chad, the superfan, was an interesting but underused character in my opinion. He had so much potential to steer the story along some genuinely interesting routes, so I think he was a lost opportunity to open the story up and create a bit of chaos. Superfans are extraordinary people, they are completely oblivious that their actions are often crazy, and it is only as an outsider looking in, that you realise the extreme behaviour they are willing to engage in in order to achieve their desires. 

This is a decently written book, and as the story develops you asks yourself questions trying to work out what happened to Philippa and why, but I thought the ending felt rushed. I didn't see the clues develop over the course of the book, and for me it felt a bit like a Scooby Doo type ending, where the killer is unmasked and the kids explain all so that everything suddenly makes sense. The motivation for kidnapping someone felt a bit of a flimsy defence, but this book is a satisfactory choice if you want to read a thriller which isn't too complicated, that you can easily complete in a day!

 

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Suspense

Release Date: 11^th August 2022

Publisher: Audible Originals

Listening Time: 8h 5m

This book is currently unavailable to purchase from Bookshop.org  

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