Sunday, January 25, 2009

Man with an Accent & Romance Triggers

I've done a post before about audiobooks and how I mentioned that I prefer male narrators to female because of the way a man can (usually) cant his voice in a way that his female voice doesn't sound ridiculous. It's usually done with less emphasis on the narrator's strong deep voice using a realistic falsetto. On the other hand, a woman narrator lowers her voice to achieve the male voice and it usually sounds too fake to my ears. In other words, a male narrator can swing both ways while a female can't. Plus, I think a man's voice is typically more soothing to listen to than a woman's. 

In addition to what I wrote previously about audiobooks, I was elated to have received a comment from author Lori Foster because I had mentioned that I liked listening to her audiobook, Caught In the Act. She commented that while it was totally not what she had in mind for Mick's voice, hearing a reader/listener's POV was interesting.

In any case, I've been steadily collecting audiobook files from my local libraries and from online sources such as Audible.com. Which, by the way, is pretty much the go-to site for audiobooks. It's pretty user friendly and compatible with pretty much all the most popular MP3s including iPod and I've happily tried out their free trial to get a sense of the site. If you like or are thinking about audiobooks, I suggest you google "Audible free trial" and see for yourself. 

I've listened to Lori Foster's Caught In the Act, some Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunters, Megan Hart, etc. Recently, I've just finished two books that I was very happy with. After I read and loved Christine Feehan's new GhostWalker book, Murder Game, I was delighted to find out that it was also out in audiobook format.

I like the narrator Tom Stechschulte. He does a nice deep voice with a hint of a Southern accent. His female voice sounds a wee bit too high to be just right but it's not bad. Prior to Murder Game, I listened to Stechschulte on another Feehan GhostWalker book, Mind Game. Same results. The "narrator voice" is nice and consistent pretty much all of the time. He gives the "hero voice" a nice alpha male deep quality though like I mentioned before, the "heroine voice" seems a little too high for my tastes. 

However, the recent audiobook I really enjoyed was Phil Gigante narrating Karen Marie Moning's The Dark Highlander. I'm new to the series and The Dark Highlander was the first I read in the series about a month ago. I'm almost all caught up with only Kiss of the Highlander left in my to be read pile. 

I was very excited to see The Dark Highlander out in audiobook, though I was a bit weary. There are a lot of accents needed to pull it off and a good reading of all the faery/fey terms and languages. I read that many people enjoyed Gigante's reading of the books and I wholeheartedly agree. 

He does a fantastic "alpha male" voice with accents that aren't too over done but just enough to really put the listener into the mindset. His "heroine voice" was very pleasant to listen to as well. High enough to be decidedly female, but not too much where I think drag queen or a man who's just been racked and lost all the testerone from his body. In the end, I was able to doubly enjoy the book. I loved it when I read it the first time around, but listening to it bought in another level of enjoyment. I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series. 

Audiobooks are just as personal as picking out a romance book. Not all romance works for everybody. And even those readers with similar tastes will differ in what triggers a good read. And fans (even the diehard ones) will disagree on what makes a particular book in a series good. So, I think that the first step in exploring the genre of Romance is to find out what triggers work for you as a reader.

I've had friends and people I've met at the local Borders ask for recommendations before. I always start off with, "Well, what do you like to read? A sweet contemporary romance, paranormal, action/adventure, etc?" And even if they answer "Paranormal" I will then go on to ask, "what kind of paranormal? Vampires, were-animals, time travel, fey, or combinations of many paranormal elements."

Personally, I've come to recognize my triggers in what makes a good read and keeper copy versus a so-so romance. And it's funny now that I've found out what works for me because I would never have thought that about myself. It really draws a line between a fantasy world in a book and the real world.

For instance, one of my Good Read triggers is the endearment. I've found that most (but not all) romances that I've come to really enjoy usually has the pet name element. I prefer the hero giving it to the heroine. Some Highlander/Historical romances include generics such as "sweet" or "love." I'm also a fan of the "baby" though I think that sometimes an author can overdo that one. A hero really has to be written as a total alpha to pull off "baby" in my opinion. Like Ward's fourth Black Dagger Brotherhood book and how Butch calls Marissa "baby." Lora Leigh is also quite fond of that endearment. And given that all her males are alphas to the extreme, I think it works. This is a weird trigger (I readily agree), but for some reason, it works for me.

Another trigger for me is the Ball Buster heroine. It's a Bad Read trigger for me. I won't say that 100% of all the super strong heroines that can be categorized as a ball buster automatically became bad reads for me, but I've come to find out that authors usually have a hard time showing a vulnerable or softer side to that kind of heroine. Some are successful though, but not all and for that, I'm not a fan of reading a heroine that doesn't show a softer edge. I can't really connect with those characters. 

This came as a surprise to me because as a relatively young romance reader, (as opposed to the middle aged/married/moms that people think of as the Romance genre audience) I thought I would appreciate the strong female lead. But I learned quickly that there was a fine line to walk between strong and ball buster. And while I really appreciate a heroine that goes after what she wants, I don't like one that doesn't have a softness to them. 

Another Bad Read sign is a lack of conversation during the intimate scenes. Now, I'm not saying that I need the hero and heroine to have a full out conversation during sex. What I find visually boring, and therefore usually has my eyes skipping over parts, is reading a sex scene in which there are paragraph after paragraph (and sometimes page after page) of straight up description of the actions. I like/need words exchanged between the hero and heroine here and there. Little phrases, not conversations. Stuff like a hero asking a heroine if she likes what he's doing or him verbally encouraging her reactions or praising her during sex. Without some conversation to break up the monotony of plain ol' description. 

Finally, I wrote earlier in a review that the ultimate Good Read Indicator was the "how will this end happily?" feeling. It's a tightening in my chest as I'm reading and even though I know that as a Romance book, it logically must end happily, a good author will write twists within the plot that make me wonder how that happy ending will occur. It is happening less often more me now that I'm reading so many romances these days, but I will admit that the feeling happens when I least expect it to. Like my post on Nalini Singh's Slave to Sensation. I really didn't expect to get that Feeling when I was reading a first time author's introductory book into a new series. But I did. And I'm get the Feeling from authors that I least expect it from and sometimes, sadly, less from authors who used to give me the Feeling.

Like I've said before many a times, Romance is a vast genre to explore but a very personal one at that. And now, as I'm enjoying Romance on a new platform via audiobooks, I'm finding that listening to Romance is just as personal as reading it.

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