Silence Fallen, Audio Edition

Silence Fallen, Audio Edition (2017) Patricia Briggs narrated by Lorelei King and George Newbern

As much as I whined about wishing her narrators were just a little better, now I’m annoyed I’m done with the currently published series and am not sure what to listen to next.

This is another book I didn’t feel quite about to rate immediately after finishing it, and I believe I still have the same issue as before: the character of “Matthew Smith” and how he was presented.

Adam obviously knew who Matthew Smith was and obviously was not going to tell–nor would Stefan or Honey, who would have met him at the wedding. The problem was that as much as Adam (or Honey or Stefan) would not have used Matt Smith’s real name or given any outward sign of who he was, we spent a good deal of time in Adam’s HEAD in this story, hearing Adam’s THOUGHTS, including those about Matt Smith. And on my second time through this story, there was too much fudging of thoughts to try and cover who Matt Smith really was. If we’re going to hear Adam’s thoughts, even if he didn’t use Matt’s real name, he was unlike to have thought about the character in the manner he did.

The hiding of that character was heavy-handed and not very well done. Could I have done it better? Of course not. But if you’re going to attempt to pull off that slight-of-hand I am going to need to be able to see if on a second read through, and it simply wasn’t there.

Reagarding an issue from Burn Bright.

You should probably consider how . . . thrilled? Yes, that is the word. How thrilled I am to have the daughter of Bran’s heart here in my territory.

…

“You,” he said, “are Bran’s little coyote girl who made him sit in peanut butter because he made your mama cry.”

Foster mother, actually, but I wasn’t about to correct him. Not until I knew him better, or it was over something more important.

He gave me a wolfish smile. “You wrapped his new and very expensive car around a tree. People still talk about the chocolate Easter bunny incident with awe. And still Bran did not kill you.

“Bran is very practical,” Adam said. “He is a zealot whose cause is the survival of the werewolves. He will sacrifice almost anything to that cause. He believes that he would sacrifice either or both of his sons— and they believe it, too. But whenever that seems to be a necessity, somehow matters work out differently. And Bran is nowhere near as protective of his sons as he is of Mercy. You need to listen to me as I tell you the absolute truth.” He ate another piece of steak and resisted the need to meet the vampire’s gaze, because Mercy’s magic had rescued him once, and even for Mercy, that only worked some of the time. “If Mercy dies because of you, there is not a hole deep enough for you to hide from him.”

“If Bran behaves aggressively toward me without cause, he will force a war between the vampires and the werewolves,” Bonarata said.

“He won’t care,” Adam said, his voice sure and certain.

“And yet,” Bran said softly, “you were mine from the day I first held you. No matter how hard I fought it. It isn’t safe to be in my family, Mercy. And you were this fragile creature who put herself in the path of destruction on a daily basis.”

I firmly think all this argues against a Certain Theory in Burn Bright that I believe is totally bogus.

What is good about this story? Mercy rescuing herself. Coyote’s involvement in everything. Stefan & Marsillia’s reactions to pretty much everything. It’s just the crappy job of trying to hide who Matt Smith was that irked me so much.

As far as the narrators–they were fine.

Publisher: Penguin Audio
Rating: 7/10

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