A review by hgranger
A Grave Talent by Laurie R. King

2.0

I think my enjoyment of this book was marred somewhat because I listened to the audiobook version instead of reading the book. I have heard some incredible audio book narrations that enhanced the book and this was not one of them. The narrator was terrible. She would alternately read Kate as a whiny high-pitched girl and a gravelly deep voice, which made it difficult to get a feel for the character. In fact, the narrator’s inability to do a voice consistently made it difficult to connect with any of the characters, not just Kate. It makes it difficult to rate the book as well because there is always the chance that the book’s own voice would have done the same thing—at the end of the read, I still didn’t really care about any of the characters; except maybe Jules. I gave it two stars because I like the idea of Kate, her story and life seems interesting, and she’s a slightly different type of detective than what I have read before. The mystery was pretty creepy as well, and Vaughn (spelling?) was well-written as a broken artist, although again, I felt no real connection to her. I love the writing in the Mary Russell series so I’m baffled as to why this book left me feeling dissatisfied—I somehow assumed that the writer’s voice would translate even to a different universe.