★★★☆☆ The narration is mediocre in the extreme

Winter's Gifts

Ben Aaronovitch, Penelope Rawlins (Narrator)

This audiobook was my first experience of Ben Aaronovitch's Winter's Gifts in English, for reasons I explained in my review of Die schlafenden Geister des Lake Superior. Even now, the English edition of Winter's Gifts is not available on kindle. So, I learned a few new things. For instance, Aaronovitch is pronounced with the accent on the second 'o', and Kim uses the euphemism "fudge" for the popular cussword beginning with 'f'.

My main new impression, however, was of the narration by Penelope Rawlins. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is a tough act to follow. Rawlins does manage convincing American accents, a challenge Kobna struggles with. But she often fails at Job #1 of an audiobook narrator, making distinct characters sound distinct. Rawlins speaks adult male voices in an odd breathy manner. All of them. As a result, they all sound the same. Even Peter (who appears briefly in a phone call) sounds like the Wisconsin men, despite a mild generic English accent.

The women are a little better. They sound different from each other. Unfortunately, it appears that for Rawlins a southern accent is a southern accent is a southern accent. There is one major exception: Kim herself, despite having grown up in Enid, Oklahoma, has not the faintest trace of an Oklahoma accent. OK -- she's an FBI agent, and probably suppresses the accent because she doesn't want to sound like a hick. But -- this completely? It's hard to believe. Librarian Sadie Clarkson speaks in the voice of a generic Southern Belle. But Sadie is from New Orleans. Aaronovitch and Rawlins are apparently totally unaware of the very distinctive New Orleans city accents.

I would probably rate the audiobook 3 stars, if Goodreads allowed different ratings for different editions of the same book.

Winter's Gifts on Amazon

Goodreads review

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