Vows 1 & 2 Audiobook Review Roundup

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All the reviews from the audiobook tour have posted (actually they’ve been up for a while, but I’ve been sidetracked), so it’s time for a roundup post!

As reviews tend to be, they’re a mixed bag, but mostly favorable. Here are all the links—the good, the bad, and the ugly (and some outstanding, too!):


At Sarah’s Reading Corner, Lora wasn’t a fan of the narration, but said: I enjoyed the team effort that Henry, Garret, and Devon – even Buddy – made on the island. I thought it was well thought out and the storyline there really drove the story.”

At Rainbow Gold Reviews, Wendy loved both the narration and the story, saying: Wow, just wow! I will start with the narration by David Gilmore. He is a new-to-me narrator and I was very impressed.”

…and “The story was very well written and had lots of angst and suspense filled moments. I honestly didn’t know how the author was going to deal with the big issue in this story, but in the end it was done flawlessly. I can’t see any other ending than the one it had.”

At The Geekery Book Review, Jenn had favorable opinions on both the story and the narration. She said: “I love the idea of the stranded on an island idea and Addison Albright really nailed this for me! It was fun and emotional and at times intense and I truly enjoyed this story!”

…and “I thought David Gilmore did a good job with the narration, especially in the first book, really bringing these characters to life!”

At Love Bites and Silk Ties, Maya liked it, but was saddened by the heartbreak of a certain side character at the end of book 1. I hope she’ll give book 3 a try, since that’s where that character gets a happily-ever-after of his very own.

She said this about the narration: “As for the audio production, the narration was good and helped to bring the story alive.”

At Making It Happen, Carra loved the story. She said: “Addison Albright totally sucked me in to this story from the very beginning, and holy cow she did not let me go for even a second until the very end.  I loved the characters, the storyline, and pretty much everything else about this book.”

She wasn’t a fan of the character voices, but did say, “This is the first audiobook I’ve listened to with David Gilmore as the narrator.  He does a good job with the mechanics of the narration, voicing an evenly paced, smooth story.”

At Bayou Book Junkie, Heather loved everything about them. She said: “I previously read this book but jumped at the chance to listen to the audio. When I had originally read it, I cried, a lot. But, I knew going in what to expect and let me tell you that didn’t make a difference at all! I cried while listening to this audio just as much, if not more than when I read it. And since I do most of my listening while driving, that’s a little awkward!”

…and “The narrator is David Gilmore and he did a fantastic job bringing this story to life! He had an easy to listen to voice, kept a good pace, expressed appropriate emotions. There were no weird pauses in his narration, which is important when listening to an audiobook (in my opinion). The narrator gave characters individual voices which made it easy to listen to, he wasn’t just reading a story.”

At Dog-eared Daydreams, the reviewer wasn’t initially a fan of the narration, but embraced it by the end. Her comments on the story include: “Talk about an intense story! I’ve read several stuck-on-an-island-after-a-plane-crash-slash-boat-sinking before, but what I found refreshing about this author’s take on the story line was that we had two different perspectives–that of the survivor on the island and the survivor back home, Henry and Sam, respectively.”

At Boy Meets Boy Reviews, A Reader Obsessed thought the narration was a “pleasant listen”, and said this about the story: “Full of tense situations as well as sad and emotional challenges, there were also some great instances of levity when it came to Henry being a surrogate father to an endearing 10 month old boy (seriously, too cute for words). I feared this would continuously be wrought with a lot of angst, but though it was heart wrenching at times, it was a totally tolerable turmoil for some reason – I guess because it was grounded in realism and mostly external forces and not due to some frustratingly stupid plot device.”

At BFD Book Blog, Christina thought the narration was “okay,” but admits she’s picky. Her opinion was middle of the road, saying it was overall a decent story.

At Gay Media Reviews, Dawn loved the stories. Here are a couple of her comments: “This is a new to me author and narrator, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure about this one – but I took the chance and was glad that I did.”

…and “I really did enjoy this audio, and I really liked this narrator too.  I haven’t heard any other audio by him, but I will be looking.”

At Joyfully Jay, let’s just say Michelle didn’t like much of anything about them and leave it at that. Follow the link if you want the gritty details. 😕

I console myself by remembering that Camille from the same blog waxed quite eloquently with her love of the story back when the ebook first came out. In fact, ’Til Death Do Us Part was listed in Joyfully Jay’s Monthly Favorite Books list for April, 2016. I’ll leave you a couple of quotes from Camille’s review of the ebook last year, instead:

“I haven’t turned pages so damn hard since Stanford shot Griffin and Alec chose Seregil!!”

“I recommend this book to everyone! Especially if you’re an angst fiend and love a long, slow burn of a veritable smorgasbord of will-he-or-won’t-he (be it all the survivors surviving, Sam making a choice, Sam making the same choice the reader would, who ends up with that KID?!).”



’Til Death Do Us Part: Audible | Amazon – Universal Link | iTunes

From This Day Forward: Audible | Amazon – Universal Link | iTunes

’Til Death Do Us Part

Henry and Sam Miller-Greene are living the dream. They love their careers — which afford each of them opportunities to travel to exotic locations — they love their home, Sam’s caring family, and each other. They disagree on the subject of adoption, but are fully committed to each other in marriage … ’Til Death Do Us Part.

The dream is shattered when Henry’s plane crashes, and he’s presumed dead. But four people — Henry, two other men, and a child — survive undetected on a remote, small, and insignificant island. Will Sam and Henry’s love be able to survive as well?

Henry fights to endure in harsh conditions, never knowing when disaster will strike. Sam struggles with his loss, but with help moves on with his life. Will Sam be able to put aside his new love when he reunites with Henry?

eBook Awards/Recognition – ’Til Death Do Us Part

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’Til Death Do Us Part was a Runner-Up in the 2016 Rainbow Awards:
Best Gay Contemporary Romance
Best Gay Book (All Genres Combined)

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Henry and Sam from ’Til Death Do Us Part were nominated in the Best Established Couple category in the 2016 Goodreads M/M Romance group’s Members’ Choice Awards. Go Team #samry ‼️

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Gay Book Reviews

At Gay Book Reviews, each reviewer lists their top 10 favorite books of the year.

Ana listed ’Til Death Do Us Part as one of her top 10 favorite books of 2016.

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At Bayou Book Junkie, each reviewer lists their favorite books of the year.

Heather listed ’Til Death Do Us Part as one of her top 13 favorite books of 2016.

From This Day Forward

Revisiting the characters from ’Til Death Do Us Part, Henry and Sam Miller-Greene are enjoying life in the summer after Henry’s rescue from a small South Pacific island, where Henry and three others were marooned.

Henry and Sam thought adopting Aiden—a child with whom Henry’d been stranded—would be smooth sailing. Matters are complicated by the public nature of their rescue that has turned the survivors into overnight celebrities. Anti-gay fueled animus rears its ugly head in the blogosphere, causing concerns over the impact libelous rumors might have on Aiden.

Their nightmare separation behind them, Henry and Sam are anxious to renew both the intensity of their former intimacies—now hampered by having a curious and still apprehensive child sharing their home—and their commitment to one another.

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5 thoughts on “Vows 1 & 2 Audiobook Review Roundup

  1. Yay, lots of great reviews, congratulations!! As someone who doesn’t listen to audiobooks I find it very interesting how differing the opinions are about the narrator. Makes me wonder if a really crappy narrator can destroy a great book or if the quality of the story shines through the narration. Very interesting indeed.

    Sorry about the Joyfully Jay review. But I think it’s great of you to include it even if she didn’t like it. Courageous. I’m not really there in my author journey yet, but I’m going to strive for it. Good for you ❤️❤️

    1. Thanks! I’ve never been one to listen to audiobooks, either, but yeah, I’m sure the narrator can make all the difference in the world.

      A while back, in response to Audible promo, I picked up two free audiobooks, but never listened to them until my long drive to/from GRL. They weren’t MM. They were two of my top all-time favorites (The Martian and Pride & Prejudice). I’d chosen those since I didn’t think I’d ever be able to follow along properly if I listened to a book I hadn’t first read (in these cases, multiple times).

      The Martian had very few characters anyway, and the narrator was fantastic with accents and not an overly fast reader, so I think I would have been able to follow and enjoy that one even if the audio had been my first exposure. It helped that even those few characters came from around the world and/or could be assumed to be from various parts of the country. Accents handled much of it.

      Pride and Prejudice has many more characters, and I don’t care how good someone is, if there is a wide cast of characters, it’s going to be difficult sometimes to know who’s talking. Especially in a case like this where it was often a room full of women, all with the same upbringing/accents. If I hadn’t read (hell, it’s practically memorized) that one first, I would probably have been lost in a number of passages. There’s only so much you can do to differentiate voices when the accents are expected to be similar. So, both good narrators, but one was much more difficult simply because of the story’s makeup.

      Anyway, I’ve always felt too close to my own to be an unbiased judge myself, so I was happy to see many with glowing comments about the narration. Also, though, it was quite interesting that some had quite the opposite opinion. I wonder how much is simply that it’s different from what they’re used to and maybe prefer rather than inherently bad? I do believe that if a listener doesn’t like the narration it will absolutely affect their opinion of the story. Unless it’s a case of the listener having previously read the book, it’s difficult to fully trust even the broken out star ratings for narration vs. story because of this.

      I was also happy to see that there was a mix of listeners who were experiencing the story for the first time as well as some who’d previously read the book. That gave a nice balance, I think.

      Ha, yeah, the Joyfully Jay review… I’ve heard it said (looking at you) that some don’t trust in the reviews when all they ever see are glowing ones. I think that’s a valid point. There will always be opposing opinions, and showing the balance might help more than hurt when at least most of them are favorable (or not…who knows 😏).

      1. Wow, I’ve never thought about it but P&P really must be a nightmare to listen to as an audiobook. I mean: one scene with the entire Bennet family and the narrator is screwed. Not to mention the ball scenes!!

        As I wrote when I beta read Closets, I downloaded the sample to The Martian to read the first lines you referred to in the text. I really liked the sample so I think I’m going to buy the whole thing. Despite that I’m not a sci-fi reader (I prefer watching my sci-fi). But i captured me and I want to know more. And I liked the movie. 🙂

        RE bad reviews: I think when an author links to a bad review like you did, it tells me a lot about them. That they acknowledge that not everyone will like their work, but still value that the reviewer took the time to read/listen to the book. That’s a great thing. That being said: there are certain reviews that shouldn’t be linked to, but we can talk about that in private 😉

        1. Exactly. All things considered, I definitely enjoyed the P&P audiobook, but damn, that had to be a tough gig.

          Yay! I hope you like the book, too. I first downloaded/read the book after seeing the preview for the movie at the theater. It really caught my eye. This was a rare case where I didn’t object to changes that were made and enjoy both renditions, although if I had to pick, I’d say I prefer the book over the movie.

          Hahaha…I know exactly what you’re talking about. Nothing like that really showed up in the audio reviews, though.

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