Just yesterday this was on sale from Audible and as it so happens, I was ready for a new book – pronto. Yay! I’d read one of Alistair Burke’s books prior and don’t remember being impressed, but it was okay enough for me to try her again.

*******
The Wife
by Alistair Burke
2018 / 357 pages
read by Xe Sands – 8h 9m
rating: A+ / legal crime – suspense
(C for narration)
*******

Jason Powell, a rich and important New York environmental economist, and Angela Powell, a 1st person narrator, have been married for about 6 years, Angela brought a 6-year old son and a seriously difficult past to the marriage.

When Jason is accused of some serious sexual harassment and Jason denies it, Angela “stands by her man,” as good wives would.

I’m not going to go into specifics because I have no idea where the line would be concerning spoilers – it’s a tangled tale and everything connects in the end. But it’s a very tightly written suspense novel with many great twists and some interesting legal and procedural aspects. I really enjoyed it – except for … the narrator.

The narrator, Xe Sands, has an annoying style of making almost all dialogue sound what I imagine is more realistic to her than the actual written word. Her reading voice is, for most characters, full of pauses and “uh’s, “ahs” and very slight stutters. This affect comes from most of the characters and it ends up sounding like someone is trying to be very laid back and blasé, even hard-edged detectives. She also uses a very wavery and gravely voice which is very tiring. The odd thing is that I complained about the narrator (although less specifically) in my review of The Ex- (Burke again) and all told I’ve listened to 7 with her narrating and possibly complained on each review. (sigh)

It’s a good thing she’s not Burke’s main narrator because I’m certainly likely to listen to another her books. I think I’ll recognize that voice if I run across it in a sample or something. All that said, I did finish the book.