Don't Back Down

Secrets and Shadows, Book 1

By: Sharon Sala

Narrated by: Tim Lounibos

Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Army veteran Cameron Pope arrives back in Jubilee, Kentucky, for the first time in years. He barely has time to catch his breath when he becomes embroiled in a race of life or death for his little niece and a deadly hunt for the human traffickers who are destroying the peace of his mountain town. When he's reunited with Rusty Caldwell—a woman from his past he's never stopped thinking about—he wants to believe they can finally be together. But Cameron is shocked to find out that Rusty belongs to one of the rich families in Jubilee—the same rich folks who scorn the rural families living on the surrounding mountainside, in spite of knowing nothing about them. With their community in the crosshairs, Cameron and Rusty will have to find a way to end the feuding and take down the human trafficking ring if they're to have a chance at happiness.

©2023 Sharon Sala (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Great story spoiled by narration

I enjoyed the start of this story, but couldn't stomach completing the listen because of the sub-par narration. The descriptive narration and male voices were very good, but the narration of the female voices was simply awful - high and completely off-putting. I'll read a text version of this one instead.

The narrator makes it worse

The story is ok. Not the best, not the worst. However the narrator is awful. The voices change, the female voices are “cringy.” It was painful to listen to. I got this as a free book. It was ok for free, but wouldn’t be worth a credit.

Good Story

I enjoyed the story with all the twists and turns. I enjoyed most of the narration. The only thing that bothered me was the female southern accents. Being from the South a hint of an accent plays better than a deep accent. it is tough to get that right. I liked the character development and I will be reading the next in the series.

TERRIBLE Narration - Save Your Credit

It's been a while since I've felt compelled to leave a negative review, but the narrator was so terrible, I wanted to save any potential listeners from the pain. If you're a regular audiobook listener, then you know the narrator can make or break a book. This is was so bad that I only got through the first four chapters and had to bail.

Both the story and the narrator was good!

I always like the pace of Sharon Sala’s books. I really enjoyed Tim Lounibos’ narration. He has a very soothing voice. Looking forward to more SS books.

Great Story Line & Great Voices!

Interesting story, a bit of a mystery/police type story with a love story thrown in. The male voice was good and he did a good job changing his voice for the different characters.

The narrator

I enjoyed the story, but the narrator’s reading of the female characters’ dialogue was awful! I mean really awful! As were his Southern accents.

Narration was trash

The mystery element was laid out in pretty well and kept me interested but that narration had me really close to returning the audiobook. Outside of it and the instant love trope, the rest made for a decent story. Not my favorite by this author. I am still a big fan but home she never uses this narrator for multiple voices again.

Loved the book hated the narrators voices

I loved the book but ended up getting the ebook version and haven’t finished listening to the audio version because I just couldn’t listen to the narrators voices he gave some of the characters. I won’t buy another book with this guy narrating it. It was a waste of money for me to buy the audio book

Story: A; Narrator: D

Loved the book – I nearly always enjoy Ms. Sala's stories, whether written or on audio: the plot was unique and enjoyable, the characters memorable. However, the narrator nearly ruined it. I can't say Mr. Lounibos was terrible – in fact, he was quite good, but only at male voices. For female characters he used a falsetto that was surpassingly bad.
For that reason alone I doubt I will listen to this again.