The Bride

Bride Series, Book 1

By: S. Doyle

Narrated by: Alexander Cendese, Loretta Rawlins

Ellie

Here's the deal. I'm 16, and I'm getting married. Super weird, I know.

It was just me and my dad. We lived on a cattle ranch in Montana. He died suddenly, leaving me an orphan (which is still a thing). I'm 16 months away from being a legal adult, so I have two choices. A foster home or marry Jake Talley. My dad's foreman and really, my best friend.

It's legal. It solves all my problems. Except now, I'm living with Riverbend's hottest cowboy - my husband in name only - and I'm still in high school. Where no one wants to date weird, married Ellie. Still, all we have to do is wait until I'm 18 to get a divorce. Then, Jake and I can go back to being normal.

We've got this. Right?

Jake

I never saw this coming. Married. To a kid I've known her whole life. But there was no way in hell I was going to let her live at a foster home. The ranch is where she belongs.

Sure we're married, but it's not real. Just a piece of paper. My girlfriend is furious. But I know I'm doing the right thing. For 16 months, it's me and Ellie against the world.

No big deal. Or is it?

Contains mature themes.

©2017 S. Doyle (P)2019 Tantor

Male narrator miss

I had low expectations for this book, but I was very pleasantly surprised! The story and writing aren’t shallow. It’s really okay. Not grating and worthy of eye rolls like a lot of contemporary romance. I’m interested enough that I finished the book and wanted to know what happens next.

And the female narration is truly fantastic! I average over 200 hours a month listening to audiobooks, and I know good and bad narration! I was very impressed with the female narrator. I so wished they would have had her do the whole book and scrapped the male narrator!

He does okay for the male parts, but he switches to what sounds like an overly dramatic super effeminate gay man parody for the female parts. All of his parts make the story sound stupid, like an SNL sketch or something. I so wish whoever produced the audio version would have told him to stop it! It would have been better for him to just use the same voice for all the parts. I ended up fast forwarding most of his parts, and I’m so disappointed to see him listed as a narrator for the rest of the series!

It’s true the way the story is broken up is a rip off. Using a full credit on four-hour books gave me pause. They definitely should have been combined or included in the Escape package.

Having said all that - I like the story well enough to continue with the series.

Good Story Part 1 of 3

I read these books years ago and really enjoyed them. I feel like the audiobook should’ve just taken all 3 parts of the story and combined them into 1 as they’re all short. They’re currently part of Audible plus and I’m borrowing them through that - so definitely try them if you have the plus catalog available to you!

Not at all creepy, except for the voicing

A romance between a 16 and 26 year old? I braced for major creeper vibes, but this was an engaging story about a 16.5 year old Ellie marrying in name only to protect her dad’s cattle ranch and Jake doing right by the daughter of a respected friend. It helped that this book focused on Ellie needing to learn
how to run the ranch in a manner that realistically felt like she matured faster than her fellow high school students. It helped that Jake was honorable. And perhaps most importantly, in the first year of marriage (covered here in part one), they bonded without getting busy.

The two downsides were (1) the narration and (2) this being only a third of the book. Mr. Cendese was great for Jake’s voice, but his female voices are valley girl with a cold awful. There was zero reason to divide this book into three parts, except as a money grab. There’s no big moment or even cliffhanger at the end of part one, nor did anything beyond a kiss happen. I very much enjoyed the book because
I spent a total of three bucks on all three parts and didn’t listen until I had all three parts ready to go.

Balance

So I’m not a fan of the male narrator. I usually don’t buy it because of him. But if the book is a comedy then he can do a good job.

Surprisingly good and real

I have had this book for a long time, but I listen to more books than I read these days. So, I got this and finally listened to it. It's a very pleasant surprise, and I am definitely listening to The Wife, which is the next in the series. It's like the characters are telling the reader their story, and I normally don't like this technique, but it really works for this book. The characters are very appealing.

cliffhanger

omg didn't know this was going to be a cliffhanger. much really happened in this book.

wtf

If you want half of a story then go right ahead and give it a go. This book just ends with nothing concluded. Waste of time.