Sweet Short Story

Bent Corners is my first book by Kris Jacen and I really enjoyed her writing style. Sweet relationships, and an erotic romantic interlude between the MCs. Very nicely done. Plus, how great is the name Bent Corners for a book shop?!

The audio version is performed by Denver Stevens. Another first for me. I liked the voices Mr. Stevens came up with for the characters, and he does a lovely job with the emotions. Well done.

an audiobook copy of Bent Corners was provided to me for the purpose of my honest review, all opinions are my own

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enjoyable enough

a very quick read that i think needed a lot more pages to really explore the story that was trying to be told. It's confusing and overly packed with people that was hard to keep track of and seemed to fill the pages with things that weren't important leaving the romance to be pushed off to the side and rushed. there were really unpleasant people for seemingly the sack of it and it just didn't make sense why it was so fill with characters. but overall it was a quick read.

the narration was fine, a little inconsistent and all the people pretty much sounded the same creating more confusion then not, but as it's in 3rd person I don't really put that on him.

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Bent Corners

This is a cute, very quick listen. It’s hard to get full development from such a short story, but the author did well. I did feel a connection though I wish not so much happened off-screen. I’m hesitant to say much about the narration as I know it’s a me thing, but I struggled a bit here. Overall a decent speedy listen.

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Choppy as hell

Riley has to cover for his uncle who is in the hospital after a heart attack and Evan has to care for his grandma while his parents are on a cruise celebrating their 30th anniversary. The two meet in the hospital and again in the uncle's book store where sparks fly. A typical romance that is read in such a way that I thought my player kept having issues but nope it's the way it was read; bad after school special with weird music in the background that doesn't help. The narrator does a really good bitchy female but the men are read like bad high school play.

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1 person found this helpful

great short listen

loved the effects for inner dialog. loved the intro music and the story although short was great.

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Pleasant enough but unfocussed

Tattoo artist Riley is juggling his uncle’s second-hand bookshop, Bent Corners, after his uncle suffers a heart attack and is hospitalised. Evan comes into the store looking for a book for his ailing grandmother. This instalove short story was pleasant enough, but at 36 pg (72 min on audio) it felt a bit rushed. There were a bunch of different subplots all vying for attention so there wasn’t time to explore anything deeply. I found it equally hard to relate to Riley or Evan because there wasn’t time to sit with the characters. The audio was enthusiastically narrated by Denver Stevens, I liked his Canadian accent.

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Love in the bookstore

Riley and Evan meet by chance and feel instant attraction for each other that quickly turns into more. They do seem right for eachother and while we get to see them both have some family issues, this is ultimately a fairly fluffy short story about finding the one.

I wasn’t impressed with Denver Stevens’ narration. His intonation felt off to me and I disliked the small instances of backgroud music and the weird echoing sound that signified when someone thought something to themselves. He did however have a clear voice and it was easy to follow.

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Good story, poor narration.

I love a good short story, especially when it’s an audiobook that I can listen to in a short evening. This story was good but the poor narration almost ruined it for me. I actually switched to reading the book because I just couldn’t continue to listen.

The narrator’s voice is pleasant but he needs to study his craft and maybe take some acting lessons. Good audiobook narration is acting and good narrators are performers. The pacing of the narration for this book was off in so many places it hurt to listen to it.

I hate leaving a less than positive review but I requested a code for this book and made a commitment to review it on Audible.

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Needs to be longer

This is a really short story and with this size a lot is left out. I feel this is more like a sort of prologue. There is a lot of upsetting situations going on for both of the characters. Yet there is an instant attraction that they have to address. I feel there were a number of issues that just didn’t fit together or were left hanging. I think it would have been better if this had been expanded to fit in all that is left out. I feel the narrator, Denver Stevens did a great job.

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Quick, but not entirely painless session

Story: A fun enough short story of mutual attraction. The side characters were fun.

Narration: The performance left a lot to be desired for in my taste. The voices were all over the place in terms of quality and consistency. But the female ones? No. Just a big, earsplitting, grating no.

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