possibly even better than the first!?!

these books are incredible, great new characters and they continue to be awesome female leads. this one is so m check more diverse with the perspective of multiple leads, including a grafter. really doesn't disappoint as a sequel. Cannot wait for the next!

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A good book spoiled by the narration.

Wish I'd read the reviews before purchasing but I enjoyed the first book so much I just added it straight to basket. As the other reviews have said, the change of narrator was a horrible choice & all the mispronunciation is extremely distracting, not to mention annoying.

(Phonetically) Mif-fany became Muh-wvan-newy, the shek-kay became the check-ee, Bishop ul-rik became al-ar-ik etc... really frustrating, especially Myfanwy and her brand new Welsh accent, sigh.

It is also read quite slowly which I'm not a fan of but you can speed it up so I'll not count that against it, I just really wish they'd either stuck with the same narrator or briefed the new one on basic pronunciation etc

A good book spoiled.

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2 people found this helpful

Lack of continuity between books one and two in this series is very off putting

I loved listening to book one in this series “The Rook” on Audible. It was so beautifully narrated by a woman who was perfect for the energetic characterisation of the heroine Myfanwy Thomas. It was like Essex Girl meets Bridget Jones. The narrator for “Stilleto” has a different energy that just doesn’t fit the book so well (although she is clearly an excellent actress and is brilliant at accents). The worst thing of all, that makes it hard to listen to Stilleto, is that between books one and two on Audible, Myfanwy has completely changed from a London accent to a Welsh accent. There is no evidence in any of the books that Myfanwy is Welsh. She was brought up in London. There must be lots of people like me who loved listening to the first book on Audible, immediately bought the second book in the series and can’t work out what has happened. Do your homework Audible and consider continuity.

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great story, shame about the narration

Being book two I expected the narrator to be the same, or to have at least read the first book. It was very grating that she miss pronounced a main characters name most of the way through.

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12 people found this helpful

Much better narration than the Rook

Maggie Mash has done a great job with this book, which was a really enjoyable second instalment of the Chequey Files. Once you get past the obvious issue of pronunciation of the Rook’s name, and her inexplicably adopting a Welsh accent, the story bowls along well. Hopefully Maggie will also narrate the next instalment once it is released.

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Loved concept, enjoyed story, hated narrator

I'm so sad about the change in the narrator. The accents are horrible, the mispronunciations are distracting and I want more Myfanway (Miffany)

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1 person found this helpful

Continuity issues

I've enjoyed reading this series and revisiting it in audio form. I listened to Rook and Stiletto one after the other. It's clear the director and narrator are different from one to the next. There are major pronunciation issues from one to the next that I found jarring.

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Awful narration great story..

The narration is just SO awful! Given the original book makes a lot out of how the main character pronounced her name to get that wrong seems just awful!

Also such dreadful accents! Faintly racist feel to the Caribbean nurse and Chopra.

I almost gave up & retuned it but I wanted to hear our the story.

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Not Bad

Story is ok but takes a while to get going, performance is ok but it's disappointing that the previous installment made a big point about how to pronounce Myfanwy and Checquy, but the reader has made no attempt to pronounce those words correctly.

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Please don't use this narrator for the third book.

Would you be willing to try another one of Maggie Mash’s performances?
I adored The Rook, and I really enjoyed this too for the story but the narrator was awful. As mentioned elsewhere, she obviously did no research into the previous book and pronounced the main characters name wrong all the way though (its explained in the first book how and why its pronounced as it is) and gave her a Welsh accent when she is not Welsh. It was very distracting and annoying and I really hope that Daniel O'Malley or his team see these reviews and they do not use Maggie Mash again (the narrator of The Rook was perfect)

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6 people found this helpful