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Bloodlines: Of Noble Blood

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Bloodlines: Of Noble Blood

By: William B. Taylor
Narrated by: Emily Emerson
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About this listen

Newlyweds Alex and Maggie travel to England and uncover a DNA match involving one of England's great noble families. At stake is a noble title and a vast family fortune...a fortune that the family will not hand over without a fight, to the death if necessary! Along the way, Alex and Maggie get some unexpected help...in the form of a long-dead little girl.

Bloodlines: Of Noble Blood is a story about wealth, power, and murder! A fast-paced mystery that will keep the listener guessing until the very end. Full of twists and surprises, Bloodlines: Of Noble Blood is an engaging and entertaining story.

©2017, 2018 William B. Taylor (P)2018 William B. Taylor Crime Thrillers International Mystery & Crime Mystery Thriller & Suspense Thriller Fiction Crime Exciting England Suspense

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All stars
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Let's start with the positives, of which there are many. The story is good and moves along at a gentle pace, you know who the goodies and the baddies are and whilst there are no huge shocks or surprises, it's a pleasant journey listening to the tale spin out. Emily Emerson on the whole does a great job with the narration, and at the beginning I had no idea whether she was English or American until....and for this I wholeheartedly blame the producer, not the narrator, who works with the script she is given, place names are pronounced. Once I heard Pall Mall rhyme with 'ball', Leicester square as Lester-shire, Edinburg - with a hard 'g' and Viscount without the silent 's', I knew Ms Emerson must be American. Knowing how ridiculously we Brits spell and pronounce our place names, could the author or producer not have ensured she was aware of this issue? What infuriates me is that Ms Emerson will now be remembered for the mispronunciation, when in reality she should be remembered for the fact she did a stand up British accent, (no Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins here!). She was excellent and didn't let the accent slip once, not even when voicing a drunk, aristocratic tirade - that's an achievement. So credit where it's due, well done Emily Emerson for rising to a difficult job. I also felt, and this might just be me, that if you're writing a book set in England and using a narrator with an English accent that you should go the whole way and use English language. Here we don't use cellphones, we use mobiles; we don't work in the yard, we garden, pavements not sidewalks and so on. I felt it would have made the story more complete somehow, but, I reiterate, that's just my personal opinion. On the whole though, this is a light listen that's well narrated, what's not to like?

Easy listening caper

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Overall 3.5/5. The 2nd in the series and although this was an easy listen I didn't feel the story was as good as the first but still enjoyed it. Alex and Maggie are in the UK this time and become involved in a family that has its own secrets and both bad and good characters. The story had a good pace, had some interesting puzzles to solve and the variety of characters were brought to life. There were a few irritating bits, were words were mispronounced which was a shame, especially when they were English characters thoughts or words. Overall still an enjoyable listen.

Enjoyable listen

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I enjoyed book one and three but somehow missed book two, so thought I would go back and give book two ago, I did enjoy it but don't think it had as much ghostly haunting as the previous books, which is what made the first book so interesting and unusual. It didn't matter that I hadn't heard them in the right order as there are stand alone books but I think it did help knowing more about the characters and added to the enjoyment. In this book I liked the setting it made a change to be based in England with all the London attractions that are very familiar. The story was good and had a few plot twists that I didn't see coming.
Maggie and Alex are visiting England for work and a holiday. While they are there they visit a number of London attractions and unknown to them they are being followed. The reason for the visit is because Alex's DNA lab has found a match between a customer and a noble family and Alex needs to prove his team right before going forward with the discovery. Long burried secrets are uncovered as the pair try to get to the bottom of the family connections, in the process they discover a murder and an unexpected killer. But not everybody is happy that Alex in digging into the past especially if that means someone is going to lose out on an inheritance that they feel entitled to.
The author has had a different narrator read all three books, this time choosing a lady and even though I preferred the male narrators, I didn't think she did a bad job I was just use to a male voice.

Blood is thicker than water

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I listened to this audiobook straight after the first book 'Cove Point Manor'.I enjoyed meeting the main characters Alex and Maggie again and found that I liked Alex much more in this second offering.

The narrator tried hard but as others have mentioned, the pronunciation of English place names left me grinning from ear to ear at times much as I did when once overhearing an American refer to Loughborough as 'Loog Bah-roog!'

There's a lot of scene-setting in the first hour or so and I found the actual detail of the road numbers used to get to Derby (or Der-bee) a bit overkill but then I'm British and know that area well. Once the story gets going it is a jolly romp and very enjoyable.

If you've listened to Book 1 then I recommend that you listen to this as well.

A fun listen!

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I quite enjoyed the first in this series, Cove Point Manor, where Alex inherits a huge mansion and eventually marries Maggie, who had been managing the estate. The second book, however, had a different narrator, whose American version of an upper-crust English accent irritated me. She mispronounced many English towns and I would have preferred her to use her native accent when not reading conversation. I have listened to her own accent in other audiobooks and I find it much more restful to listen to than the accent she used for this narration.

My second quibble is that the author seems to have an abhorrence of pronouns and keeps repeating nouns and names instead of using 'it' or 's/he'. This also happened in the first book and made me cringe every time.
So, the above annoyances did take their toll and I was glad when I had finished.

The story itself revolved around genetic proof that an aristocratic family had a new heir...and a decidedly dodgy history. It was tough to follow the complicated family relationships on audio, even though I listened to that part twice. It didn't seem that the current day family members of this aristocratic family were much better than their ancestors either.
It's quite a romp; around London, into museums and in and out of wealthy houses, along with a touch of the paranormal. Whilst I personally wouldn't recommend it, it may well appeal to fans of cosy mysteries.

Americans in England.

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An American DNA ancestry expert travels to Britain to convince a British nobleman he has found a close relative. His existing relatives don’t take the news too well and proceed to plan to eliminate the opposition.
The premise of the story is good, but the author didn’t research British names, expressions very well which became very grating to me as a British reader. For example sidewalk was used instead of pavement, store instead of shop etc etc. Also the narrator pronounced Edinburgh as Edinberg and Leicester Square as Leicestershire!
If you can get past these errors the story was fairly entertaining and a very easy listen.

Lighthearted inheritance caper with a supernatural touch

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Although I preferred book one I really enjoyed this story as it was full of intrigue and mystery. This story focuses on Alex and Maggie again as they try to investigate a new DNA claim and they slowly find out that some people will do anything where money is.

Enjoyable story

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The second adventure for Alex and Maggie. Alex has set up a DNA lab to help others trace their roots and this next adventure takes the couple to London. An aristocratic family is introduced to a new relative but a couple of relations are non too pleased at this turn of events. There is murderous intent bubbling up and Alex and Maggie receive help from an unexpected ally. I feel the story would be improved if read by an English speaking narrator as the incorrect intonations and mis pronunciations were distracting. Despite this it is a relatively easy read.

Relatively easy listening

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This book follows on from the 1st. I feel you could listen to them separately but to fully get the characters quirks you would be better of listening to or reading the 1st.
The narrator was very good.

Enjoyable

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