REVIEW BY: Christie

TITLE: Base Instincts

SERIES:  Demonica #11.7

AUTHOR: Larissa Ione

NARRATOR: Dorian Bane

PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing

LENGTH: 5h 3m

RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2016

BLURB:

As a Seminus demon, Raze’s life literally depends on having sex with females. The problem is that he doesn’t desire females, and it’s physically impossible for him to be with males. Thankfully, he and his best friend, Fayle, have an arrangement that keeps him alive…if lonely. He finds some solace in his work as a medic at Thirst, a vampire club known for its rough clientele. But his carefully structured world turns upside down when he meets a mysterious male who makes him want what he can never have.

Slake is an assassin used to getting what he wants, and what he wants is Raze. But he also wants to earn back the soul he sold when he was a much different demon. All he has to do is capture a runaway succubus named Fayle and hand her over to her family. What he doesn’t count on is being caught himself by a web of lies – and his attraction to Raze.

Raze and Slake must navigate a dangerous world to be together. But as Fayle’s jealousy of their relationship turns deadly, they find themselves embroiled in a battle not only for their love, but their lives and souls.

REVIEW:

When reading the blurb, Base Instincts seemed interesting and I wanted to see how this concept and world unfolded. Well, there’s really no easy way to put this, so I’ll just tell it to you straight: The narration was so bad that after 1hr 46min’s I had to stop listening to the audiobook. Then I thought “Hey, I should buy the kindle book so I can at least review the story and hopefully make the author feel better about the bad review I will have to write due to the narration.” So, I bought the kindle book and tried to read it. Couldn’t even make it 10 pages into the story because in my mind I heard it all as narrated by Dorian Bane.

So sorry, I don’t mean to bag on anyone but he basically read the book like a news anchor announces local headlines. To quote Ruby Rhod from The 5th Element, there was “…no depth, no fire, no energy!” Also, I kept waiting for someone announce they were going cut to the reporter on the street for breaking news of some kind.

To be fair to the author, the story seemed interesting, but could not hold much of my interest because I was basically cringeing most of the time and wondering who exactly was supposed to be talking because it was hard to distinguish between them during the narration. The concept of Base Instincts is interesting and when enough time has passed that I can read the book without hearing it being read by Dorian, I would definitely like to pick it up again and explore the world that Larissa Ione created.

I apologize to the fans of both Larissa Ione and Dorian Bane alike. This is simply my opinion, and yours may certainly differ. In fact, I hope for everyone’s sake our opinions differ greatly. It takes a great amount of courage to put yourself out there in the world in the ways both the author and narrator did. Yes, I did basically rip them both a new one, but it was for the book (and narration) itself. Not them as individuals. We should all be so lucky as to have the courage to pursue our dreams like they most certainly are doing.

BOOK RATING:  

NARRATION RATING:  

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

Audible