Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Heartsong
SERIES: Green Creek #3
AUTHOR: TJ Klune
NARRATOR: Kirt Graves
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
RELEASE DATE: October 22, 2019
LENGTH: 17 hours, 46 minutes
BLURB:
All Robbie Fontaine ever wanted was a place to belong. After the death of his mother, he bounces around from pack to pack, forming temporary bonds to keep from turning feral. It’s enough—until he receives a summons from the wolf stronghold in Caswell, Maine.
Life as the trusted second to Michelle Hughes—the Alpha of all—and the cherished friend of a gentle old witch teaches Robbie what it means to be pack, to have a home.
But when a mission from Michelle sends Robbie into the field, he finds himself questioning where he belongs and everything he’s been told. Whispers of traitorous wolves and wild magic abound—but who are the traitors and who the betrayed?
More than anything, Robbie hungers for answers, because one of those alleged traitors is Kelly Bennett—the wolf who may be his mate.
The truth has a way of coming out. And when it does, everything will shatter.
REVIEW:
First thing first; before you start this book plan your life around you reading time. Make sure you have a lot of time to devote to it, because it is addicting and real life will not be your friend. For the duration of this book, the Bennett pack is your family, a family that you’ll be fighting for in every way possible. And in the end, when you finally come up for air a feeling of disorientation can be expected, as well as a good book hangover.
Green Creek and its inhabitants will always have a special place in my heart. When you pick up a book in this series you never quite know what to expect. There’s always something more, some twist you never thought of or imagined. I’m not going into details as I don’t want to spoil the story for you, because going into this story with your eyes wide open is absolutely the best way to experience it. As always what our guys (and women) are going through is never easy, they are fighting tooth and claw for every drop of happiness, for their pack – for their family. There is plenty of angst and heartbreak, but it’s not soul-crushing or will leave you a sobbing heaving mess. You’ll have plenty of emotions throughout though, so no worries about that.
The timelines in this series are kind of all over the place. There is no story that takes place over just a few weeks or months – it’s always years; past and present. And it’s not always clear in the moment, what timeline we are currently following – not until afterwards when you’ll either have more questions or have gained an answer or two. This uncertainty is normally not something I enjoy in my books, but Klune makes it work and fit into the whole experience of listening or reading these books. It makes you connect.
I can only imagine the herculean effort it takes for a narrator to narrate a book of this length, this one is just shy of 18 hours long. Added to that challenge is the myriad and myriad of characters, reoccurring and new – and most of them male. Kirt Graves handles it wonderfully – mostly. The first thing I noticed when I started in on this audio was Robbie’s accent, I’m not going to try to guess its origin, because frankly there’s just too many of them. Anyway, I’m a big fan of accents; they add another layer to the story, to the characters. At the same time, I’m also a big fan of consistency. And Robbie’s accent came and went throughout the book as Graves couldn’t keep it up. But like I said in the beginning, this is a brick of a book and I can’t imagine narrating it is in any way shape or form easy.
As far as voices go, Graves has a limited range of different voices. Male and female characters were always distinguished, but usually not much more than that. Many of the secondary characters do have the same voice and could in theory easily be mixed up. That never happened for me though, I was too invested in the story, I lived in Green Creek with Robbie, Kelly, Joe, Ox and the rest of them. I was there. And I loved every minute I spent with this wonderful pack, this family.
After finishing this book (twice) I’m more than eager to know what happens next in the lives of everyone we’ve come to love – also there is one big bad that really needs to be put down once and for all. The wait for Brothersong might be long and most likely torturous, but I also have no doubt that it will be all worth it in the end.
RATING: 
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