DNF Audiobook Review – After Alice Fell by Kim Taylor Blackmore, Narrated by Amanda Leigh Cobb (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Gothic/Historical Fiction
Length: 8 hours and 35 minutes
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Release Date: March 01, 2021
ASIN : B08L9MJ3SG
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

“New Hampshire, 1865. Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder.

Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief – to let go of the dead and embrace the living. But that’s not easy in this house full of haunting memories.

Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall.

Now Marion is more determined than ever to find out what happened that night at Brawders, and why. With no one she can trust, Marion may risk her own life to uncover the secrets buried with Alice in the family plot.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I got through Audible to listen to on audiobook.

Audiobook Quality (3/5): The narrator was kind of stiff sounding and didn’t really do a lot for the story. It was okay narration but not great.

Story (2/5): DNF, got 60% of the way through the audiobook. This premise sounded really interesting but was just very boring. I liked the premise but the story moved way too slowly for me. I might have just finished this up if I hadn’t gone on vacation at the 60% mark. When I got back I realized I was dreading listening to the rest of this…so decided to move on to something else.

Characters (2/5): I didn’t engage well with any of the characters and none of them were all that interesting to read about. Marion was especially frustrating, she seems to be pulled along reluctantly through the story rather than push forward any real action.

Setting (3/5): The 1860’s New Hampshire setting should have been interesting but felt more like any generic Victorian setting to me. There just wasn’t enough description and influence of the settings to really make this setting come alive for the reader.

Writing Style (2/5): The whole story felt stiff, slow, and a bit wandering to me. It was about a subject I am interested in (women in Victorian times in asylums) but just never went anywhere. I was very bored and frustrated. I kept trying to figure out how I could be so bored by something I was expecting to be so interested in. This is a very, very slow burn mystery that makes very little progress in the first 60% of the story. I didn’t enjoy the characters or setting much either.

My Summary (2/5): Overall I didn’t enjoy this and didn’t finish it. It has a promising premise but the stiff protagonist (Marion) and the lack of progress really hinder the story. It wanders a bit and just doesn’t engage the reader well. I won’t be reading any of Blackmore’s future books.