Midlife Curses
Series: Witching Hour,Book 1
By: Christine Zane Thomas / Narrated by: Cris Dukehart
Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
Insert Eye-Roll Here… and There… and There… and oh gosh…
It’s like this, see:
I read, like, a treMENdous amount of Women’s Literature (And don’t eeeeven get me started on m’ beloved Regencies!), but there’s this whole thing where the heroines of such Lit are just young things, barely outta the School Room.
So whenst looking for choices for this Week O’ Charming Mysteries, I thought I’d gather an assortment of different types, different styles. And Paranormal? Yes, please. Heroine in Midlife? Oh goodness, yes PLEASE! And it’s kinda a Thing now! I’ve TWO—count ‘em, two!—other different series, each with a midlife heroine, each Paranormal. But I went and reviewed the Publishers’ Summaries for each (I KNOW!), dithered over a couple of reviews, and I chose Midlife Curses cuz it has a heroine hitting the Big 4-0, and it has ooooodles of Spooky Individuals instead of just witches, and the reviews were all, like, This is HILARIOUS. And so I chose the offering by Christine Zane Thomas.
Oh, OUCH!
Cuz you see, I didn’t eeeeven think to listen to the Sample audio, just went with what I THOUGHT was an engaging storyline. So imMEDiately, the narration? OFF! Cris Dukehart sounds like she’s about 20-years old, and I’m being generous. When our story opens and heroine Constance Campbell is at her high-powered job, and she discovers her husband of 10-years dashing off to the corporate Meditation Room for a quickie? Dukehart sounds like a teenager stamping her foot in a snit, not an older woman who’s put 10-years into a long term marriage and certainly NOT one who’s mature enough, with-it enough, to have started a successful business.
So there’s that…
And Yikes! is that enough, or what?
Lemme get to the story before I begin the rest o’ my Dinging of this waste of a “Midlife Paranormal Mystery”— awesome trope, by the way, just nooooot this one.
As said, Constance Campbell’s life has hit the pits what with her husband cheating on her, her refusal to stay in her job where EVERYbody was privy to his pants dropping for willing employees, and running to her dad is not an option. Rather, she’s off like a shot in her rinky dink car she calls Crookshanks (She’s obsessed with Harry Potter and all things witchy) to the itty bitty town of Creel Creek, Virginia to crash with her Odd-Duck grandma. A job? Being a checker at a grocery store will do just fine as she’s SO not into Thinking at the moment. Whilst speeding to her job early one morning, must not clock-in late, she’s stopped by the Sheriff (Dave, Call Me Dave) himself and, after he peruses her California driver’s license and gets her name, she’s let off with a warning, a smile, and a twitch of his thin Porn Mustache (Oh ick!).
Around this time, a few days shy of her fortieth Birthday, Grandma springs it on Constance that By The Way: You come from a long line of Witches, plus the Mom you thought was dead, actually might just be caught up in a wicked something or other (Fodder for future books in the series, I s’pose). Grandma introduces Constance to her familiar, tells her to be on the lookout for her own familiar, AND get ready cuz she’ll be introduced to various Paranormal types, mostly Witches, but…
Also Werewolves (Dave, Call Me Dave).
Then too, walking in to find the verrrry dead body of her grocery store boss, kinda sorta unhinges Constance, and all the witchy-ness, and werewolf-ness, and vampire-ness comes out like there’s no tomorrow. Soon, accompanied by her own familiar, a raccoon named Brad, and a few Out From The Woodworks paranormals, Constance is on the hunt for just Whodunnit in the murder of her Yeh He Was A Vampire Boss.
Expect NOTHING in the way of a heroine in her 40s other than sloppy allusions to TV and Music from the 80s and 90s. Nope, this is just more schlock with a sexy-even-when-she’s-powered-through a 6-mile run protagonist, and where reviewers said they Laughed Out Loud? Uhm, what on Gosh’s Green Earth were THEY reading, cuz at no time did I even crack a smile.
Dreck writing with waaaay too young narrator’s voice, esPECially since Dukehart can’t manage a male voice, sexy or otherwise, werewolf or Mummy, innocent or villain, to save her life, or to go even beYONd that and save this story.
I’m feeling oh so woeful right about now, and I’m giving m’ other Midlife Paranormal stories the Squid’s Eye right about now. I mean, what are those gonna come down to: Allusions to past popular culture as the only indicator of age? Gimme a heroine carting around a spare tire in a most UNabashed Manner! Gimme a heroine with crow’s feet gathered around her eyes from a wonderful sense of humor. Speaking of: Just gimme a LAUGH or two!
I so dearly love to chortle. Alas, nary a chuckle, a chortle, a guffaw to be had here…
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