After really enjoying Kingfisher’s The Seventh Bride, I am astonished by how much I couldn’t give less of a damn about Nettle & Bone. 

I think a lot of the issues I had came from the audiobook narrator. Pretty much every decision Jasper made enhanced the elements that were already annoying me. I think her tone was completely off for the vibe of the story, and made everything seem way too childish for what is actually a pretty dark book. 

Some of the things that most got on my nerves were: 

1.      Marra is crazily annoying, and stupendously naive - amazingly so for being THIRTY YEARS OLD. Yes, she’s obviously got social anxiety, but Kingfisher could have portrayed that in so many different ways. She doesn’t have to sound like a permeant teenager at THIRTY YEARS OLD. I was constantly forgetting her age throughout the book, often reverting to thinking she was a teenager, which was definitely due to the mix of her brazen naivety and the insipid voice the narrator chose to use for her. 

2.      Fenris' 'English' accent is SO bad. All the other voices in the audiobook are at least well-acted, even if I don’t like the choices Jasper made. He, on the other hand, sounds like she has no acting talent at all – it come across as so self-conscious and amateurish. 

3.      The tapestry’s purpose was so obscenely obvious from the very second Marra was given it. Utter madness that she didn’t connect the dots immediately. 

4.      At the end Marra didn’t know if her sister was alive after the birth and was frantic about it for a good long time, then in the following chapters seemed to completely forget that she didn’t know and didn’t mention it once. And THEN, when she finally got the answer, there was absolutely no reaction, as if she’d know the whole time?? I might have missed something there, but I really don’t think I did. 

5.      And then in the last few pages we find out that Mara isn’t a virgin?? Since when?? She’s so horrendously naïve to even what a man is for most of the book, but suddenly she’s experienced? Since fucking when? 

Overall, I think I would have enjoyed this more if I read it with my eyeballs, but probably not by much.