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A Fatal Waltz  By  cover art

A Fatal Waltz

By: Tasha Alexander
Narrated by: Charlotte Anne Dore
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Publisher's summary

At her friend Ivy's behest, Lady Emily Ashton reluctantly agrees to attend a party at the sprawling English country estate of a man she finds odious. But the despised Lord Fortescue is not to be her greatest problem.

Kristiana von Lange, an Austrian countess once linked romantically with Emily's fiancé, the debonair Colin Hargreaves, is a guest also. And a tedious evening turns deadly when their host is found murdered, and his protégé, Robert Brandon - Ivy's husband - is arrested for the crime.

Determined to right a terrible wrong, Emily embarks on a quest that will lead her from London's glittering ballrooms to Vienna's sordid backstreets - and into a game of wits with a notorious anarchist. But putting Colin in deadly peril may be the price for exonerating Robert - forcing the intrepid Emily to bargain with her nemesis, the Countess von Lange, for the life of her fiancé.

©2008 Anastasia Tyska (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A wonderful choice for readers looking for a pleasant diversion from everyday troubles." ( Library Journal)

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What listeners say about A Fatal Waltz

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good story- if you can get past the narration

The narration is so distracting it's difficult to follow the story. Quite amateurish. I've listened to all the others in this series and that is the ONLY reason I didn't return the book after the first five minutes.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Horrible Narration!

I suffered through this book ONLY because I love the series and subsequent books have a different narrator. The narration started out badly and only got worse. The entire book is filled with mispronunciations, incorrect emphases and confused character voices. At one point, the narrator uses at least two different accents and voices for a monologue of a message sent from the butler. It was confusing. I will be sure to avoid ALL books with this narrator and am shocked that she has narrated over 40 books. Audible must be desperate for narrators!

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A good story poorly read

I'll need to read the book to see if the story is as insipid as this reader makes it sound.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A captivating story!

This mystery was well worth the wait. But I am very sorry to write that the narration was poor. Sometimes i wondered if the words i heard was spoken with a lisp or baby talk in Ivy's case?!?! And I didn't know if Ms. Margret was from South of the border or New Jersey. But I must reiterate "The story was captivating"! I couldn't put it down.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story. Lousy narration

I stuck out the narration because I wanted to hear the stories in order. Otherwise I would've skipped this one altogether. For telling was very slow the different voices and performances awful. She is an Australian trying to be both British, German, French, and American. She did French the best. I rest my case.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Couldn't Listen

What was most disappointing about Tasha Alexander’s story?

The narration was so bad I couldn't listen.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Charlotte Anne Dore?

Justine Eyre was excellent in book 2

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Very disappointing

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Might be the worst narrator of all time

Any additional comments?

So, I listened to the book because it is a part of t a series, and I knew that Bianca is the primary narrator after the first few books. I have listened to over a 100 audiobooks in my time, and I have never heard a worse performance. The reading of this book is not a test in English diction, rather it should be a performance of how people would actually speak to each other in real life in the 19 century. How Charlotte narrates this book is not even how people would converse with each other. I cannot pick even if her male or female voices are the worst, it's so bad.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
  • AE
  • 12-18-16

Narrator ruined this

What disappointed you about A Fatal Waltz?

I’ve listened to the first two books in this series, which have good narrators, and liked them both. Sadly I couldn’t even finish this one because the narrator was so wooden. I see that later books have other, much better narrators. I hope they will rerecord this with an appropriate narrator, as I suspect I’d like it as much as I did the previous books.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Charlotte Anne Dore?

Justine Eyre was wonderful. Get her to record this and I'm sure it would be very popular.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Narration was dead on arrival!

What would have made A Fatal Waltz better?

It would help if Audible would stop changing narrators for each book in this series. Kate Reading did an excellent job on the first book in the series and I would be happy to see her come back. The narrator for this book killed it and I couldn't get past the first 30 minutes before giving up and deciding to purchase the book from Amazon. Attention to diction is always good in a story but this narrator seems to draw every letter out in every word as well as observing every piece of punctuation as if just learning grammar. Additionally, the pauses between every couple of words makes it difficult to concentrate on the story.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I couldn't say as I was unable to concentrate on the story due to the narrator.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Charlotte Anne Dore?

Kate Reading did a good job on the first book and it was very easy to distinguish each character.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The story sounded as if it was setting up for a very good plot with interesting characters.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Unbearable narrator!Re-do with Bianca Amato please

What would have made A Fatal Waltz better?

This narrator gives a such a bad narration, with jerky stilted reading, and poor change of character voices. I love the Lady Emily books, have listened to all of them. Such a shame to ruin a good story with a bad narrator. I'm not sure I can even finish this one. PLEASE don't use this narrator for any further books! So disappointing...

Who was your favorite character and why?

Normally it's Lady Emily, but I couldn't stand to listen to this voice interpretation.

Would you be willing to try another one of Charlotte Anne Dore’s performances?

No way. I would avoid even potentially great books if narrated by her.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment

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4 people found this helpful