Peggy A. Wheeler

🏆🎧 ABR Reviewer's Choice Award Winner

My original The Splendid and Extraordinary Life of Beautimus Potamus audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Petty Wheeler identifies herself as an author of fantastical fiction and she most definitely is! I listened to The Splendid and Extraordinary Life of Beautimus Potamus and was captivated right away. It is a story about a 300-year-old hippo who lives on the planet Rendaz and moves through life teaching earth history and interacting with others such as her good friend Sam, the praying mantis, her mentor and high priestess who is a blue crane, a gorilla named Rufus who tells bad fart jokes and a host of other fantastical creatures who live and interact as humans. In one history class, she shares how the Egyptians and other cultures came to worship animal gods – yes, coincidentally, animals who visited earth from Rendaz!

Beautimus is lacking in the self-confidence area but when she finds love – watch out! In her gaining confidence, she manages to unintentionally set off a revenge-fueled hatred that will leave the listener on the edge of their chair.

Wheeler creates a world, much like earth where her characters mirror humans in actions and beliefs. I found the audiobook interesting and couldn’t stop listening. Between the wordplay, satire, social situations that are political and religious peppered with puns and other jests and the excellently developed plot and characters, this book is awesome. When I began listening to the book I thought, “OMG really? A hippo as the main character???” But then Wheeler sucked me in and I fell in love with Beautimus, Sam, Lucas and all the other delightful characters.

Kelley Hazen deserves an A+++ for her narration. She did a fantastic job of keeping up with the voices and tempo of the book. She was just amazing! I would love to hear more of her. I cannot imagine anyone else doing as magnificent a job as she did.

There were no issues with the audio or production of this book.

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.… (mehr)

My original The Raven's Daughter audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

This is an excellent addition to the urban fantasy genre. Maggie Sloan, who is Yurok Native American and Irish, is a fascinating lead character. She's quickly approaching middle age and the events of this book could well be her mid-life crisis. Ha! She's got an interesting past where she worked in law enforcement and made a big mistake. Now she works as a reserve cop for the Wicklow (spelling?) Sheriff's office in northern California. She's an atheist and yet spooky stuff keeps happening around her as well as ravens invading her dreams. But she's got this bigger issue: there's a serial killer taking out children, twin children specifically.

The story has several great side characters as well. Sally Winter is Maggie's best friend and she's also a hereditary witch. Maggie feels uncomfortable with Sally's witchy side but accepts it. However, she doesn't accept Sally's abusive and lazy husband John. That creates some friction between the two friends but it's great to see how the two rise above it and maintain their bond. Then there's the handsome Mingon, a Christian Algonquin. It was interesting to see how Mingon was uncomfortable with Maggie's lack of religious belief even though it's obvious the two are steamily attracted to each other. Maggie also has plenty of family members involved in this tale such as her twin 6-year-old grandnieces Bird and Flower. There's tension, anger, and love in this family adding yet another dimension to the story. Maggie sure is juggling quite a bit!

The Native American folklore is woven throughout the story. There's a secondary timeline set in Canada 28 years before this present-day tale that is told in small bits throughout the main timeline. It is deliciously spooky with a family trapped in a snowy avalanche having to make tough choices to stay alive. There's also a paranormal touch to that storyline. Meanwhile, Maggie is having to embrace the idea of a pukkukwerek, a shapeshifter of sorts. Her ravens are doing their best to bring Maggie up to speed but she is a stubborn woman!

In fact, Maggie is so stubborn that she gets a little boring at times. At one point, she comes to the conclusion that the killer is still out there and she has a general idea of where. However, instead of going on the hunt, she shuts herself in her house with her dog Chester and cat Samantha and ignores the world for weeks. She starts ignoring basic cleanliness as well and her friends have to shake her out of this depression and clean up after her. I wasn't too keen on that part of the story and seemed quite contrary to the Maggie I had come to know and greatly like. Also, that was boring and just felt like filler.

The story gets back on track with Jake, a local cop, finally putting some clues together. He's deeply concerned for Maggie, who he has known since childhood. I did feel that Jake was a little childish here and there with his jealousy. He's been carrying a torch for Maggie forever even though she has made it clear she's not interested in him romantically. Still, Jake has other dimensions and those really shine during the last quarter of the book as the final hunt for the killer comes to a head. I found the ending very satisfying with everything neatly tied up. There's plenty of groundwork laid here for this to be the beginning of a series (looks hopefully at the author).

The Narration: Joe Hempel did a really good job with this story. He made a great Maggie. His voice was feminine while also conveying her wisdom and gruffness gained with her years in law enforcement. His various raven voices were great too, especially his cackling raven! All his character voices were distinct. Also, I want to say that I really appreciate that he didn't fall into using a stereotyped accent for the Native Americans. Yay! I live in an area that has many Native Americans, and very few have accents.

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.… (mehr)