The Number of Love
Series: The Codebreakers, Book 1
By: Roseanna M. White / Narrated By: Susan Lyons
Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
Uhm…?
Yesss, The Phantom Tollbooth inspired us to do an entire week’s worth of Listening that concerned numbers and measurements and time and words and blah blah mind-stimulating blah. Enthusiastic? Most certainly! Add to that the new year for Audiobook Accomplice has brought the decision to keep in mind our variety of Accomplices’ favorite genres, and a mixup of genres would be included for the week.
Sooooo, to address the Romance Lovers amongst us (And I would TOTally be firmly in THAT category!), I sought one whose Publisher’s Summary indicated a heroine who thought in numbers and equations… Awesome! And hey! said Summary indicated this was taking place in WWI, an era and war that has beYONd piqued my interest as of late. So huzzah huzzah mustard gas and math huzzah!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
‘Twould appear I SOMEhow only saw the “Number” in The Number of Love, and neglected to weigh the “of Love” part. Yessss, I WAS expecting romance, but gosh, that “of Love” part danged near killed me…
It starts off so very niftily that I was having high hopes for the 14 1/2 hours I’d be devoting to this li’l… uhm…?
Our heroine is Margot, a woman who not only is NOT a secretary in the Hush-Hush (And famous!) Room 40 that was the cryptanalysis department in London during WWI, but hey! and huzzah! she’s a codebreaker, one of the best the unit has. Cuz see, the woman thinks in numbers, analyzes her surroundings in numbers, equations and numbers inspire her prayers to a God she devoutly believes guides her.
And okay, like, 15 minutes into the story, our Hero is introduced, Drake Elton who happens to be ssssh! don’t call him a Spy (Too ominous and brutal sounding!), instead refer to him as an Agent. He imMEDiately is smitten by the sarcastic young woman who parries his flirtatious questions with humor-filled quips of her own. Okay, I’m kinda sorta still with the story even tho’ I’m NOT fond of instant love. I mean, we’ve gotta lotta audiobook to go here…!
Then things go downhill from there. And yessss, there are, like, 14 hours to go. Cuz you see (And I usually don’t mind Christian romances cuz those practically guaranTEE a clean story that will NOT make m’ danged toes curl!), but God suddenly just takes over the story. Math? What math? The sudden death of Margot’s mum means all those equations and all those numbers take a backseat to a crisis of Faith. And NATurally, with HOOOOUUUURS to go, Drake is front and center guiding a suddenly weepy Margot through the rest of the story.
Consider, also, that apPARently, in this God-centered WAR, Drake, as a SPYYYYY (Sssssh! I’m sorry, AGENT) gets involved in all sorts of Schemes and Plots and will only shoot his gun in a hyper-wary and diversionary way. ALL his investigations involve chases ( >yaaaaawn< ), and he keeps his hands oh so clean.
The OTHER Agent who’s hellbent on killing Drake and all he loves, is portrayed as beyond Evil, and obviously God is NOT on his side, is totally only with the Allies. So hmmmm… I always shudder when God’s presence is invoked for wars, and football games, and such-all. Keep in mind that this all happens over HOOOOUUURS.
That m’ mind wandered, or kept getting piqued into outrage, is NOT the fault of narrator Susan Lyons. She’s not the best I’ve listened to, made pretty much no attempt to distinguish voices between characters, and man were some of her accent choices questionable, or what? Lyons COULDA done more, did not, but cripes, she at least hit it all heavy on the drama Drama DRAMA. Didn’t shatter m’ eardrums, so yay. Didn’t get on m’ last nerve, so double yay.
It’s just that I was expecting soooo much more from a series on “Codebreakers” that this is the first book of. I was expecting more drama Drama DRAMA that was part and parcel of an ugly ugly mechanization of brutal slaughter. Alas, ‘twas only to be found in Drake’s bemoaning the fact that he fired his gun once; ‘twas only to be found in Drake’s sister shrieking it was okay to wanna be a wife and mother and nothing else; ‘twas only to be found in Margot baaaarely pondering: Dude! where’d the numbers go…?
So! DONE! And thus ends this review, and I’ve TOTALLY gotta back away from m’ laptop right now cuz, oops, nope, here it comes:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Sorry, the ever-increasingly hysterical gales of laughter just hit… So sorry, but where on EARTH did all those brilliant equations go? Where on EARTH did all the suspense and horror of the Trenches of WWI go…?
… ha…
… and… >sigh<
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