One Bad Apple by Sheila Connolly Narrator Robin Miles

One Bad Apple: An Orchard Mystery
Series: Orchard, Book 1
By Sheila Connolly
Narrated By Robin Miles
Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
Audible Studios

Author Sheila Connolly

Narrator Robin Miles

Robin Miles is an extremely talented narrator. I loved listening to her read the Orchard Series. She's versatile and expressive. I really did not like many of the women in the Orchard Series, and Ms.Miles' narration was able to amplify to excruciating levels just how annoying these testy, self centered, whining women are. Truth is I did not like Maura Donovan in Sheila Connolly's other series The County Cork Mysteries. Nonetheless the books are all very good. I especially enjoyed the first five of the Orchard books. 

One Bad Apple: An Orchard Mystery
Series: Book Review

One Bad Apple, is the first in the series. Meg Corey has been downsized and ousted from her job as a commercial loan clerk, her boyfriend  recently broke up with her. Megs' mother suggests that she could go to Granford, Massachusetts and get a house ready to sell. Meg, agrees with her mother that getting away from Boston would be a good thing and without seeing the house Meg agrees to use her severance money for any repairs and so forth that the house might need and she'll regain her investment from the proceeds of the sale. 

What Meg couldn't have foreseen is just what bad shape this rambling old colonial house is in. Her mother inherited it twenty years ago and let an attorney handle it. So for twenty years it was rented out while she just banked her rental income giving the house no more thought. It's cold, drafty, and sorely in need of a new, well, just about everything. During her first week there the septic system needs replacing. Her Realtor hooks her up with Seth Chapin, plummer extraordinaire. Seth digs up her sewer pipes and septic system to find that age has taken its toll and it all needs replacing. 

That evening Megs' ex-boyfriend shows up at her door, he's as surprised to see her as she is to see him. Unknown to Meg is he is in town to do a strip mall contract that he's trying to push the city and some property owners to agree to. They go to dinner that night and between the time they have dinner and the next day he is found blocking up her still unfilled sewer and quite dead. Meg is a prime suspect.

Meg is another one of Sheila Connolly's protagonist that is not very likable. I never did warm up to her but she is not as bad as Maura in the County Cork Mystery Series, that distinction will go to a yet to arrive in a later book as Meg's orchard manager. Again although I did not ever care much for the miserable Meg, I do enjoy the Apple Orchard Series. 

Buried in a Bog, Book 1. By Sheila Connolly Narrated By Amy Rubinate

Buried in a Bog
County Cork Mystery Series, Book 1
By Sheila Connolly
Narrated By Amy Rubinate
Tantor Audio Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins

Amy Rubinate

Amy Rubinate has a very lovely voice that I enjoy listening too. Although I'm not familiar with Irish accents, I thought her accents were well done and credible. Her voice is very clear and her inflections are nice.

She does a good job expressing the sadness in Maura. Maura's Grandmother recently died, the apartments where she lived were to become condominiums so she has to move out and she is alone in the world and has little going for her, leaving her feeling depressed and lost.

I thought it was a bit of a task for Ms. Rubinate to capture Maura's, personality as Maura is like quicksilver emotionally. and doesn't have a strong personality for Amy Rubinate to grab onto. So she did do a fine job jostling back and forth through the mood swings.

I would like to hear the pace picked up a couple notches as reading to slow and carefully drags out the negative tones of the book.
The third in the series An Early Wake , Ms. Rubinate does read it faster which I liked very much.

Sheila Connolly

Buried in a Bog: Audio Book Review:

I really did not like Maura Donovan, she is a bore and whines a lot. Maura is constantly questioning herself. On the one hand she wonders if she's done something offensive or out of line, and on the other hand she is curt and sounds rude. You could get dizzy the way she switches emotional gears and she's so full of self-doubt. I swear she's a public hazard. Sometimes I wasn't sure if the slowly paced narration and inflections increased the drabness of Maura or Maura is such a tiresome person. All in all Maura Donovan is a very unlikable person.

After her father died and her mother took off to parts unknown, Maura was raised by her grandmother. So it's just her and her Gran. When her Gran is dying she tells Maura she wants her to go to Ireland, Maura agrees just to please her, knowing full well she has no money to take that kind of trip. A couple weeks after the funeral Maura is packing up the contents of their apartment, and finds a box of photos, letters, and money enough to fly to Ireland. It seems as if her Gran had been planning for Maura to take this trip for a very long time.

Following instructions she got from Bridget Nolan, her gran's life long friend from her hometown in Ireland. Maura gets off the bus in Leap (pronounced Lep) and goes into Sullivan's' Pub. Her first impressions are wow, what a dump. Rose the young bartender knows who she is and tells her Bridget left a note with instructions when she arrives in Leap.

First on the list is to go across the road and rent a room from Ellen. After a good nights sleep but still feeling some jet lag, Maura finds Bridget has arranged for her grandson to drive Maura to her place for a visit. Maura finally learns from Bridget many things about her family that she never knew before.

Bridget lets her use her dead husbands car to get around on her own while she's in Ireland. Maura does not know how to drive a stick shift but somehow manages miraculously to teach herself in a short time by trial and error. On her way back to Leap she stalls where the police are swarming the area.

She ask a policeman (called garde in Ireland ) what they are doing and chats with him for a bit. Seems they are dredging up a body from the bog. This is big news in the area and business is brisk at Sullivan's Pub when she gets there.  Rose is handling it alone so Maura asks her if she needs a hand. Of course she is happy to get some extra help. God knows where Maura gets the energy to work till midnight with jet lag, a stressful afternoon with the car and an emotionally draining visit with Bridget.

Although Maura is a strange character and I did not like her, I liked the book. The descriptions of the Irish countryside are a pleasure to read and make it possible to visualize the area. The concept is intriguing and most of the cast of characters are interesting. There are many situations that are highly unlikely to happen but I overlook them as it is fiction. I can recommend the book if you enjoy a cozy type mystery that moves along at a good pace.