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Dark Island cover art

Dark Island

By: Matt James
Narrated by: Michael Lesley
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Publisher's Summary

Like the "Dark Continent" of Africa, the dark island of Madagascar holds many chilling secrets. One of them is a long-thought extinct species of dinosaurs living at the country's core.  

A massive earthquake rocks the mountain range within the Andringitra National Park. The splitting Earth reveals a network of tunnels, hidden away for millennia. Responding to the series of violent upheavals, a pack of hypersensitive predators flee their subterranean home; frenzied and hungry, they head for the surface.   

Former Navy SEAL Ian Hunt begrudgingly accepts an offer to lead an exploratory team. What they uncover is the find of a lifetime... if they survive long enough to tell anyone.   

Dinosaurs are alive and well at the heart of the dark island.

©2018 Matt James; Copyright 2018 by Severed Press (P)2019 Tantor

What listeners say about Dark Island

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    3 out of 5 stars

bit of a slog

I didn't have huge hopes for this book and was still pretty disappointed unfortunately. the narrator made it seem like the characters were constantly joking even in a life or death moment just by his inflections.
the entire story sounded like it was written as a year 8 school assignment.

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Dark Island

I enjoyed the story as it took me to another place and I liked the narrator. I enjoyed his different character voices

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    3 out of 5 stars

Fine, far fetched fable…but narration leaves much to be desired.

I bought this book knowing fully what to expect from Matt James, having just finished his novel “Sub Zero”…and I got precisely what I had predicted.
Straightforward writing with no wasted words, good characterisation and a story so far fetched even the bad was good.
The downside of this experience was not in the writing, it was in the narration. While Michael Lesley has a fine voice (being Australian myself, his interpretation of Abigail’s “Aussie” accent leaves a LOT to be desired), the pacing of his reading threw me off BIG TIME. So many unnecessary pauses at the most in opportune times and oddly placed inflections took me right out of the world setting I should have, by all accounts, been immersed in.
I have no idea, whatsoever, if that was a one-off or if it’s just his style but I was not receptive to it at all.

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Slow moving

Narrator didn’t help, really didn’t enjoy listening. Sorry, didn’t make it to the end. I just felt it was missing something too.

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Book 1

N arrator was very off putting, found the story good but difficult to get because of the narrator trying accents, as best he could.

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  • Joe
  • 11-06-2019

Lasted 5 minutes

Had to strain to hear the narrators voice. Soft, feminine and quick little bursts. I couldn't handle it after the first 5 minutes. May have been a good book if a Jack Reacher type narrator was behind the wheel.

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no no no no

i don't even know if this was a good story or not because the narrator butchered it from the very first word...hideous narrating....Matt James what were you thinking allowing this to be released ;(

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