Review: Bound for Eternity

Bound for Eternity by Sarah Wisseman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Bound for Eternity by Sarah Wisseman and narrated by Priscilla Holbrook, published by Iambik Audio in 2012 is one of the shorter audiobooks I have listened to in the recent past with only 6 ½ hours.
It is the second part of a series of mystery novels whose protagonist is Lisa Donahue (the first book in the series, The Dead Sea Codex, isn't available as an audiobook; but I've seen it available for Kindle, so I might get that). In Bound for Eternity Lisa is curator at a museum for historical/archaeological artefacts. Normal work routine is interrupted when one of the museum employee’s is found dead in the building. As things progress it becomes more and more obvious that one of the other employee’s must be the murderer. While trying to plan the next exhibit Lisa notices that some artefacts are not where they are supposed to be and even begins to suspect that some of the items might be forgeries. Are both incidents connected?




When I first began to listen to the audiobook I wasn’t too thrilled by the narrator’s performance. She seemed to read without much fervour and intonation. However, I soon discovered that the narrator’s way of reading the book suited me surprisingly well. I never had any problems in staying with the story and had a vivid picture of it in front of my mental eye. The only thing that was a bit annoying was the fact that sometimes the volume changed a bit. It was no big leap, just a small change that I noticed because it often happened within a sentence. It was not so dramatic that I needed to adjust my player’s volume level, so it’s actually no great deal, but it does take the attention away from the story for a moment.

Usually I’m a bit dubious about books by new author’s I’ve never read before, especially when I didn’t “choose” the book myself but got it for free, in this case as a review copy. So I was favorably surprised when I soon began to really like the story. The solution of the mystery is not too obvious. It’s obvious that the author has experience in archeology and the way a museum works and while this often leads to too much detail and boring explanations, it is woven into the story without disturbing it but giving it a believable and vivid background. The characters were round and I liked the protagonist and her love interest.

All in all I can really recommend this audiobook for mystery friends and everyone who has some interest in archeology. I’ll certainly read Sarah Wisseman’s other books featuring Lisa Donahue and would really enjoy to have those as audiobook as well (as far as I can see only Bound for Eternity is available as audiobook at present).



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