Monday is my one long commute day where I either drive or travel to work for over an hour each way. I have decided to share my Monday reading each week.

I’ve been listening to Connie Brockway’s Highlander Undone for over 2 months and I have only just hit the half way point. This is indicative of how little time I spend in the car on my own. I will only listen to a chapter if I know that I can hear a whole chapter in a drive.

I have the usual audiobook driver quirks: I make excuses to go for drives, I sit in the car for an extra ten minutes until a chapter ends, I drive around the suburb pretending to look for a parking spot even if there is a perfectly good one in front of my home. It is an illness. Audiobookitis.

As for Connie Brockway’s Highlander Undone, I’m really enjoying Napoleon Ryan’s narration of this story. This is my first Brockway and so far I am not disappointed by the story or by the storytelling.

By the half-way point in most audiobooks I am desperately looking for a print copy of a book to get away from other grating storyteller (yes – I am looking at you Michael Page) which disrupts my own internal voice that is trying to process the novel. I guess that I am of the St. Ambrose school-of-internalised-reading rather than St. Augustine’s text-needs-to-be-read-aloud approach.

Napolean Ryan’s narration is nuanced, smooth and enjoyable. I’m not especially enthused by the voices he puts on for his female characters but they are okay and not too annoying. He is not as good as Nicholas Boulton but that is an especially high bar. I will however seek out more of his performances once I finish this book.

As for the story, so far it is deeply engaging…but I think I will wait to finish listening to the book before I discuss it further. At this pace, I am sure there will be more Monday posts on this book.

This copy of Highlander Undone by Connie Brockway was borrowed from a NSW public library.