Ghostly Tales: An Audible Christmas Gift by Collected Authors – An Audiobook Review

Publisher’s Summary:

The days are getting colder, the nights are getting longer, and as Christmas approaches the time is high for some ghostly tales. As an exclusive gift for Audible members, settle down, snuggle up and listen to four chilling ghost stories, read by Simon Callow. Four great stories, one master storyteller – what could be simpler than that?

Also featuring Sally Phillips, John Banks and Dan Starkey, this exclusive recording includes ‘Between the Lights’ by E.F. Benson, ‘A Strange Christmas Game’ by J.H. Riddell, ‘Was It an Illusion’ by Emelia B. Edwards and ‘The Signalman’ by Charles Dickens.

 

Authors: Charles Dickens, E.F Benson, J.H Riddell, Emelia B. Edwards & Joseph Lidster

Narrators: Simon Callow, Sally Phillips, John Banks, Dan Starkey

Running Time: 2 hrs 29 mins

Release Date: 14/12/2017

My Rating of ‘Ghostly Tales: An Audible Christmas Gift’: 4 out of 5

Purchase: Audible UK, Audible US

 

Review:

As always, Audible give their members a free gift when Christmas time draws around. And, as always, I am late in getting around to listening to it.

I’m going to sound incredibly disrespectful when I say the only thing that had me excited for this collection was the fact that ‘The Signalman’ was on it. The other stories , however, turned out to be enjoyable listens. Each tale got progressively better.

Considering that the Signalman was the final piece in the collection, and each story was slightly better than the one that came before it, I was hopeful of big things. And I wasn’t disappointed. Simon Callow did a wonderful job at performing the piece (I feel Dickens would have been proud).

I was on the fence about how Simon Callow and Sally Phillips kind of had their own story (playing a part of a narrator and production assistant) but, in the end, it felt like it worked well for the piece.

I’ll also say that I had to double check the narrator as, at times, Simon sounds awfully like Stephen Fry. Seeing as how Fry narrated the Christmas gift from a previous year, I thought I might have popped the wrong one on by mistake.