Frostbitten (Deep Ops #6) by Rebecca Zanetti (audiobook) – Narrated by Stephen Borne

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

Enigmatic. With a wildly gifted mind, and an untamed head of hair to match, petite powerhouse Millicent Frost is brilliant when it comes to gadgets and electronics—less so with people. After an attempt to bust a bank scam goes awry, Millie is in hot water with Homeland Security and targeted by lethal enemies. In the midst of the trouble, she heads home to help out with the family hunting and fishing business. But when their rival competitor and Millie’s ex is murdered, she’s the number one suspect . . .

Irresistible. Former Marine turned lawyer Scott Terentson devotes himself to getting his clients out of tricky binds. A loner, the last thing he wants is to belong to any team, yet the Deep Ops group considers him one of their own—and he pays the price by getting shot at by their enemies. Now Millie is seeking his help—just as he’s dealing with a brutal fail regarding a recent trial. Both are a headache, yet he’s drawn to Millie in spite of himself. They’re opposites, but maybe the old adage is true . . .

Electric. Working together, Millie and Scott soon have more on their hands than they bargained for as the danger escalates—along with the sizzling heat between them. And when a disappearance is thrown into the mix, all bets are off . . .

Rating: Narration – C+; Content – C

I’ve enjoyed listening to the five previous books in Rebecca Zanetti’s Deep Ops series of romantic suspense novels, so when I saw there was a sixth book on the way, I made a note to look for the audio. I was pleased to see there was going to be one, although sad to see that Roger Wayne wouldn’t be narrating it. He did such a great job in the other books and I knew he’d be a tough act to follow; his replacement, Stephen Borne, isn’t someone I’ve listened to before, but I’ve seen his name around quite a lot and Audible shows he has well over a hundred titles to his credit, mostly in romance and romantic suspense, so I thought I’d be in a safe pair of hands as far as the narration was concerned.

In my review of the previous book, Unforgiven, I made a comment as an aside that “I certainly wouldn’t mind more of Scott the hot lawyer” – and lo and behold, here he is! A former marine, Scott Terentsen now deals with bad guys through the courts, and in the previous book, he was shot when helping out the Deep Ops team on one of their operations. While he’s recovered physically, he’s still a bit of a mess on the inside and has been on autopilot ever since; his work keeps his mind agile, but he’s lost interest in it and just goes through the motions.

Millicent Frost has appeared in some of the previous books as a secondary character who has sometimes worked with the Deep Ops team. Her speciality is gadgetry – she’s often referred to as their version of James Bond’s “Q” – and when we meet her again here, she’s working undercover as an air conditioning engineer, planting surveillance equipment in the office of high-powered investment banker Werner Dearth. The same investment banker with whom Scott has an appointment. Millie is the last person he expects to see there, but he doesn’t blow her cover; after his meeting with the deeply unpleasant Dearth, he waits for Millie outside and then insists on driving her home while questioning her about what she was doing in that particular office. She can’t tell him anything – and unfortunately, their association creates a serious problem for the HDD a couple of months down the line when, during his divorce hearing, Dearth alleges that Millie and Scott were conspiring against him, which exposes the HDD’s investigation into his activities.

Millie is already on shaky ground with the HDD, and this could get her fired. But before she can worry about that too much, she gets a call from her brother, JT, telling her that their Aunt Mae – who brought them up – has had a heart attack. All Millie wants to do is get home to River City to be with Mae – but before she can make her way out of the courthouse, Dearth grabs her and threatens her: “I take out my enemies and you just became one. You won’t see me coming.”

The next time we see her, Millie is waking up in a room not her own, her head pounding, her mind groggy and her body naked. She looks down at herself to see blood on her chest – and then notices the man in her bed, an ex she hasn’t seen for years, together with a fishing knife of her own making, both of them covered in blood. The man is definitely dead and Millie has no idea of what is going on. She doesn’t remember coming home with him or getting into bed with him – she doesn’t remember anything of the previous day after she left Mae’s bedside at the hospital. The only thing she IS certain of is that she didn’t kill anyone.

Scott is surprised when he gets a call from the chief of police in Shalebrook County and even moreso when he learns that Millie is suspected of murder. Scott – accompanied by Roscoe (he’s dog sitting for Angus and Nari while they’re away in Europe) – drops everything and makes his way to the small town of River City to do whatever he can to help Millie to clear her name.

Frostbitten gets off to a great start, quickly bringing Scott and Millie back into each other’s orbits and setting up the mystery, but the story is nothing we haven’t seen/heard/read before, and the author doesn’t do anything to freshen up a very tired trope. Millie’s being this crazy-smart inventor-type is woefully underused – we never see her inventing anything new or having to cobble something together on the fly to get them out of a tricky situation, and honestly, she’s kinda dull. And for a supposedly intelligent guy, Scott does some really dumb stuff. Right at the beginning when he corners Millie outside the investment bank, he insists she gets into his car or he’ll make a scene. Seriously? A grown man and tough lawyer and he’ll make a scene if she doesn’t do as he says? And he never thought they might be caught on camera before they get inside? (Which is exactly what happens and tanks the HDD’s case.)

The story is overlong and overly busy, and the chemistry between Scott and Millie is barely lukewarm, so the romance falls completely flat. There’s no growth for either character (Scott still has largely untreated PTSD by the end) and apart from a late-book appearance from Wolfe, the Deep Ops team is largely absent which, as their camaraderie and interactions are some of the things that made the previous books so entertaining, left a really big hole. And the ending… no spoilers, but it made no sense.

Sadly, I can’t say that the narration helped make listening to Frostbitten less of a chore. Stephen Borne has a naturally deep voice with an attractive huskiness to it that is a good fit for the romantic suspense genre, but there’s a kind of monotonous quality to his performance that often had me zoning out and having to rewind. I checked to see if any of the Gals have reviewed him before – and while I agree with Kaetrin’s observation about his ability to differentiate well between male and female characters, the problem is that there’s a fairly large secondary cast here, and almost all the men sound the same, as do almost all the women. And he reads Scott’s dialogue in his ‘narrator voice’ so that it’s sometimes hard to tell if Scott is speaking or if Mr. Borne is reading a narrative passage. I doubt I’ll be rushing to listen to him again.

If this is the final book in the Deep Ops series, I’m afraid that Frostbitten ends it with a whimper rather than a bang, and I’m going to pretend the series ended with book five.

The Muse (Angels and Demons #2) by Emma Scott – (audiobook) – Narrated by Zachary Johnson & Liam DiCosimo

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

Cole Matheson didn’t think the road to being a successful painter would be paved in gold, but he hoped there’d be fewer potholes.

Insidious self-doubt that whispers that he’s no good, talentless, and hopeless has him on the brink of despair. Maybe it would be better to just give up. A midnight visitation by a beautiful creature of darkness changes everything…

Ambrosius Edward Meade-Finch surrendered to darkness centuries ago after knowing only pain and suffering during his short life. Now, Ambri makes humans dance on his strings, feeding on their desire for his own pleasure.

When his liege lord questions his loyalty and commands him to bring a human soul into their dark realm, Ambri thinks Cole Matheson seems like an easy mark. But Ambri didn’t count on his goodness or the depth of his generous soul that wants Ambri just as he is. Cole never expected to find in Ambri a muse who unlocks his talent and might also be who his lonely heart has been searching for. Something fragile yet powerful grows between them, and the possibility of soul-deep love hangs in the balance—if only they have the courage to reach for it.

Fairy tale endings don’t come without a price. The dark forces Ambri answers to have been promised a soul, and they’re coming to collect…

Rating: Narration – A (Johnson)/C+ (DiCosimo); Content – B-

The first thing that caught my eye about Emma Scott’s The Muse was Zachary Johnson’s name on the cover; the second was the blurb, which promised a dramatic and angsty story about the battle for the soul of a young artist. It’s book two in the author’s Angels & Demons series, and although there are a small number of recurring characters, this is a new story in which they have secondary roles, so it works, more or less, as a standalone.

Paris, 1786. Ambrosius Edward Meade-Finch, a young English nobleman, is caught up in the affaire du collier de la reine (the Affair of the Diamond Necklace) when he discovers the man he loves has been merely dallying with him while plotting with his lover, Jeanne, to steal the necklace. Heartbroken, Ambri gets roaring drunk and shoots his mouth off in front of an angry mob who fling him into a burning building and lock him inside. As the smoke swirls and the flames rise, Ambri hears a smooth voice addressing him and turns to find a man sitting on a nearby crate, his white suit untouched by soot, his flowing dark hair crowned by an equally pristine white hat. Ambri instinctively knows that this is no man and he’s right; the demon Ashtaroth offers Ambri a new existence, one in which he will remain young and beautiful for ever and will be able to take his revenge on the humans who have so carelessly dismissed and disregarded him over the years by making them slaves to their desire for him. Bitter, angry, desperate and terrified – Ambri accepts.

In present day London, we meet Cole Matheson, an American artist and graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts, who is still waiting for his big break. He’s very talented, but while friends he graduated with are beginning to make names for themselves, he’s stuck working in a pub, living in a shitty flat and getting nowhere. He’s assailed by crippling self-doubt and falling into depression – and as if that’s not bad enough, he returns home after work one night to find he and his flatmates have been served with an eviction notice.

The demon Ashmodai has become Ambri’s liege lord following the destruction of Ashtaroth (in book one, The Sinner) when Casziel, the Nightbringer, fell in love with a human woman and broke his demonic bonds. Ashmodai suspects Ambri’s loyalty (with reason – Ambri did help Casziel) and commands him to prove himself by driving a human to the ultimate despair, persuading them to “end their miserable existence” – and then bringing them across the veil to him. Ambri has no particular liking for humans, and driving one to take their own life is not something he looks forward to doing – but it’s that or eternal agony, so he chooses his victim. Still smarting at the loss of Cas to the human world and his love, Lucy, Ambri decides to extract a little revenge. Lucy’s best friend, Cole, lives in London; his downfall will please Ashmodai and bring pain to Lucy and thereby to Cas. Perfect.

When Ambri finds Cole, standing on Blackfriars bridge staring down into the dark water, he knows he’s found him at an all time low. He can see the demons Deber and Keeb (who induce feelings of despair, failure and self-loathing in humans) are never far away, and thinks, at first, that bringing Cole down will be easy. But he realises he doesn’t want ‘easy’, and decides it will be far more of a challenge – and thus more of a triumph – if he builds Cole up first, if he takes him to the heights of fame and success and then crushes his spirit and plunges him into deepest despair. He becomes both patron and muse to Cole, allowing him to paint him in his demon form in return for a portrait depicting him in his human form that could sit beside those of his family at Hever Castle. (*snort* – really?)

Of course, we all know what happens to the best-laid plans. Before long, Ambri finds it impossible to resist Cole’s good heart and the unconditional love and affection he is offering; he almost can’t believe it, but Cole sees everything Ambri is and loves him anyway. And Cole, who is smitten with Ambri’s beauty the from the first, is falling hard for this complicated, damaged individual who deserves so much more than life – and the afterlife – have given him.

The premise of The Muse – a struggling artist meets a broodingly beautiful demon who becomes his artistic muse and the love of his life; the demon wreathed in darkness meets a truly good and generous man who loves him exactly as he is – is a really good one and I had high hopes for the story – but sadly, they were not met. The author does some things really well; Cole’s doubts and fears and his descent into depression feel very real, and I felt for Ambri, who has gone through some truly traumatic shit and who, despite being well aware of his physical beauty, has learned through bitter experience that he’s not the sort of person others fall in love with or want to keep around. But the biggest problem with the book is that it’s not sure what it wants to be. It tries to be dark and angsty, but isn’t; it has a lot of dark themes, and should feel weightier than it does, but it’s a odd mix of dark and fluff. Cole is likeable but bland, although I did like the way he refused to let Ambri turn away from the love and affection he wants to give him, and while Ambri is the more interesting character of the two, he’s not so much demonic as he is bitter and sharp-tongued. I assume that over the three hundred or so years of his existence he must have done some really bad stuff, but we never see any of it, so I never really believed he was ever going to go through with his plan to ruin Cole. (It reminded me of all those ‘rogues’, ‘scoundrels’, ‘rakes’ and ‘devils’ in historicals who are never seen behaving badly on the page!)

The chemistry between Cole and Ambri is decent, but the romance is pretty insta-love-y. There are a couple of moments that tug at the heartstrings in the later part of the book, but for a novel billed as an “emotional” romance, I didn’t feel there was much of an emotional connection between the characters, and I never felt connected to them either. I enjoyed the final chapters the most – Ambri has always known he doesn’t have infinite time to comply with Ashmodai’s demands, and as he realises he’s running out of time to save Cole the pacing picks up and things start to get really interesting – only for the climax to be rushed and more of a damp squib than fireworks. And the reveal of the guardian angel is overkill.

The narration is very much a story of two halves. Zachary Johnson narrates Ambri’s chapters – so about 40% of the story – and he’s fantastic. He captures every facet of the character – the bitterness and anger, the wry humour and passion, the fears and vulnerability he’s hidden for so long, and the depth of his affection for Cole. In the prologue, he’s downright scary as Ashtaroth; the English accent he adopts for Ambri is almost perfect and the other accents he uses are pretty good, too. The problem is that although Liam DiCosimo is great as Cole, he’s not great at just about everything else. While the English accent he uses for Ambri’s dialogue is okay, when he tries to “bloke” it up a bit and deviate from RP, he sounds like he’s fresh out of the Dick van Dyke School of English Accents. (The book actually begins with some dialogue from Cole’s friend Vaughn, and it was so bad I almost switched off. ) His other accents aren’t great either, but the biggest problem is his interpretation of Ambri, which is totally one-note. There’s none of the mercurial moods or sexy playfulness that Mr. Johnson conveys so well; instead, Mr. DiCosimo’s version of Ambri sounds like a bluff, fifty-something professor whose default emotion is vague amusement. Ambri is supposed to be a perpetually gorgeous twenty-four-year-old sex-bomb who can send people mad with desire; all I felt when Ambri spoke in Cole’s chapters was the desire to offer to find his pipe and slippers or make him a cup of tea.

I’m not generally a fan of dual narrations for the exact reason the narration doesn’t work here – when you get one narrator who is simply not in the same league as the other, it ruins the listen. Zachary Johnson is more than talented enough to have been able to narrate this story solo, and although he couldn’t have disguised its weaknesses, he’d have made the whole thing a much more enjoyable listening experience.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

Hex and the City (Stolen Hearts #1) by Nazri Noor (audiobook) – Narrated by John Solo

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

Leon Alcantara is a real son of a witch.

The last in a proud line of witches, he’s come to test his small magic in the big city. Stealing enchanted artifacts pays the rent, but the competition is fierce. And handsome. And great at magic too.

But Maximilian Drake and his dark, brooding glances are the least of Leon’s problems. A chain of anomalies surges through the city, strange distortions in reality that threaten both Dos Lunas and its people.

Suspected by the arcane authorities, Leon is forced to work with his nemesis to clear his name. But Max is so secretive over his shrouded past. Can he even be trusted? Leon must decide before the anomalies destroy the city—and his entire life.

Rating: Narration – B-; Content – B

Even though he’s already got two unfinished series on the go, Nazri Noor is clearly not one to let the grass grow under his feet! Hex and the Cityis the first book in the new Stolen Hearts series, which introduces two new and engaging protagonists and an interesting magic system alongside the author’s trademark strong worldbuilding, snappy banter and clever plotting.

Leon Alcantara is the last in a long line of witches. He’s young, scrappy, brash and cocky, and has been living mostly by the seat of his pants since his mother died, moving from place to place (mostly around California) and making a (scratchy) living as a finder, someone who uses his talents to recover (or steal) items upon request. Most finders work for a particular Spider – or contractor – and try to keep under the radar of the Masques, the mysterious magical cops.

When the book begins, Leon is on a simple retrieval job. He’s been tasked with finding a red velveteen bag full of dust, and is carefully searching the house he’s been sent to when he realises he’s not alone. It’s not uncommon for more than one finder to be assigned to the same job, but Leon has never come across one while working – until now.

Maximilian Drake is all about routine, discipline and precision, and plans his finding jobs to the smallest detail – so the last thing he expects when he arrives at the house is to discover there’s another finder looking for the bag, too. Max can’t help but notice the guy’s cocksure charisma – and how attractive he is – but when he tries bluffing that he’s a member of the family come for a visit, Max isn’t buying; despite the flirtatiousness and swagger, there’s a potentially dangerous edge and a gleam in his eye that Max recognises as competition. Both of them want to find the bag and will do whatever it takes to get it; but as they finally realise where it must be, they’re stopped in their tracks at the sight of a strange, shadowy creature – an arcane underground ninja – with the bag in hand leaping from the window.

Needless to say, Leon and Max part on less than cordial terms and hope never to see each other again. Max is still furious at having all his plans screwed up by some cocky kid and annoyed at himself for liking that shit-eating grin and the twinkling eyes as they’d raked over him… but before he can think about it too much, he gets a message from the Jade Spider telling him about a magical anomaly downtown, and suggesting that maybe whoever is causing it is making use of the contents of the stolen bag. When Max arrives to check things out, it’s clear that whatever is going on is much more than just a simple anomaly – a collision of the natural and supernatural – and that he isn’t the only one who was warned about it. Leon is there, too – and to Max’s surprise (and not a small amount of displeasure) – suggests that maybe they should work together to try to find out what’s happening.

If you’ve listened to Nazri Noor’s other m/m fantasy series, you’ll know he likes an enemies-to-lovers romance, so it’s no surprise that there’s one here, too. Max and Leon are total opposites in both their outlook and approach – Max is disciplined, precise and organised, Leon is more of a pantser – and their magical styles and abilities are completely different but, as they slowly discover, complementary. There’s an instant spark of mutual attraction, and their chemistry crackles from the get-go, but the attraction is combined with an equal amount of irritation, which is what they both try to focus on. They very quickly work out how to push each other’s buttons and their banter is sharp and funny, and they start to get under each other’s skin, but as they get to know more about each other, that initial attraction turns from lust to genuine affection and protectiveness as they learn to trust each other and work together. And while we leave them in a good place at the end of the book with an HFN, there is clearly more of the road to travel – we learn that Max isn’t exactly who he appears to be, and there’s a major plot-point related to Leon that goes largely unexplored, and which I assume we’ll return to in future books – so their relationship feels well-paced given they’ve just met and are still in the early stages of figuring each other out.

The worldbuilding here is, once again, intricate and fascinating. In this world, ‘the normals’ have no idea of the existence of the supernatural, and the magic system is based around a variety of cultures and traditions. The author does a great job of drip feeding the information we need to build up a picture of the society he’s created – about its structure and the power struggles within it. We learn about the great magical dynasties, the underground network of the Spiders and the enigmatic Masques, and we meet Max’s friends Roscoe and Johnny, a “pair of savvy mages” who run Unholy Grounds, a kind of neutral-zone coffee/cocktail bar.

The storyline about the thief and the anomalies doesn’t reach a conclusion here, but Mr. Noor can always be relied upon to deliver an tense and exciting finale, and in this one, our heroes are literally caught up in a race against time.

Unlike the Arcane and Wild Hearts series (and, I believe, all Mr. Noor’s other books), the Stolen Hearts series is written in dual PoV, so we get to hear from both protagonists. I’m not quite sure that was necessary; Mr. Noor is more than talented enough to be able to make single PoV work, and I didn’t feel there was enough of a difference in Max and Leon’s voices – as written – to have made it necessary. But part of that might be because the characters aren’t always sufficiently differentiated in the performance.

I’ve listened to John Solo a few times and have given him some good grades, but I stopped listening to him a couple of years back, because while he does do some things very well, the things that bugged me about his performances – his tendency to over-exaggeration and odd phrasing – were irritating me more – not less – over time and I decided to quit while I was ahead. When Nazri Noor announced Mr. Solo would be narrating this series, I was disappointed – Greg Boudreaux and Zachary Johnson are really tough acts to follow, and John Solo just isn’t in the same league – and I wasn’t sure I’d be listening to this series. But I enjoy the author’s work and decided to give it a go – but as expected, the narration is a very mixed bag. When Mr. Solo speaks ‘normally’, he’s pleasant to listen to, but any hint of tension – whether it’s action or sexual – and out comes ‘movie-trailer-announcer-guy’ and it’s like nails down a blackboard. At these times – and sadly, there are many – everything is over-emphasised, proper phrasing goes out the window and Mr. Solo adds this weird kind of tremor/warble to his voice (it’s very much the Michael Dean School of Narrating – if you’ve listened to Mr. Dean, you’ll know what I mean). The pacing is fine and the secondary characters are clearly differentiated, with good female voices – but there are times where the two leads sound too alike so it’s hard to tell them apart without listening to the dialogue tags. As a whole, the narration isn’t terrible, and if you can hear past the things that bother me about Mr. Solo’s performances, then you’ll probably enjoy this one a lot more than I did – but I think I’ll be sticking to print for the rest of this series.

Mr. Solo’s quirks are just too intrusive to make story and performance feel like a cohesive whole, so although I enjoyed Hex and the City for the story, the narration was too distracting for me to be able to give it an outright thumbs up.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

To Swoon and to Spar (Regency Vows #4) by Martha Waters (audiobook) – Narrated by Anais Inara Chase & Joel Froomkin

This title may be purchased from Audible

Viscount Penvale has been working for years to buy back his ancestral home, Trethwick Abbey, from his estranged uncle. And so he’s thrilled when his uncle announces that he is ready to sell but with one major caveat—Penvale must marry his uncle’s ward, Jane Spencer.

When the two meet in London, neither is terribly impressed. Penvale finds Jane headstrong and sharp-tongued. Jane finds him cold and aloof. Nevertheless, they agree to a marriage in name only and return to the estate. There, Jane enlists her housekeeper for a scheme: to stage a haunting so that Penvale will return to London, leaving her to do as she pleases at Trethwick Abbey. But Penvale is not as easily scared as his uncle and as their time together increases, Jane realizes that she might not mind her husband’s company all that much.

Rating: Narration – B-; Content – B

To Swoon and to Spar is book four in Martha Water’s Regency Vows series of lively, character-driven historical romances, but it’s the first one I’ve listened to. I read and enjoyed books two and three, so thought I’d give this one a go in audio, and while I did enjoy it, it didn’t have quite the same sparkle as the previous two.

Peter Bourne, Viscount Penvale, (brother of Diana, heroine of book two, To Love and to Loathe) has spent most of his adult life trying to amass sufficient funds to purchase back the family home, Trethwick Abbey in Cornwall. Unusually, the property wasn’t entailed, so when Penvale’s parents died, the place had to be sold in order to pay the massive death duties and his uncle, who had made a fortune in his years with the East India Company, stepped in to buy it. Penvale was only ten years old at the time and could do nothing to prevent the sale to the brother he knew his father despised, and he and Diana (who was five) were packed off to live with their aunt.

Penvale has been making discreet enquiries as to what price his uncle would be prepared to sell the Abbey for ever since he left university, and has received the same reply for over a decade – none that Penvale can afford. Until now, when Bourne tells him he’s willing to sell provided Penvale marries his ward, Jane Spencer. For Penvale, it’s a no-brainer. He’ll have to get married sometime – he needs an heir, after all – so why not at least meet the young woman to discuss it? Diana is less than impressed with the idea and makes no bones about telling Penvale so, but even she can see how much it means to her brother to, at long last, be able to go home.

Jane – the daughter of an old Naval buddy of Mr. Bourne – is not exactly pleased about the idea of being ‘traded’ from one man to another, but she isn’t in a position to refuse to accompany her guardian to London to meet her prospective husband.

Penvale is pleased to find that Miss Jane Spencer is not at all the mousy young woman he had expected. In appearance, she’s striking rather than beautiful, and while she doesn’t seem to have much to say, what she does say is to the point – often to the point of abruptness. He makes it clear to her that he is not going to pressure her into marrying him and that if they do marry, it will be because it’s her choice to do so. Jane, whose imagination had painted a rather daunting picture of a man prepared to marry a woman he has never met, is pleasantly surprised when Penvale turns out to be, well, pleasant – young, handsome and good-natured – and, she reasons, living with him is preferable to continuing to live with her guardian, so she accepts his offer. It’s not until after everything is settled – Jane and Penvale are wed and money has changed hands – that Penvale’s uncle tells him the real reason he was prepared to sell Trethwick Abbey. The place is haunted.

Naturally, Penvale, a practical man not given to flights of fancy, doesn’t believe a word of it, and he and his new bride begin their journey to Cornwall and into married life. But when, a week or so later, the late-night thumps and screams begin, Penvale begins to wonder if maybe his uncle was right. But there are no such things as ghosts, of that he is certain. So what on earth is going on?

No spoilers – it’s revealed early on that the fake-haunting is all part of Jane’s plan to ensure that Penvale high-tails it back to London, leaving her behind to enjoy the quiet life she craves in the house she loves. But she’s reckoned without Penvale’s love for his home and his determination to do right by his tenants and all those who depend on him for their livelihoods.

Not surprisingly for two people in their situation, it takes some time for Penvale and Jane to begin to unbend towards each other, so this is very much a slow-burn romance. The author’s facility with witty dialogue is once again in evidence here, and the forced proximity in which the couple find themselves eventually leads to their becoming friends and beginning to learn that there is more to the other than at first met the eye. Penvale realises that shyness lies behind Jane’s sharp tongue and prickly demeanour, and I liked how he comes to understand her and to do things to help make her comfortable. For her part, Jane realises Penvale is much more responsible than she’d expected him to be, and can’t help coming to like and respect him for his dedication to the estate.

The romantic chemistry here is more ‘solid’ than it is ‘sizzling’ and I liked that Jane and Penvale’s romance has a strong basis in friendship and mutual understanding; it’s the story of two lonely people who long for a home finding each other. But on the downside, there’s not a great deal of story here and the book feels over-long; the haunting plotline goes on for too long and gets repetitive, and while I liked Penvale, I struggled to warm to Jane, especially in the early stages of the story, because she comes across as rude and hostile.

I’ve been going back and forth on how to rate the narration on this one because my view is coloured by the fact that I’m not a fan of female narrators in general or of dual narrations – which I realise may put me in something of a minority these days. I would much rather listen to one excellent narrator who can portray all the characters effectively than a dual narration – especially where one narrator is clearly more skilled than the other – but the trend in contemporary romance to use two narrators is – unfortunately – bleeding over into historicals. Anais Inara Chase is new-to-me and reads quite well – but she’s reading rather than performing, and her character differentiation is so minimal that I was constantly reliant on dialogue tags or textual indicators to work out who was speaking. On the plus side, she reads animatedly and expressively, and she provides a strong characterisation of Jane; her voice is attractive, her pacing is good and her enunciation is clear. But pairing her with someone like Joel Froomkin (Leslie), who is a vocal actor with an extensive repertoire of character voices at his disposal and a proven track-record in romance narration makes for a jarring contrast. Mr Froomkin is excellent as Penvale, his posh accent and the slightly husky note to his voice a good fit for an English aristocrat, and he does a good job with Jane’s dead-pan waspishness, expertly conveying a wide range of emotion and their growing fondness for each other. Most of the secondary characters are also young men and women (heroes and heroines of the previous books), but where Mr. Froomkin manages to make them sound different from each other and from Penvale and Jane, it’s impossible to distinguish between them aurally in Ms. Chase’s chapters.

To Swoon and to Spar is one of the weaker entries in this series, although it’s still a well-written and enjoyable historical romance. I do wonder if I’d have enjoyed it more in print – but I realise that my personal dislikes are not everyone’s so I’m going to sit on the fence and offer a qualified recommendation.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

Fractured Souls (Fallen Messengers #1) by Ava Marie Salinger (audiobook) – Narrated by Alex Kydd

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

When Cassius Black moves to San Francisco for a fresh start, the angel’s hopes of staying below the radar of the supernatural organizations that oversee the otherworldly and magic users in the city are dashed when he stumbles across a dead body in the sewers. His grim discovery soon puts him in the sights of the Argonaut Agency and Francis Strickland, the bureau director who knows his darkest secrets.

Morgan King and his team of Argonaut agents have been on the hunt all summer for the culprits behind a series of gruesome killings that have rocked the city. Killings that bear sinister hallmarks of human sacrificial rituals where the victims’ souls have been stolen. When Fate puts Cassius in Morgan’s path, he realizes the angel everyone likes to call The Devil may very well be the only person who can help them track down the murderers.

Morgan and Cassius soon find themselves crossing paths with a mysterious warlock whose actions evoke disturbing echoes of an incident from Cassius’s past. Cassius and Morgan must work together to defeat their common enemy and save the city from destruction, all while fighting their growing attraction.

Rating: Narration – B-; Content – B

Fractured Soulsis the first book in Ava Marie Salinger’s Fallen Messengers urban fantasy series in which angels and demons fell to Earth some five hundred years ago. The world the author has created is fascinating, the worldbuilding is really good, and the plot is fast-paced and action packed, but the storytelling is hampered by the introduction of too many characters at once (making it hard to keep track of who is who and who they all work for), and the romance is underdeveloped.

Like all the Fallen, Cassius Black, the most feared angel of them all, has no idea of who he was before. For years, he’s been doing his best to live under the radar and avoid interaction with the various magical and supernatural organisations that have been nothing but trouble for him in the past. Recently re-located from London to San Francisco, Cassius has taken on the job of looking for a missing cat and finds much more than he bargained for when he stumbles across said cat – a demon cat – down in the sewers, hiding from a huge Lucifugous demon that’s snacking on some human remains. After dispatching the demon, Cassius is able to see the disturbing signs of some sort of black magic ritual involving the dead man – clearly the Lucifugous didn’t kill the human. But if he didn’t – who did?

In the early hours of the morning, Cassius is rudely awakened – again – by the loud sex noises coming through the bedroom wall he shares with the apartment next door. Whoever lives there seems insatiable – he brings home a different man or woman every night and they go at it several times a night; Cassius hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in the two weeks since he moved in. Completely fed up, he’s making some coffee when his apartment door is busted open and a group of Argonaut (law enforcement for the Fallen and the magical) agents enters intent on arresting him for murder. In the midst of the chaos, Cassius is surprised to see his neighbour entering, and even more surprised when he addresses the agents as though he knows them.

Well. Damn.

Cassius learns that his noisy neighbour is Morgan King and that he and his team at the agency have been investigating a series of ritualistic killings which have targeted humans. Morgan’s boss – who knows Cassius and has worked with him before (much to the surprise of his agents) asks Cassius for his help, but he isn’t interested. For years, the four organisations that govern the supernatural world have used his particular skills when they needed them and then washed their hands of him once they were done, and he wants nothing to do with any of them. But someone is stealing and fracturing human souls, souls which can be used to open a doorway between worlds, which points to whoever is behind it wanting to open the Nether and unleash chaos upon Earth. When the owner of the demon cat – whom he’s named Loki – is brutally murdered, Cassius realises he can’t just stand aside and allow more innocents to die. He agrees to work with Argonaut – just this one time.

There’s a lot to enjoy about this story – the premise is interesting and Cassius is a fascinating character. He’s been ostracised, feared and hated by his own kind for centuries simply because he’s regarded as being too powerful. He’s badass yet vulnerable, too; he’s led a very lonely existence for the most part, and it’s kinda cute but also a bit sad when doesn’t quite know what to make of it when Morgan’s team accepts him and makes clear that they’ll have his back in exactly the same way they have one another’s. Morgan, on the other hand, is somewhat two-dimensional; he’s a bit of a dickhead to start with, and I found him hard to warm to until quite a way into the book.

The world-building is particularly good, from the invention of four agencies that govern the supernatural world, to the way magic works for different beings and the types of weapons they can use. I like the idea of a found-family/work team who look out for each other without question, but the problem here is that so many are introduced at once, it’s hard to keep track. When Cassius arrives at Argonaut HQ, he meets the other members of Morgan’s team (there are… five of them?) and we’re immediately told what they look like and what they are (sorcerer, enchanter, witch, aqueous demon etc.). Then there’s a discussion that introduces the other agencies – Cabalista, Hexa, The Order of Rosen – it’s kind of info-dumpy, and a lot to take in. From reading reviews of the book, it seems that there’s a glossary at the front, but that’s not present in the audio version – even if it was, it would be impractical, unless it was provided as a pdf. And even if it was supplied, being able to cross-check until you get used to remembering doesn’t negate the fact that the audience is bombarded with way too much information in one go, and the introduction of the characters doesn’t feel organic.

Speaking of not feeling organic brings me to the romance. I hadn’t realised, when I requested this title for review, that the romance is of the ‘fated mates’ variety; it’s not a trope I’m fond of. In this story, Cassius and Morgan know instantly that there’s some kind of connection between them – although at this stage they have no idea what it is. This is an on-going series featuring the same central couple, so there is obviously room for things to develop, but in this book, it’s pretty superficial; they have lots of sex, but I don’t really know what they see in each other other than ‘he’s hot’ and this mysterious connection. I am intrigued by that, however, and I presume that as the story arc progresses, they will find out exactly what binds them to each other, but I can only judge what I’ve listened to so far, which was all tell and no show.

That brings me to something else that really bothered me. The writing in the sex scenes is… off. We get things like this – “his tongue lashing eagerly against Morgan’s as he frenched him” (Frenching? Seriously?!) and – “He anchored himself to Morgan and rolled his hips sexily, mimicking the act of lovemaking.” The act of lovemaking? Have we wandered into a Victorian romance? And I could really have done without the mention of “back passages” spasming or pulsing or “quivering with ripples of intense pleasure”. I know this author writes contemporary m/f romance under another name and as far as I can tell this is her first foray into m/m. Um. I’ll just leave that here.

The performance by new-to-me narrator Alex Kydd is a bit of a mixed bag. He has a soothing, baritone-range voice and his character voices and pacing are fine (maybe he’s a bit on the slow side at times), but although he does manage a good number of character voices and differentiates well between them all, I couldn’t always tell who was speaking simply because there are SO MANY characters that I just couldn’t remember which voice went with who. That’s not Mr. Kydd’s fault – had there been fewer characters or had they been introduced in smaller groups, I might have been able to spend enough time with them to be able to recognise them by ear. That did happen later with some of them, but it took a while. There are two constant mispronunciations that really bugged me – he pronounces “Cassius” as “Cash-us” and “Adrianne” as “Adrian” – I kept expecting to hear a male character when Adrianne was mentioned. The two leads are easily identifiable though, and he does a good job of relaying Cassius’ snark and of letting his vulnerability show. Overall, however, his performance is a bit too low key; he’s expressive enough in the dialogue, but in the narrative parts he’s much less animated, and the action scenes sound as though he’s just describing a walk in the park. It’s not a bad performance – it just lacks tension and needs some “oomph” as we say over here.

Fractured Souls has a lot going for it and I might continue with the series, but I’m not sure whether that will be in print or audio. The narration is by no means bad, but other narrators have set the bar so high in this kind of material, that it’s hard to be completely satisfied with anything that doesn’t quite meet the same high standard.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

Chrysalis (The Formicary #1) by S.E. Harmon (audiobook) – Narrated by Kai Rubio

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

Waking up in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head is bad. Finding out I have amnesia is far worse. My memory is practically wiped. I don’t know why someone wants me dead. Hell, I don’t even know my name. They say my name is Christian Cross. Too bad that name means nothing to me.

I haven’t forgotten everything, though. Grayson Laurie has always been my kryptonite, and it would take more than a bullet to the brain to forget him. He assures me that I’m imagining the distance between us, but I know better. I just don’t know how to fix it. I console myself that at least I’ve reached rock bottom and things can’t get worse…until they do.

My life is a tangled mess of lies and deceit. The more I learn about myself, the less I want to know. I want nothing more than an honest future with Gray, but the past isn’t about to let me go without a fight.

Fortunately, I’m starting to realize that fighting is my specialty.

Rating: Narration – C; Content – C

I liked the sound of the storyline of Chrysalis, book one in The Formicary duo, so as I’ve enjoyed books by S.E. Harmon in the past and even though the narrator is new-to-me, I decided to give the audiobook version a go. Please be aware that Chrysalis ends inconclusively and that the story continues in the second book, Cross, which I believe will be released in audio in late August. (It’s available in print already.)

So, that premise. A man wakes in a hospital bed after almost dying from a gunshot wound to the head, and has absolutely no idea who he is, or who wants him dead. The one thing he can remember is the name of his boyfriend – Grayson Laurie, a doctor at the hospital. When Gray finally comes to see him, he tells the man that his name Christian Cross – but that doesn’t ring any bells or bring anything back. Gray continues to visit him, but Christian is confused by the coolness and distance between them, and he’s stunned when Gray finally, and not without some bitterness, tells him they broke up over four years earlier. Christian barely has time to grasp that when Gray also tells him that Chris is the one who left, and although he never said why, it’s clear Gray believes it’s because Chris was cheating and wanted to be with someone else. After this bombshell, Chris doesn’t expect to see Gray again, which is a bummer as, right now, he’s the only link Chris has with his past – but Gray does return, although it soon becomes clear that he has about as much idea of what Chris has been doing with his life as Chris himself does. Which is, obviously, not a lot. When a man Chris doesn’t recognise enters his hospital room and tells him they’re together – implying he’s the reason Chris left Gray – Chris is even more convinced that something is wrong and decides enough is enough. He’s been in the hospital two weeks and is no closer to finding out anything about what he’s been doing or why someone would try to kill him – it’s time to get out of there and start looking for answers.

The author does a great job with the set up, carefully dropping little hints here and there that indicate there’s more to Chris than meets the eye – one of the doctors points out his lack of fingerprints and that he has certain surgical enhancements (his Achilles tendons have been replaced, for example) – and a picture slowly starts to build up of who and what he might be. But once Christian leaves the hospital (sneaking out rather than just checking himself out) – with no problem whatsoever – and is then very conveniently picked up off the street by Gray just a few pages later, all that intrigue and tension just dissipate, and we get chapters and chapters of Christian and Gray (because, of course, Gray takes Christian to stay with him) settling into a cosy domesticity, complete with cooking disasters and shopping sprees (when Chris, who is supposed to be hiding from the police, moves about freely in public with no attempt to disguise himself). Now, I like a good second chance romance, and actually all those cutesy moments of connection and togetherness are really good – but they’re in the wrong book (or in the wrong place) because after the excellent set-up, I wanted to be alongside Christian as he searches for the truth about himself, finds clues and starts piecing them all together.

And the problems don’t end there, unfortunately. The suspense plot is more full of holes than a pack of the finest Swiss cheese, so much so, that there are way too many to point out. The things that bothered me most – in addition to those I’ve already mentioned:

• Christian stays with Gray even though he knows it will put him in danger, and so does Gray but he doesn’t seem to worry about it at all
• Christian is able to operate a biometric device using his fingerprints – when he doesn’t have any
• All the head/brain scans that were presumably done on a patient with head trauma somehow missed a tracking implant in the neck and the modifications to the eyes
• Christian built a hidden room in Gray’s house without Gray knowing anything about it
• Said room contains a shit-ton of money – but later, Christian has to risk going to an ATM to get cash

I realise a degree of suspension of disbelief is required with a story like this, but there comes a point where I start to wonder if it’s a case of poor editing and continuity rather than my needing to stretch my credulity a bit more.

The chemistry between Chris and Gray is okay although I didn’t feel much heat between them, and to be honest, Gray is a bit bland. But I did like their dynamic and it’s clear they care deeply for each other, despite the fact that Gray is trying hard not to fall for Chris again. The best part of the book is Chris, really, and I liked his dawning awareness of the difference between the Chris he is now and the one he used to be and whose decisions present-Chris is now questioning.

The biggest problem with this one overall, however, is the narration. I’m sure that had someone of the calibre of Greg Boudreaux been at the microphone, all those plot holes would have been far less obtrusive, the story would have sounded tense and exciting and the characters would have had actual personalities. Kai Rubio appears to be fairly new to audiobook narration – he’s certainly new to me and at time of writing has nine titles available at Audible – but I’m afraid he isn’t the right narrator for this book. His voice is pleasant enough, but although he reads with a degree of expression, there’s nothing behind it; it’s a reading rather than a performance, and his habit of leaving very long pauses at the end of every clause and every sentence drove me nuts. His pacing when he speaks is fine – it’s the large gaps that are the problem. His character differentiation is okay, although I suspect he’d run into problems in a book with a larger cast, because he doesn’t seem to have much range in terms of pitch, tone and timbre. Worst of all, the wit and humour I usually expect to find in an S.E. Harmon book are completely absent; it’s present in the text (I read some of it when I was checking some details in order to write this review, and Chris has a wonderfully snarky voice and makes some very funny observations) but none of that is present in the audio.

Chrysalis should really have worked for me despite its inconsistencies – it’s the sort of story I usually love – but the narration killed it pretty much out of the gate and I can’t recommend it. I may pick up the second book to see how everything turns out, but if I do, I’ll read rather than listen.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

My (Not So) Grumpy Professor by DK Sutton (audiobook) – Narrated by Kevin Earlywine

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

ISO: Ways to tame a grumpy professor who likes to throw things, growls commands, and is a decade older. Oh, and he’s also the boss. Asking for a friend.

Professor Gabriel Morgan is in southern Missouri for one reason: to repair his relationship with his brother. It is definitely not to make friends or coddle the teaching assistants the university throws at him. Benjamin Carter is young, barely competent, and more trouble than he’s worth. He’s also fun and charming and stunningly beautiful.

Gabriel’s goal of getting Benji to quit isn’t as easy as he expects. Instead of cowering, Benji either tells Gabriel exactly what he thinks or, worse still, flirts outrageously. It’s maddening and so very tempting.

Benji has no desire to be Professor Morgan’s latest failed TA, but grumpy older men are his weakness. And beneath that gruff exterior, Professor Morgan is sweet and good and so very passionate. Benji doesn’t do relationships; he has too much to lose. But for Gabriel he might just take that chance.

They’re both holding on to their secrets—Benji’s present and Gabriel’s past. But these things have a way of coming out. Is this thing between them real? And are they willing to risk everything to find out?

Rating:  Narration: B-; Content – C+

My (Not So) Grumpy Professor is a light-hearted grumpy/sunshine age-gap romance set on a fictional college campus in southern Missouri in which the titular professor and his likeable and upbeat TA butt heads (and then other body parts!) while trying not to fall in love. Both author and narrator are new-to-me, and while there’s nothing especially original in the story or outstanding about the narration, the audiobook was a pleasant enough way to spend a few hours while I was doing chores or otherwise pottering around. My (Not So) Grumpy Professor is book two in the My (Not So) University series, but although characters from the first book do appear, there’s enough information given here for this one to work as a standalone.

Environmental Science professor Dr. Gabriel Morgan has taken up a position at Southern Missouri State University in order to try to repair his fractured relationship with his brother, Dr. Reid Emmerson (who was one of the leads in book one, My (Not So) Slutty Professor). Reid and Gabriel have different fathers, and Reid is over a decade Gabriel’s junior; after Reid’s father left and their mother died, Gabriel, who had been away at college, returned home and took over the parental role, doing everything he possibly could to keep Reid happy and make sure he was well taken care of. But their relationship has been strained of late, and Gabriel wants – no, needs – to find a way to fix it.

In the short time he’s been at the university Gabriel has already acquired a reputation for being a grumpy arsehole with little patience and has scared away a number of TAs, so now the Dean has appointed him a new one in the form of student, Benjamin Carter. But instead of being cowed by Gabriel’s thunderous scowl, Benji tells him outright what he thinks or flirts outrageously, which isn’t like anything Gabriel has encountered from his employees before.

[Note: I had to quibble with Gabriel’s continually describing Benji as his employee; even Benji pulls him up on it and points out that technically, they’re both employed by the university.]

Benji is bright, bubbly, charming and well-liked, and has no intention of being another of Professor Morgan’s failed TAs, resisting every attempt to rile him or force him to quit. But resisting the seriously hot grump is another matter; Benji has always had a weakness for older guys, and something about Gabriel’s grouchiness really does it for him. It’s quickly clear that the attraction is mutual, but a relationship between them would be inappropriate – at best – so they try to ignore the pull they feel towards one another and concentrate on their working together.

That actually goes well, and soon they start getting to know a bit more about one another and figure out ways they can help each other – but eventually the attraction zinging between them wins out and they start a sexual relationship. But not without setting some ground rules first; no sex in the office, nobody else can know – and absolutely NO strings.

I have to admit that after the first few chapters, I started to worry that the book was basically going to consist of two guys lusting after each other, thinking about all the reasons why getting it on was a bad idea, and then doing it anyway. Fortunately however, the author drops hints that there is more going on with both Gabriel and Benji than is apparent at first and that they’re both keeping secrets, and that helped to deepen their characterisation and keep me engaged and wanting to find out more.

Gabriel figures out quite early on that Benji has undiagnosed dyslexia, but Benji is adamant that he doesn’t want any special treatment or the ‘accommodation’ he’s entitled to within the college. His dad is an arsehole who not only hates that his son is gay, but has called him stupid all his life, and Benji has low self-esteem as a result. It tugs at the heartstrings to hear him believing he’s not good enough when he’s so kind and sweet and funny, and when he feels that he has to be ‘on’ all the time, to be the vivacious Benji people expect him to be even when he feels down or out of sorts.

Gabriel’s dad isn’t a barrel of laughs either, but he has other reasons for being cagey that relate to the reason Reid left his previous position (which I don’t recall being fully explained), and he’s a serious, private person who doesn’t like other people knowing his business – which leads him to keep secrets which will ultimately come back to bite him in the arse. The romance is nicely done as Gabriel and Benji soon begin spending time together for more than just sex – but of course, catching feelings was never part of the deal, and Gabriel is going to have to decide if he’s prepared to give Benji up in favour of returning to a life without attachments.

The writing is decent, but the pacing is uneven and the Big Resolution feels rushed – I really didn’t like that it takes place in public among a gathering of friends and associates; it felt awkward and contrived. The principals have strong chemistry, but the insta-lust at the beginning (Gabriel and Benji are full-on with the mental lusting after their first meeting!) didn’t work for me and while the sex scenes are generally well-written, there are a few too many of them. Also, the troublemakers (smarmy Professor Oliver, Benji’s dad and Rain, the guy who caused trouble for Reid) seem to just disappear without getting any real form of comeuppance.

I was on the fence about Kevin Earlywine’s performance until somewhere after the half-way mark, mostly because his vocal range (in terms of pitch) is limited and there were quite a few times I was reliant on the dialogue tags to distinguish between characters. But as the story went on, I realised that Mr. Earlywine does differentiate the main secondary cast fairly clearly, but the differences are usually quite subtle, and it took me a while to be able to recognise the characters aurally. The main problem I experienced was when two people were in conversation and a third joined in – I often couldn’t tell another person was speaking until their name was announced.

When it comes to the two leads, I liked the portrayal of Benji very much; he’s given a light southern drawl – which is used consistently throughout – and Mr. Earlywine captures his vibrancy, his spirit and his general good humour really well. His interpretation of Gabriel is less successful however; I’d have expected a grumpy character to have a deeper voice and darker timbre, but that isn’t the case, and the two principals are differentiated by accent and not much else. A definite plus is that Mr. Earlywine adds those little touches – laughs, sniffs, sobs – that always enhance a performance, and he does a great job when it comes to realising the characters’ emotions and injecting just the right degree of expression into the dialogue. It’s one of those performances that grows on you and needs time to properly embed ‘in the ears’; for some, the differentiation may be too subtle, but in the end, it’s a more than decent performance and I’d probably be open to listening to this narrator again.

My (Not So) Grumpy Professor is an undemanding and somewhat predictable listen, but if you’re in the market for something low-angst with likeable characters who help each other to change for the better, then it might fit the bill.

This reivew originally appeared at AudioGals.

Coddiwomple by S.E. Harmon (audiobook) – Narrated by Nick Hudson

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

As a wildlife photographer, Journey “JJ” Sutton never stays in one place too long. The world is his classroom, and he’s living his dream. His only regret is that he had to sacrifice the love of his life to do it. But as the saying goes, you can never go home again. That’s until there’s a family emergency, and he has to…well, go home again. His easy breezy lifestyle gets complicated fast. It certainly doesn’t help that his ex-fiancé has bought the house next door.

After an unstable childhood, Cameron Foster loves small-town life. He has everything he needs in his vet practice, his friends, and his animals. Despite what numerous exes seem to think, he’s not still in love with Journey. And so what if they add “benefits” to their friendship? As long as he keeps his heart out of the equation, everything should be fine.

Too bad Journey’s not onboard with that plan. With summer ending, he has to convince Cameron that this is more than just a fling. This time around, he knows what he wants. He wants a second chance. He wants forever. Most of all, he wants Cameron’s heart.

Journey may have put away his passport, but things are just getting interesting.

Rating: Narration – B-; Content – B-

I confess that I initially thought Coddiwomple was a made-up word, but it turns out it isn’t! It means “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination”, and it’s the perfect title for this second chance romance in which a globetrotting photographer comes back to the home town – and the man – he left years before only to discover that life has a way of bringing you back to where you’re supposed to be.

For well over a decade, Journey Sutton – usually known as JJ – has travelled the world, making a name for himself (and a good living) as a wildlife photographer. It’s what he’d always dreamed of; living an unencumbered life away from the small Florida town of Coral Cove and the family responsibilities that had been dumped on him at a young age, following the death of his mother and his father’s descent into alcoholism – and he has no regrets. Well, maybe one. The man he left behind. The man he’d planned to marry.

Cameron Foster likes his life as a small-town veterinarian, although his love life hasn’t been quite as successful. After a childhood and adolescence spent moving from place to place as his father collected and discarded wives (!) Cameron was finally able to put down roots and gain some stability when he went to live with his stepmother Rosy. Falling in love and planning to make a life with the man he loved was just the icing on the cake – until it wasn’t, and JJ left town to follow his dream.

That was more than a decade earlier, when they were both in their mid-twenties. Now approaching forty, both JJ and Cam have had other relationships, but none that have ‘stuck’ – which, Cam’s exes insist, is because he’s still in love with the-one-that-got-away – an assertion Cam most heartily refutes.

When Coddiwomple begins, JJ is working on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia when, at the end of the day’s shoot, he receives an unexpected phone call from his brother John, who tells him their father has had a stroke and, with barely veiled sarcasm, suggests he might want to come home. It’s clear from this that JJ’s taken a lot of shit over the years for leaving and staying away, but he’s not about to argue about it and makes his way back to the US. John had already told him that Cam would be picking him up from the airport –but he didn’t tell JJ he’d be staying with Cam, who now owns the house next-door to their dad’s. JJ had no idea that Cam had bought it – or that Cam’s engagement to his fiancée Charlotte is over, but he’s too tired to parse it after the thirty hour trip, and thinks to make sense of it later.

JJ goes to the hospital to see his dad the next day, and is given the good news that he’s recovering well and is ready to return home. The nurse blithely assumes JJ will be his dad’s caregiver, but JJ can’t be responsible for him. Not only do they not get along well, his job requires him to be elsewhere and he’s not planning on sticking around. His brothers all cry off, citing other responsibilities – children, work etc. – but when JJ suggests employing someone to take care of their dad, John’s reaction is to accuse him of wanting to throw money at the problem until it goes away because he just wants an easy life. JJ manages to keep a lid on his temper – barely – but he has no intention of slipping back into the role he’d been forced to assume in his younger days, that of responsible adult and family fixer. He’s learned to put himself first now, and is determined not to get sucked back into his old ways.

Meanwhile, Cam is trying hard to fight all the old feelings for JJ that have come rushing back. They split up because they wanted different things from life, and obviously still do; JJ has decided he’ll stay for the summer and then, once his dad is further down the road to recovery, he’ll be off, back to his life and his photography and his very rare visits to Coral Cove. But it’s a tough fight when the heart wants what it wants, especially when JJ is as funny and charming and flirtatious (and hot!) as ever, and has made it very clear that he wouldn’t be at all opposed to finding his way back into Cam’s bed. But, Cam wonders, could he do that? Have a fling with JJ without becoming emotionally involved – all the while knowing he’ll be leaving again?

No prizes for guessing the answer to that one – and of course we all know how the ‘lets-do-sex-without-feelings’ thing is going to go for these guys, but the fun with tropes is in finding out how authors work with them in order to reach the HEA. There are no surprises here, so if you’re looking for a somewhat predictable but sexy and largely angst-free story, then this might be right up your alley. The reasons for Cam and JJ’s break-up are well-articulated and make sense; Cam needed to stay and put down roots while JJ needed to leave and live for himself after spending so much of his life living for others, and it’s obvious that with such diametrically opposed views, even if JJ hadn’t left, they would probably have split up anyway. I liked Cam and JJ individually and enjoyed their dynamic as a couple, but I didn’t feel the soul-deep connection between them I was asked to believe in, and the conflict in the romance, which is based entirely around Cam’s fear of being left alone (again) with a broken heart, is flimsy. I get not wanting to put yourself through that again, but these two aren’t kids; they’re almost forty with much more life experience under their belts now, and they should have been adult enough to talk about things instead of what actually happens, which is Cam jumping to conclusions in order to throw in a bit of last-minute angst.

One thing that works really well, however, is the relationship between JJ and his dad. They’ve never been close and there’s obviously a lot of unresolved hurt and tension between them, but the author manages to create a very real and caring relationship which slowly evolves into understanding and forgiveness, and it’s really well done. I could happily have smacked JJ’s brothers for their blinkered selfishness though, and I was pleased when Cam stood up for JJ and set them straight. (Although I really think JJ should have had that particular heart-to-heart with them himself.)

I’ve enjoyed a number of Nick Hudson’s narrations in the past and have given him good grades, but something about his performance in Coddiwomple didn’t quite ‘gel’ for me, and I’m not sure what it was – perhaps he just wasn’t the right choice for this particular book? He has a pleasant, mid-range voice, and technically, he’s fine – pacing, enunciation and character differentiation are all good, although his female character voices are… not great; some of them are very falsetto-y and caricaturish here. I liked his portrayal of the two leads, which are nicely contrasted in terms of pitch and timbre, but I noticed a certain very repetitive intonation throughout that quickly became distracting, to the point that I was almost listening out for IT rather than the words being spoken. I also spent quite a lot of the first part of the story wondering where the humour and snark I associate with S.E. Harmon had gone – and then I realised that it was there in the words, but it just wasn’t coming across in the performance. It really pains me to say it, but while this is by no means a bad narration, it doesn’t reach the standard I’ve come to expect from this narrator. Ultimately, I liked, but didn’t love Coddiwomple, but although it wasn’t quite the great listen I’d been hoping for, I remain a fan of both author and narrator and will certainly be reading/listening to more of their work.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

Right Behind Her (Bree Taggert #4) by Melinda Leigh (audiobook) – Narrated by Christina Traister

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

Twenty-seven years ago, Sheriff Bree Taggert’s father killed her mother, then himself. Now Bree and her younger brother, Adam, find human bones on the grounds of their abandoned family farm. The remains are those of a man and a woman, both murdered in the same horrible way.

When the investigation determines the murders occurred thirty years ago, Bree’s dead father becomes a suspect, forcing Bree to revisit the brutal night she’s spent most of her life trying to forget. The only other suspect is an unlikely squatter on the Taggert farm who claims to know secrets about Bree’s past. When he mysteriously disappears and Bree’s niece is kidnapped, the cold case heats up.

Bree has stoked the rage of a murderer who’ll do anything to keep his identity – and motives – a secret. To protect everyone she loves, Bree must confront a killer.

Rating: Narration – C+; Content- B

Right Behind Her is the fourth book in Melinda Leigh’s series of romantic suspense novels featuring Bree Taggert, a former homicide detective who is now sheriff of Grey’s Hollow in upstate New York. While each one comprises a self-contained mystery plot, these books really do need to be read in order, so as to be able to follow and understand Bree’s journey from hard-nosed cop who never wanted to see her home town again to a woman making a life and a family there. In the first book, Cross Her Heart, Bree returned to Grey’s Hollow after the murder of her younger sister and realised she needed to stay in order to look after her niece Kayla (eight) and nephew Luke (sixteen) – even though she didn’t have the faintest idea about raising kids. As the series has progressed, we’ve seen her slowly settling into her new roles – professional and personal – although her path has been strewn with realistic obstacles, both internal and external, from dealing with the aftermath of the corruption she uncovered in the sheriff’s department to the continuing fall-out of her own personal trauma – her father was a violent man who killed her mother and then himself when Bree was just eight years old, and it’s clear that she has never really processed or dealt with it. It’s also left her very cautious about forming relationships – which means she’s spent the last couple of books keeping her love interest – investigator and K9 handler Matt Flynn – at a distance, while he begins to worry that she may never be ready or able to commit to him emotionally.

When Right Behind Her opens, Bree and her younger brother Adam – who was just a baby when their parents died – are paying a visit to their former family home, which Adam (now a very successful artist) has recently purchased. It’s hard for Bree, but she wants to be there for her brother, who is clearly looking for some sort of connection to a past he has no memory of. Privately, Bree thinks it’s better that way. As they’re leaving, Bree hears sounds coming from the nearby barn; she identifies herself and enters cautiously, only to be attacked by whoever is inside. The man runs, but Bree manages to subdue him, and once backup arrives and she hands him off, she realises the backpack he was carrying is missing. She, her deputies and Adam start looking for it, but find more than they bargained for when Bree finds the backpack – and Adam finds some old bones. Human remains that are later shown to be those of a man and a woman who were murdered around thirty years before. And the man had clearly been tortured.

Given the timeline and the placement of the remains, there’s no way Bree can ignore the likelihood that her father may have been responsible for the murders. But as she and Matt start digging deeper and their investigation opens out, it seems Jake Taggert isn’t the only suspect – and that there is someone else, someone very much alive in the present, who is determined to prevent Bree from discovering the truth, and who will go to any lengths, even threatening her family, in order to do so.

Right Behind Her is an intense, intricately-plotted and suspenseful story that brings Bree full-circle and forces her to confront the violent tragedy of her past in a way she has refused to do so far. She’s so good at compartmentalising her life that she’s locked it all away in her mind, but this case makes her realise that, if she’s going to do her job properly – and if she wants to build something real with Matt – she has to face those memories she’s tried so hard to forget.

Bree has come a long way since we first met her, and she’s finally starting to achieve some balance in her life. Luke and Kayla are emerging from their grief and starting to return to leading normal lives for kids their age, she’s fallen hard for Matt, and things at work are changing very much for the better. The author does a good job of creating the slightly claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town; the procedural aspects are well done, and the mystery is clever with plenty of twists.

The romance in this series is very low key, and sometimes, Matt seems almost like another secondary character. He’s a great guy – supportive, good at his job, good with the kids – but his relationship with Bree has been pretty one sided, and I couldn’t help thinking he deserved someone who would put him first once in a while.

I’ve listened to Christina Traister a couple of times before, and enjoyed her work, but I have mixed feeling about her narration here. Her pacing is fine, if a little on the slow side, and her voice is easy to listen to; it sits in the mid-range, so she can drop the pitch without it sounding strained to portray male characters – but the way she’s chosen to voice Matt is just awful. He speaks with an Eeyore-ish monotone most of the time and sounds like an expressionless lump; in fact, Bree’s deputy, Todd, sounds much more like a leading man than Matt does. I was also surprised at the choice to perform Luke’s dialogue in a similar register; he’s a young man of sixteen, and could easily have spoken at a slightly higher pitch to differentiate him from the other male characters. Ms. Traister’s portrayal of Bree is good, though, it’s expressive and suitably emotional, and I liked her acting choices, how she’d put a laugh or sob into her voice at the appropriate moments. Taken as a whole, it’s not a bad performance in most respects, but her interpretation of Matt bothered me quite a bit, and has caused me to drop my narration grade a bit.

I’ve been following this series in print, but decided to give audio a try for this instalment, with mixed results. I liked the plot and seeing Bree finally coming to terms with her past, but the narration left something to be desired. I believe there are to be two more outings for Bree Taggert, but I think I’ll stick to reading them with my eyes rather than my ears.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

A Friend in the Fire (Auden & O’Callaghan Mysteries #2) by Gregory Ashe & C.S. Poe (audiobook) – Narrated by Garrett Kiesel

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

After solving the mystery behind the death of his former friend in July, ex-Army Sam Auden has been aimlessly wandering the country. Everything had gone sideways in New York City, so when his phone rings three months later, the caller is the last person Sam expected to be asking for help.

Confidential informant Rufus O’Callaghan has been struggling. His NYPD contact was murdered over the summer, and the man Rufus is head over heels for was driven away by his own undiagnosed trauma. But when he receives an anonymous letter that promises information on his mother, life goes from dark to dangerous in the blink of an eye.

Sam and Rufus must dig into Rufus’s rough and turbulent past in order to solve a series of contemporary murders connected to his mother. And if the two can’t expose who the killer is in time, they will most certainly become his next targets.

Rating: Narration – B-; Content- B+

When we last saw Rufus O’Callaghan and Sam Auden at the end of Gregory Ashe and C.S Poe’s A Friend in the Dark, they had a blazing row which ended with Sam walking out of Rufus’ apartment and his life. Well, as A Friend in the Fire is book two in the Auden and O’Callaghan series, it will come as no surprise that they’re destined to meet again, but after a bitter argument and three months apart, it’s going to take a while for them to trust each other again.

After Sam left, he went back to his somewhat nomadic lifestyle, and when we catch up with him, he’s pitched up in a back-of-beyond town with an impossible-to-pronounce name (!) in deepest Missouri. He hasn’t heard from Rufus once in the past three months (Rufus never gave Sam his number, so Sam can’t reach out) – so the last thing Sam expects is a call from a panicked-sounding Rufus asking for help.

Rufus hasn’t been doing so well since Sam left. His issues with anxiety have worsened and he’s fallen into depression; he’s tired, lonely and even more of a mess than before. Sam was one of the few people ever to genuinely care about Rufus, he was someone he felt he could risk being himself with – and he misses him a lot. On this particular day, he’s on his way out of his crappy apartment building when he sees a piece of paper sticking out of his mailbox. It’s a shock when he sees what’s written there; in an unfamiliar hand is a note offering “information on Daisy”, his mother, who was killed seventeen years earlier. She was far from a good mother, but even so, she deserves justice, and Rufus, determined to find out what he can, arrives at the assigned time and place only to be set upon by a thug with a knife. He recognises his assailant as someone he helped put behind bars – and barely manages to get away with his life.

Sam and Rufus’ reunion is a little awkward to start with, but they soon start to fall back into their old pattern of wisecracking (Rufus) and grumpy snark (Sam). Rufus explains that the case they’d solved during the summer had made him realise that he wasn’t really over his mother’s death – and that no matter that she was a terrible parent, he needs answers so he can find closure and move on. After Sam left, Rufus started asking around the NYPD to see what he could find out, but had turned up nothing – until he received the note a few days earlier. It can’t be a coincidence that just weeks after he started asking questions, someone tried to have him killed. But who – and why?

As Sam and Rufus start looking into Daisy’s murder, Rufus is disturbed to learn it wasn’t an isolated incident, but was one of a string of murders of sex workers in the late 90s and early 00s in an area of Central Park known as The Ramble. Rufus knows some of the prostitutes who still work that patch – some of them knew Daisy and knew him as a kid, and he and Sam had asked some of them for help during their investigation into the sex trafficking ring they brought down in the summer. So they return to The Ramble now, seeking to find out more about Daisy and who might have killed her.

But when another working girl is murdered, and some of Daisy’s former ‘colleagues’ turn up dead, it’s clear that whoever was responsible for the earlier spate of killings is back – and they’ll stop at nothing to prevent Rufus from finding out the truth.

As with the first book, A Friend in the Fire combines an intriguing, well-constructed mystery with the continued development of the relationship between Sam and Rufus, and the authors achieve a good balance between the mystery and romantic elements in the story. Both men are likeable but damaged, misfits who somehow fit together and have found, in each other, someone who makes them want to do and be better. Rufus is kind of adorkable; he’s whip-smart (but doesn’t think he is) and a bit of a wiseass, he likes to read and learn, but he’s lived a very solitary life and has never had anyone in his corner – until Sam. Sam is big, gruff and surprisingly insightful, with almost no verbal filter and a tendency towards brutal honesty, but despite that, his past is still a bit of a mystery, and the fact that he’s not prepared to open up to Rufus about it becomes a bone of contention between them late in the book. Hints are dropped that Sam’s secrets are pretty dark (given his character is written by Gregory Ashe, I can’t say that surprises me!) and I really hope we’ll find out more in book three.

The thing I enjoyed most about Garrett Kiesel’s performance in A Friend in the Dark was his interpretation of the two leads, and I can say the same thing here. The gravelly tone he gives Sam is a good fit for the character, conveying his physical size and take-no-prisoners attitude; and he really seems to ‘get’ Rufus, infusing his snarky comments with just the right amount of cheek, but also communicating his vulnerability and deep-seated insecurities. The secondary cast is appropriately characterised, and although Rufus’ dialogue and the narrative still sound a little too similar at times, I didn’t notice that happening as often this time around as I did in the first book. Also absent this time – those long, unnecessary pauses. The pacing is perhaps a little on the fast side, but not horribly so, and overall, it’s a decent performance without any major problems. But I want a bit more than that in an audiobook, especially when I’m listening to books by authors I rate as highly as these two.

It probably sounds like damning with faint praise, but “good, not great” is my verdict on the performance in this one. Still, A Friend in the Fire is an intriguing and well-executed mystery featuring a pair of engaging protagonists who share a sense of humour and a deep and genuine emotional connection. I’ll definitely be back for A Friend in the Glass next year to find out what fate has in store for Auden and O’Callaghan next!

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.