steph_bhc_2121

My Take in Brief: I succumb to man titty, and the results are not horrible.

Her and Heroine: Justin and Ava had a friendship and strong mutual attraction as teens, but circumstances separated them. Now, 9 years later, he’s a Navy SEAL and she’s an Assistant D.A. whose worlds collide when she finds herself in mortal danger and needs his protection.

Plot: This is a road romance. Ava has to flee her home with Justin as her bodyguard thanks to a threat arising from one of her cases, which has gotten too close to organized crime. There’s a lot of action, but also a lot of dialogue as Justin and Ava work through their issues from nine years ago and try to move forward in their relationship.

Fun Factoid: Tyler writes paranormal-military-erotic romance with co-author Larissa Ione under the pen-name Sydney Croft.

Word on the Web:

Karen Knows Best, Azteclady, 5 (Karen Scott chimes in to give it a 2)

Audible.com, 3.76 after 37 ratings

Amazon.com, 3 stars after 1 review

Audiobook Notes: This is my first category audio-romance (I have listened to several single titles on audio — marked with asterisks on the Reviews page), and I think I may be on to something. It was not cheap, as usual for audiobooks — $12.56 with my member discount (compare that to under $5.00 for the ebook or paper versions) but I think categories may be a good option for an audio book that you can listen to in short bursts and when interrupted briefly by other things, like ordering your Starbucks at the drive through or taking a short cell phone call, not that I would know anything about that.

The running time was about 6 hours. I’m pretty sure I could have read it in 2/3 of that time.  I don’t mind paying more for the audio format because they do last longer, and I think the performance aspect adds an extra layer.

About the narrator: Audiobook narrators have to choose between acting out the parts or doing a straight read. I find very few narrators are talented enough to do the former, especially in third person, but it’s the trend these days.

This narrator, Zoe Hunter, seemed to kind of waffle between these approaches. Her voice was melodic and nice to listen to, but the pacing of the narration and her choices of which words or syllables to emphasize reminded me of listening to George W. Bush read a teleprompter. She had an annoying habit of sounding some things out very slowly, such as the often repeated “DEA”, which came out D [full stop]. E. [full stop]   A. [Full stop].  You can hear samples at her website (she’s an aspiring actress as well). Hunter also referred to the heroine as “Eva” (not Ava)  several times, which I thought was the equivalent of really bad typos in a print romance — and should have been fixed. In short, I’ve heard worse narrators, but I’ve heard better. I won’t avoid a Hunter narration in the future, but I won’t seek it out, either.

Racy Romance Review:

I was pleasantly surprised by the first third of this book. I thought the fast and sometimes elliptical pace of the category romance worked really well on audio. The setup was mostly believable, the hero and heroine were both intelligent, the conflict — a bad past and her reluctance to commit to a Navy SEAL — believable. I also happen to have a soft spot for the road romance and also the “stuck together in the safe house/cabin/linen closet” and the concomitant “oh-no-what-ever-should-we-do-to-occupy-our-suddenly-free-time?” plot device. I love it when the h/h spend a lot of time together, and road trip + stuck together, alone = “yippee!” for this reader.

The intimate scenes were also well done, although this was apparently a pregnancy and STD free universe. How nice for them.

I also felt that Ava’s job as an ADA was handled realistically, and her sideline as a member of an underground railroad for abused women who were failed by the justice system was developed as well as it could be in the space given, rather than just a token gesture to show what a good person she is.

I also liked it that Ava and Justin confronted some of the issues in their past early in the book and got past them, instead of arguing past each other or dancing around them for page after page.

Then, something happened. Ava and Justin had the same argument one too many times. There was a big misunderstanding. She does a 180 on her life long desire not to marry a man in a risky career that will take him away from her (as her mother did to her late father, who died on the job).  Her behavior at the end — adopting the posture of a Navy SEALette with such vigor — struck me as borderline psychotic, and I was surprised Justin did not seek a psych evaluation.

I was consistently confused when the author switched times (from present day to high school) and back, and I thought this was due to the audio version (you can’t see the visual cues), but Azteclady’s review indicates she had the same difficulty.

I also had a problem with characterization, and this is a common drawback to series romance in my experience. There’s a secondary romance between Ava’s bother, also a SEAL ,and her friend Callie. I realized there was an issue when I got confused as to which couple I was listening to: nothing whatsoever distinguished Ava from Callie or Justin from Turk, except the plot, and not even that sometimes, since both couples were on the run and in safe houses at various points. If it hadn’t been for the proper nouns, I would have been done for.

At the end, I also realized the title wasn’t apt: Ava was a sensible, responsible, hardworking career woman, who cares for her friends and relatives. I wasn’t expecting a meth addict, but there was nothing at all “Out of Control” about this character. (Do authors of series romance get to pick their own titles?)

This book has made me want to write a post on Navy SEALS as heroes and also on the long shadow which the past seems to cast on so many contemporary heroes and heroines.

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