Musings on Romance

Tag: contemporary (Page 13 of 118)

April Round Up

Monthly Mini Review

illustrated cover of a white couple on a bus, he's napping and manspreading and she's kind of embarrassed but smilingSeatmate by Cara Bastone, narrated by Amanda Ronconi, Zachary Webber, Josh Hurley, Carol Monda, Corey Allen, Allyson Johnson, Eric Yves Garcia, Dina Pearlman & Tanya Eby – C I enjoyed the first two audio novellas in the Love Lines series – Call Me Maybe  and Sweet Talk – so I was keen to listen to book 3, Seatmate. Unfortunately I didn’t find it as charming or engaging as the earlier two novellas which both were about the B+ range for me. Seatmate is a different story altogether. Rather than most of the relationship being on the phone as is the case with the earlier two books, this time, most of the plot takes place over about 5-ish hours during a journey between Boston and New York – first by bus and then by other means of transport. This time there is also a full cast rather than just the dual narration of the first two novellas. Seatmate was an almost real-time novella, whereas the other books take place over a greater period. For me, this meant that the boring bits were skipped in the first two books but not so much in the third one. Continue reading

A Duke Worth Falling For by Sarah MacLean, narrated by Penelope Ann Rose

A Duke Worth Falling For by Sarah MacLean, narrated by Penelope Ann Rose. Entertaining with solid narration – though some issues with the English accent here and there.

picture of a dark-haired hot white guy with a close-trimmed beard sitting with an arm rested on a raised knee and looking over his shoulder to the side against a fuschia background

 

Originally published as part of the Naughty Brits anthology, A Duke Worth Falling For is now out separately on audio and via ebook. It’s novella length at just over four hours of listening and so isn’t a big time investment. The story is necessarily fairly contained but nonetheless complete.

Lilah Rose was on her way to being the world’s best portrait photographer, a kind of up-and-coming Annie Leibovitz. But then she “turned down the wrong man” and he blacklisted her. She lost her career and for the past 18 months, has been travelling around the world finding her place in it again. She has been working on a project photographing various sustainable farms and their owners in various countries. She hopes the project will relaunch her career. She has a 10 day break before the launch in London and, based on a recommendation from a friend who knows the duke’s sister, is renting a small cottage on the estate of the Duke of Weston for some R&R until then.

When she meets “Max” on the estate after he rescues her from a marauding ewe, she believes him to be a land steward. And he is. What he doesn’t tell her is that he is also Rupert Maximillian Ardern, 14th Duke of Weston. Max has been burned by people wanting pieces of him for what he is and not who he is – or perhaps for wanting him for the “duke” part and not the “Max” part. So when he meets Lilah he is delighted when she treats him like a normal person and he can be sure she isn’t after anything more from him than his company.

After an initial poor start – Max isn’t a fan of photographers due to his own experience with celebrity – he makes a neat apology and he and Lilah share a friendly game of darts at the local pub (where she kicks his ass). The attraction between them is mutual and powerful and before long they are in a full-fledged fling for the remaining 9 days of Lilah’s stay. Neither thinks there can be anything else.

Max, for his part, understands that Lilah wants to go back to her life as a celebrity/portrait photographer which will mean a spotlight he eschews. Lilah thinks Max is the land steward and tied to the Salterton estate.

But over the next few days, they fall deeper and deeper and each begins to think of a possible future.

Of course the big conflict between them is the glaring omission of Max’s true identity and so the path to a HEA is not smooth. There is a “me too” moment too and a confrontation with the Harvey Weinstein-esque character responsible for blacklisting Lilah all those months ago.

The narration was pretty good. It’s clear that Ms. Rose is American but her British accent was mostly creditable. There were a few mispronunciations. Some of them made me laugh. (Cornish pasties are foodstuffs and not things you put on your nipples to cover them when stripping.) The British accent dipped in and out on occasion but overall it was fairly believable. There were various brands of English accent displayed too – some from locals and some from the upper echelons of society. I did wonder a little at the toffy English accent given to Arty (or maybe that is Artie? – I don’t have the print version) who I had though was from India? But maybe I was wrong about her heritage.

Lilah, of course, is American, so Ms. Rose’s natural accent worked just fine here.

She had a pleasing depth to her tone for Max as well.

Max was a little clueless about a few things but loyal and loving and Lilah was fierce and brave. Together they made a formidable and rather delightful pair.

Grade: B

On Location by Sarah Echavarre Smith, narrated by Donnabella Mortel

On Location by Sarah Echavarre Smith, narrated by Donnabella Mortel. Great narration but I had mixed feelings about the story.

illustrated cover of a dark haired woman holding a camera with a man's face reflected in the lens. In the background is Canyonlands National Park, Utah

 

Alia Dunn is a Filipino American working as an assistant producer for the Expedition TV network which specialises in travel-related shows – I imagine it something like a boutique Discovery channel. She dreams of running her own show and when On Location begins, she’s despairing that she’s blown her chance. Her pitch for a series “Discover Utah” about the national parks in that state was turned down by the boss and she’s feeling glum on the subway heading home. She’s particularly crushed as the series was inspired by summer trips she took with her brother and her Apong Lita (her grandmother) as a child when her parents were away in the military and the series was to be dedicated to her beloved and much missed grandparent. All is not terrible, though, as a handsome and built guy gives up his seat for an elderly woman, partially because it was the right thing to do and partially because he wanted to stand next to Alia. Inspired by a comment the boss made, she decides to “take a risk” and ends up going on the best date of her life with the “subway hottie” who identifies himself as Drew.

Unfortunately he ghosts her the next day so it goes nowhere. Alia puts it down to her viral tweet of the subway hottie (a photograph of him she took and posted without his knowledge or permission I might add – way not okay Alia!). She thinks he’s seen it and was unhappy about the invasion of his privacy. (Well, duh.)

The next week at work things take a turn for the better when her Discover Utah series is suddenly un-rejected. Alia has everything she’s ever wanted professionally at her fingertips. There’s only one catch: the boss chose the host and he’s a D-List ex-reality TV star with a massive attitude, an arrest record and a drug and alcohol problem. Alia does get to choose her crew however and her mentor recommends a freelance field coordinator to round out her team. His name is Andrew. I think you see where this is going, right?

As it happens, Drew didn’t ghost Alia at all. He also wasn’t upset about going viral on Twitter (why?). No, he had a tragic phone accident which not only ruined his phone but also the SIM and as a result he lost her contact information. As they had not exchanged surnames he had no way to find her. Jaded Alia thinks it’s a line at first but it becomes apparent that Drew is not like that.

Alia has a lot of trouble with Blaine, the host. Drew steps in and guides Blaine through his lines on every take. Drew had always longed to be a host but has terrible stage fright. However, when he’s guiding Blaine, no stage fright is obvious. Mostly this is because he’s not “on” for these performances but the rest is the ease he feels with Alia. For her part, Alia sees in Drew a natural charisma and screen presence. Drew is fantastic at everything he does. I think you see where this is going too.

As Drew and Alia get to know one another at the various beautiful Utah locations, their mutual attraction blossoms and they begin a fling. She had a bad experience with a cheating director earlier in her career and it has made her very relationship-shy so she’s very sensitive to being gaslit and lied to – to the point where she protects her heart rather than take a risk.

The thing is, Drew is so nice and practically perfect in every way that listeners know Alia’s fears are unfounded. I liked him quite a bit for the most part but I admit I lost some respect for him when he was just too much of a doormat with Alia at the end.

Drew is wonderful all the time – except when the plot calls for him to do something a bit not nice. It didn’t fit his character at all and jarred.

Alia repeatedly (why did she not learn??) misunderstands Drew’s words or actions and this leads to my least favourite trope, the Big Mis. Only there are multiple “mises” – mostly fairly small, leading up to the big one near the end. I didn’t like how Drew just accepted Alia’s actions as perfectly reasonable. She mistrusted him and, for the most part, didn’t use her words to clarify things and thought the worst of him over and over again. But Drew is all “I understand and it’s okay.” In the end, I thought he was just too nice.

The middle of the book dragged a little with not much happening except a lot of sex and sneaking around so the rest of the crew wouldn’t twig to their relationship. Interspersed with creative and hot sex scenes was a lot of “I’ll tell him I want a real relationship tonight” followed immediately by “Obviously he doesn’t feel the same way as me because I’ve just read into something he’s said or done so now I’ll stay quiet” – rinse and repeat. I was frustrated by it the first time but it kept happening. Thank God for assistant producer and best friend Hayley who said what I was thinking – “just talk to him, you dummy!!”.

The narration was quite good and made a lot of difference to my decision to persist and finish the book. There were a few small errors here and there and one or two occasions when the syntax of the sentence was altered by too long a pause at the wrong place but for the most part, Ms. Mortel’s performance was very good and I’d happily listen to her again. Her male character voices were different and believable and didn’t hinder me sinking into the listen and she had a good range of accents and character voices generally.

Ms. Mortel is a Filipino American actress and, given that the main character in On Location is also Filipino American, this worked very well. Her knowledge and familiarity with the Tagalog sprinkled throughout the novel was obvious. I appreciated the representation in addition to Ms. Mortel’s overall skill.

There were parts of On Location that worked well for me and the narration was certainly a plus but there were story aspects which didn’t work for me at all.

Grade: B-/C+

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