Hiya peeps! I've got a new audiobook to share with you today. It's a new adult contemporary romance, and hopefully you'll enjoy it. Not too steamy, check out the excerpt and my review, before you enter the giveaway for a chance to win a $10 gift card!
Touch of Fondness
(Stay In Touch Series, #1)
~Author: Joy Penny
~Narrator: Susan Marlowe
~Publisher: Snowy Wings Publishing
~Released: July 12, 2017
~Length: 8 hours 17 minutes / 299 Pages
~Genres: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Four friends. Four college grads. Four people figuring out that life doesn't always turn out the way you expected.
Brielle Reyes may not have post-college life planned out like some of her friends do, but she figures she'll work for her mother's home cleaning service while job hunting for something that makes use of her history and philosophy degrees. It'll work out as long as she doesn't fall in love. Her last relationship was a disaster and she has no idea where she'll be in a few weeks, let alone the rest of her life. Since the only guy in her age range she sees now on a regular basis is cantankerous if handsome client Archer Ward, she probably won't have a hard time sticking to that vow. Probably.
Archer Ward likes very few things: illustrating as a somewhat-celebrated comic artist and his privacy. When his meddling mother hires him a cleaning service on an almost daily basis because she doesn't fully trust her son to live on his own with his disability, he's at first annoyed - even if his house cleaner is the most beautiful woman he's ever spent more than a few minutes with. When he realizes her dreams may take her far outside of his restricted orbit, he has to decide whether to stifle his interest in her or risk messing up her plans to explore if there's something more between them.
Neither can deny they're growing a little fond of each other, even if falling in love just now makes no sense whatsoever. But how often does love ever make perfect sense?
Joy Penny writes books, devours stories, and geeks out about everything from classic romance books to manga. When she's not working as a freelance writer and book editor, she's probably immersed in her favorite TV shows, period dramas, and anime series. She also writes YA speculative fiction as Amy McNulty, and one of her books, Nobody's Goddess, won The Romance Reviews' Summer 2016 Readers' Choice Award for Young Adult Romance.
~ Connect with Joy Online ~
Susan Marlowe is an audio book narrator/voice artist. For more information, contact her at smthom76@gmail.com.
~ Connect with Susan Online ~
*3 1/2 Roses out of 5*
Disabled Beast Meets Modern Beauty
Brielle is an average girl, figuring out her life after college. Not incredibly adventurous, or particularly aggressive with her career plans, she takes a job working for her mother's cleaning company until she finds a job that can utilize her new, very expensive degree. Along with her difficulty dealing with her broken family, and the wounds still healing there, she struggles to figure out her path, and how best to walk it.
Meeting her newest client changes everything. Drawing out things in her completely new, he shows her just how strong and unique she is. Even more, she shows him he is special, if only to her, and how life-changing that could be. They complete each other's otherwise broken lives, and give each other something to hold onto, through life's turbulent ups and downs.
I'm not quite sure how this is the first novel I've read, with a disabled person as one of the main characters. The experience was amazing, and the insight and depth into Archer's life was, as far as I would be able to imagine, accurate and detailed. I liked the fact he was so relatable, and it was easy to picture him and his life. His comparison to "The Beast" was also entertaining, the not-so-subtle threads made obvious for our enjoyment. Brielle being the obvious Belle to his Beast made the whole story somewhat more nostalgic in a way, adding some shades of depth to the story overall.
Onto my reasons for rating it three and a half roses, instead of a full five.
Half a start had to be removed, because of the somewhat tedious repetitious conversations. That, and a few plot holes that I didn't feel were actually answered, for how much buildup they'd been given. I have a difficult time feeling lingering connection to a book with holes left unfilled. Still, they weren't bad enough to remove a whole rose, and if that was my only complaint, probably wouldn't be all that annoying.
I took off a full rose for the narration, which probably made the tedious conversations far more frustrating than they would have been otherwise. The story is focused on newly graduated college youngsters, and the voice and tone of the narrator was completely off. If anything, it seemed almost attempting sultry, fitting more of a generic adult romance you'd find on the shelves of department stores. It simply didn't match the tone of the book, especially during the dialogue between the young adults, and their up-beat playful vocabulary.
While there were slight threads of romance in the story, this book in full just didn't match the narrator, in tone or speed. It made getting through the book extremely difficult, and made me want to stop several times. With a more fitting narrator, I think this book would be a solid four and a half rose book.
I would recommend reading this book, as I think it was well written, from what I can tell. I would say the audiobook is worth it if the narrator won't bother you. Either way, I'd be interested to see what else comes in this series, and was glad for the opportunity to listen to this book.
*I was given a complimentary audiobook copy of this book, from the author via Audiobookworm Promotions, to listen to in exchange for an honest review.
$10 Amazon Gift Card
Runs Sep. 10th-17th
Open internationally
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