Richard Peterson

Single-Minded Sexy

Revisado: 06-22-16

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBoom dot com.

Story: This short story maintains focus on the main character's new fascination with his sexy boss and doesn't break away. This means that there is near constant sex descriptions even as the main character tries to go about his life. The writing was engaging throughout and got pretty damn sexy. This isn't a short story and the plot is clearly a vehicle for the sex scenes, but it totally worked. One issue I had early on was some pretty lazy descriptions of the main character's girlfriend, they were distracting and mean without adding anything.

Performance: Veronica Heart really gives it her all and even adds some interesting noises. However, her cadence is a little distracting as she draws out the last syllable of every sentence. The delivery sometimes sounded like Siri narrating an erotic novel. Also, the audio quality was passable but not great throughout the book, but got really bad towards the end with a weird hum.

Overall: If office fantasies are your thing then you'll probably enjoy this, just ignore the mean-spirited descriptions of the girlfriend and try to ignore the narrator's unique affect.

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Cute, and a Little Anticlimactic

Revisado: 06-16-16

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBoom dot com.

Story: Adrien is a shifter new to a Wolfpack who falls for the sexy Jasper, a tiger shifter whose pack allegiance comes between them. This Romeo and Juliet style story sorta works in that it accomplishes delaying the two main characters from being together. However, the danger is dispelled rather quickly and not really resolved. The world of two shifter packs living in the same town is a good idea that at least here doesn't seem to be used for real drama.
The writing does use the shifter theme better by forcing the author to use sensory perceptions in descriptions which makes a richer story. The characters were both cute and Jasper comes off as sexy as he's supposed to, but they're also very mundane for being able to change their shape and living in a town with a rival shifter pack.

Performance: Robert Davis did a very nice job giving all of the characters a unique tone and obviously had fun with some of them. My only complaint here is that the audio quailty isn't the highest and got a little tiring to my ears.

Overall: 3.5 stars. The story is fairly tame, but it held my interest while I listened to it. I've never read anything in the shifter theme before and this book didn't convince me that there is much more to the theme than another way to impose plot barriers. I'll still try other books with shifters, but I won't seek one out after this.

One last note about sexiness: the sex scenes were some of the best parts of this book. There were some nice character moments included on these passages that told us something new while being exciting. Although, I've noticed this author likes to use the word member and that always throws me out of the story. Not sure why that's a thing still.

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Dark Secrets Don't Quite Deliver Any Excitement

Revisado: 06-02-16

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBoom dot com.

This audiobook has two books that are set in the same world and have characters that crossover between the books, both books also feature dual narrators that trade off between chapters, both books also involve one character having an incident in their past that derails their current romances. I'll talk about the books separately below, but in general the plot contrivance that keeps the leads apart is fairly silly in both cases and my interest in resolving those issues was almost nonexistant. Because of the dual narrators I never felt much suspense because we were always told why something was happening even when the other characters had to spend a couple of chapters outside the loop. Both stories are of naive sweetness and love

Book 1 When it's Right
story: 2 stars
performance: 2 stars
This book is by far the weaker of the two primarily because the main characters Alex and Shane are fairly bland. This is the story of a young vet tech, Shane, who falls for the slightly older and settled Alex. The first part of the book is about first-time love and the worry that the other person doesn't feel what you do. However, any sort of excitement is really hurt by the fact that the listener knows exactly what both characters are feeling at all times, and in some cases we get the same parts of the story told twice from both characters. There's not a lot of romantic tension or drama that comes through and it often times feels like Alex is lecturing to Shane about what it means to be gay. The big plot twist that takes up the second half doesn't do much for the characters as everything wraps up too neatly.

The other issue is that the narrator for this story does little to differentiate the characters and there are some audio issues with popping Ps and slight static that distract.

Book 2 When I'm weak
Story: 3 stars
Performance: 5 stars
This book benefits from a couple of surprising and discomforting events that happen early pushing the character of Jamie to do some revealing things. This is the story of Jamie, a flirty waiter at the local gay bar and Reed who has established his professional life and is now looking to build his personal life. Jamie is a traumatized character, but he is a lot more interesting because of it, and other people's perceptions of him are often at odds with who he truly is. Reed, like the characters from Book 1 is a little undercooked, but having him react to Jamie gives him some genuine revealing emotions and actions. The plot annoyance keeping the two characters apart once again feels contrived, but at least this time the characters felt as if there was a chance that everything won't work out alright.

Michael Ferraiuolo does great job narrating this book and really differentiates each character (and there are many more than book 1). The performance here definitely gives a lift to the story.

One last note about sexiness: The sex scenes were okay in both books, although to me they were more sensual than sexy. The sex didn't really say anything about the characters and the situations themselves were basic enough that they almost felt perfunctory instead of injecting some much needed action.

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Short and Sweet, Lacking in Detail and Depth

Revisado: 05-31-16

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBoom dot com.

Story: This is the sweet story of a rancher, Jay, who meets and falls in love with a young hired helper, Ryan. Jay has never followed through on any feelings towards other men and is dubiously ignorant of even the basics of gay sex. Their relationship is sweet and very easy. There are a couple of points with potential conflict, but the conflicts are dispelled almost immediately. Neither Jay and Ryan are painted very fully, and I didn't get much sense at all why they were on this ranch (Jay owns the ranch, but it isn't discussed why he wants to be there). On one hand this means that their attraction and relationship seems plausible, because the listener can fill any details on their own. On the other hand a lot of the story seemed unnecessary as neither plot or character was central enough to make the outcome uncertain.

Performance: Derrick McClain did a good job injecting some emotion into the character's voices. The recording was also clear making it easy to listen to.

Overall: While I didn't find the story compelling it wasn't bad to listen to. If you like to have a gentle story on while you walk the dog or do dishes then this could be a good fit for you. Since it was so short it only took a couple of sessions to listen to it fully and after each session I never felt like I had to listen to what was going to happen next. If you are looking for something to fully divert your attention then this might not be for you.

One last note about sexiness: This story is heavy on the latent romance of being near someone, and less on the sexiness of cowboys. If you like a lot of exciting sex with romance then this book will underwhelm.

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A Dark, Funny, Character Driven Dream

Revisado: 05-17-16

I listened to this audiobook having only read Gaiman's comics writing, specifically Sandman. If you're a fan of that work then this story of a man named Shadow drafted into a war of gods and modern culture should appeal. Even though this book was originally published in 2000 the larger themes of cultural identity and what it means to be American remain prescient as culture is increasingly dominated by social media and blockbuster movies with less reflection on where we've come from. Gaiman does an excellent job of crafting these larger themes around a character that has his own problems and ideas that bound against the fantastical world he is thrust into. Shadow is compellingly mysterious and thoughtful protagonist that I was excited to see make his own decisions even when Shadow's story diverged from the magical world presented by the Gods.

The cast on this audiobook is great! Each character has a mostly unique voice that the many actors and actresses have imbued with personality. Many of the characters in the story are immigrants and thus have accents. To my ears the accents are never played for stereotypes and it's a testament to both Gaiman and the actors that each character is imbued with personality and emotion. The narration is also excellent. The narrator seems to be reading in a very dry, unemotive tone, but he also delivers great wonder and amazement into the story as the magical elements are unveiled. The crisp and clear delivery made it very easy to visualize this world that was rich in detail that was often important later in the story.

The last interesting element I want to mention is the occasional interludes read by Gaiman. These tales were sometimes frustrating at first when I wanted to keep going in the main plot of the book. However, I remember elements of each of those stories and by the time each interlude was over I wanted to hear another one. It's beautiful world building and really adds to the story overall.

I couldn't be happier that this was the first way I experienced this story. Go listen to it!

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