Nash by Jay Crownover

NashNarrated by Paula Costello and Tad Branson

Book 4 in the Marked Men series, Nash follows the love story of Nash Donovan and Saint Ford – two unlikely people who come together after a missed opportunity in high school. The underlying message that you must first love yourself before you can love someone else plus the lively, emotion-filled performance by relative newcomers Paula Costello and Tad Branson, make this a solid audiobook for lovers of New Adult romance titles.

While reading or listening to the prior books in the series is helpful to an understanding of the secondary characters who form part of Nash’s informal family (many who work at the Marked, a tattoo shop, giving rise to the series name), this background is not necessary to understand the central romance.

When the patriarch of the Marked falls ill to lung cancer, Nash once again finds himself at the hospital face-to-face with his past, the lovely Saint. What he can’t understand is why she seems so resistant to him. They are all grown-up now – Nash a well-known, tattoo artist and Saint a nurse. Except for a prior brief encounter at the hospital, they haven’t seen each other in over eight years. Still, there is no denying that he is, and always has been, attracted to Saint.

Saint can’t believe her eyes when she sees her nemesis, Nash, at the hospital again. Nash is her secret high school crush, a man whose words and actions she believes have doomed her to an inability to ever trust another. Adding fuel to her insecurities is her belief that no man can be loyal, as demonstrated by her father when he left her mother for a newer model. But even with all that screaming in her head that Nash is trouble, a feeling which is further embodied by his nearly full body of ink and countless piercings; she still finds him undeniably hot and intriguing and can’t help but notice.

When Saint unwittingly reveals a table turning family secret to Nash, she acts impulsively, and for the first time in her life breaks the rules by allowing herself to get personally involved. She tracks down a rather inebriated Nash at his apartment, and one thing leads to another. No matter what happened in the past, there is definitely a mutual attraction in the present and now. Only question is:  can the present remain the status quo and develop into even more in the future? Given Saint’s deep insecurities and Nash’s rather prominent role in making her that way, can there possibly be a HEA in store for Saint and Nash?

Both Paula Costello and Tad Branson did a marvelous job of acting out their emotion-filled roles, and a stellar job of representing one of the main characters. In particular, I highly enjoyed the portrayal of Nash by Tad Branson and Saint by Paula Costello. However, notwithstanding these above-average aspects of their depictions, I couldn’t help feeling that their combined performance could have been even better, an A rating in fact, had it been broken down by female and male characters rather than chapters. In particular, while Mr. Branson was able to deliver distinguishable portrayals, I found his tone too deep to portray a convincing female, and while Ms. Costello was able to render a believable male depiction, there wasn’t a lot of differentiation between her various male characters. These distractions could have been eliminated if the roles had been assigned via gender rather than the more typical style frequently utilized in romance audiobooks of allocating assignments via chapter depending on whether the hero’s or heroine’s POV is being told.

There was one other performance related factor that struck me as I listened to the beginning of this story. Ms. Costello uses a lot of pauses in Saint’s speech and, at times, they don’t naturally flow from the grammar. While at first I thought this was a flaw, I soon was convinced that this was a stylistic choice and, in the end, it resonated with me that it fit Saint’s contemplative, insecure personality. So kudos to Ms. Costello for finding a way to further exemplify Saint’s traits with her acting.

All in all, I highly enjoyed listening to Nash. It’s a tale with a well developed character driven plot and special message that I believe will appeal to lovers of New Adult romances. Furthermore, Ms. Costello and Mr. Branson do a relatively good job of bringing to life this heartfelt romance, even if there is no denying in my mind, that a different combination of their talents could have made for an even more fantastic crowd pleaser.

BJ


Narration:  B-

Book Content:  A-

Steam Factor:  For your burning ears only

Violence:  Minimal

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Harper Audio

 

Nash was provided to AudioGals for review by Harper Audio.

4 thoughts on “Nash by Jay Crownover

    1. Yes, I had this one on my to be listened to list for a while. I thought it would be just another angst filled, new adult title with emotionally unavailable characters. In the end, I found it to be more than I was expecting and it made for a quick enjoyable listen.

      I’m curious, did the review convince you to listen to it? I’d love to hear your thoughts if you do.

Comments are closed.