Nobody But You by Jill Shalvis

Nobody But YouNarrated by Karen White

One by one, the Kincaid siblings have been falling like rocks when their soulmate steps in. This time, it’s the reappearance of prodigal son Jacob that has the Kincaids buzzing but it’s one Sophie Marren that has caught Jacob’s eye, and potentially his heart. Jacob left Cedar Ridge almost a decade earlier, after a fight with his identical twin brother Hud who told Jacob if he left this time, not to come back. Pretty harsh words for a couple of 18-year-old hot heads, and Jacob took them to heart. He enlisted and has been overseas in the military until a mission goes wrong and his buddy is killed, leaving Jacob once again adrift. On leave, he heads back to his family – such as is it, since the Kincaids all share a father who abandoned them some years back, but they mostly are half siblings, except for Hud. However, he feels the need to reconnect with someone and find some meaning to his life.

Speaking of adrift, Sophie is newly divorced and acrimoniously so. As her revenge, she let the rich bastard have everything except the one thing he loves above all else: his boat, named after himself, the Lucas. Unfortunately, she’s broke – no car, no home – so she has to live in the boat, which is sort of a problem since she gets sea sick. And she’s also adrift because, living in the boat, she has to find a new place to dock every night to follow the local regulations, so she’s been staying at the dock of an empty cabin. Wait, no – it’s now occupied by Jacob Kincaid.

Shalvis is known for her small town, contemporary romances, which she writes with her own special form of humor as well as emotion. In the Cedar Ridge series, she tackles a few more serious subjects like mental illness, and in Nobody But You there’s an even darker undertone with Jacob. He seems emotionally damaged, not just by the death of his friend but by his inability to fit into the Kincaid family group. Over the years, even though he did not contact his twin or the other siblings, he showed up annually to visit his mentally ill mother who is confined to a nursing home and only lucid some of the time. Even when he returned, he didn’t confront Hud for his part in chasing Jacob away – he just let Hud take the lead in the reunion. This didn’t have the effect he wanted, however, and it took them almost to the end to reconnect. Sophie is also emotionally fragile. Her father has suffered from debilitating chronic depression most of her life, then she married a megalomaniac who abused her mentally until she felt she had nothing left of her own soul. It was a little heart breaking to witness her reaction to Jacob’s various moods, instinctive responses that showed Jacob how deeply she was affected by her ex-husband’s actions, as well as by the neglect of her father.

But it’s not all darkness – there is plenty of chemistry and heat between Sophie and Jacob, and Shalvis can write very effective scenes that show the budding feelings going from lust to friendship and understanding to love. We also get to revisit the bickering Kincaid siblings, who run a resort in Cedar Ridge, one that their father first tried to run into the ground then left to them to try and salvage. It’s been a difficult road for them all, and they are all glad to have Jacob back in the fold since they need all the help they can get.

Karen White is truly one of the top contemporary romance narrators today. She has been the voice of Shalvis’ Animal Magnetism and Cedar Ridge series, delivering these stories in her own inimitable way – which is to say, perfectly! She uses pacing well to indicate the emotions, both light and dark. She placed Sophie’s voice a little higher and gave her just the slightest Texas twang, since Sophie is from Dallas, while recreating the Kincaid siblings from earlier books and giving Jacob a slightly deeper although quieter voice. (Those Kincaids are kinda boisterous!) I have always appreciated how White’s tone comes across as though she were just telling you the story herself – there’s never any indication that she’s sitting in front of a mic reading the text from a tablet. She sounds as if she knows the Kincaids personally, and is bringing you – her BFF – up to speed on all the gossip. Hmm, actually, if I take this metaphor too far, you might start to wonder how she knows what goes on behind closed doors!! Let’s just say it’s a very relaxed and natural delivery, well suited to Shalvis’ writing, and made for a few entertaining hours of audiobook enjoyment.

Melinda


Narration: A

Book Content: B+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Hachette Audio

 

 

 

Nobody But You was provided to AudioGals by Hachette Audio for a review.

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