Just This Once by Rosalind James

Narrated by Claire Bocking

Just This Once is Book 1 in the Escape to New Zealand series, and it is Ms James’ 2012 debut novel. Hannah Montgomery is a sort of mousy, extremely low-self-esteem, incredibly overworked sports apparel exec in San Francisco. She is the oldest of three, and she acts more like a parent to her two immature siblings than her own parents ever did. Everyone depends on her 24/7 – her boss, her siblings, her co-workers – she needs a break. She is looking forward to her first vacation in a while – a three-week, solo adventure to New Zealand. So who does she depend on when she gets caught in a riptide while swimming there? She doesn’t realize her savior is captain of the NZ National Rugby team, the All Blacks**, hunky and incredibly nice Drew Callahan.

Their relationship develops without him exactly telling her that he’s pretty well known – like, celebrity status, something that she starts to realize when people come up to them and women throw themselves at him when they are out in public. At the end of her vacation, she leaves – missing him, but realistic that, to him, it was just a vacation fling and nothing more. After all, how could a celebrity fall for Ms Mouse?

Of course, it wouldn’t be romance if he didn’t find a way to convince her to come back to New Zealand and make a go at their relationship. And she wouldn’t be sticking to her really-no-self-esteem-at-all character if she didn’t insist on getting a job and an apartment of her own with absolutely no help from Mr Famous, evah. In fact, I sorta hated her by the end of the book – her flaw, her inability to let anyone ever help her, was so annoying I kept wondering why he liked her. She even told her new Kiwi co-workers she and Drew were just friends, rather than admit she’d moved halfway around the world to be with him. Talk about mixed messages! But the author ramped up the excitement of the Rugby World Cup games at the very end (it reminded me of the end of SEPs’ It Had to Be You, not the crime but the build-up) to shake Hannah and me up, and in the end I liked the story better after she groveled a little about her really inexcusable behavior.

Claire Bocking is new to me – probably because her only audiobooks to date are the five entries in the Escape to New Zealand series. Her narration is like so many young, new narrators on Audible these days – she could use some more reading experience. It’s a pleasant enough voice, and her New Zealand accent seemed authentic so I looked her up – well, she’s Australian! I guess I should be more impressed with her Yank accent, it turns out. She also lived in England, the States, and Germany, and has some TV and movie experience – these all bode well for her voice-over career. However, while her dialogue is mostly good – great accents aside – she uses a sort of sing-songy reading cadence that isn’t natural, with the occasional intake of breath in awkward, non-stop places (not many of those, but still…). Maybe it’s something that can be learned – the ability to narrate an audiobook almost as if one is speaking to the listener, or performing on stage, as opposed to just reading words on a page to a microphone. Her narration isn’t bad – it just isn’t anywhere near the skill or talent of better narrators like Kate Reading or Karen White or Barbara Rosenblat, who convince me they are telling me a story. It’s a good effort that needs work.

** you owe it to yourself to spend a few minutes indulging in the All Blacks videos Ms. James has posted on her website, if only to increase your appreciation of the sport to enhance your enjoyment of the book. Or for other reasons. Like well-built, shirtless guys in the rain.

Melinda

Narration: C+

Book Content: B-

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: none (except there’s rugby)

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Rosalind James or Rosalind Iiams – typo or pseudonym?