Easy Kisses by Kristen Proby

Narrated by Rachel Fulginiti & Sebastian York

Easy Kisses is the latest release in the Boudreaux series by Kristen Proby. I bought the first books in the series and I confess I called a halt to the first one, Easy Love, because I couldn’t quite cope with the disconnect in accents. Rachel Fulginiti gives the Boudreaux siblings an authentic New Orleans accent but Sebastian York does not. When Eli (the hero of Easy Love) spoke, between the two narrators, he sounded like two completely different characters. I didn’t have that problem with Easy Kisses, something for which I was very grateful. Instead, both narrators gave the hero, Simon Danbury – a British national – the same accent. It wasn’t very British – but at least he sounded the same as between the two performers.

Charly Boudreaux runs a gorgeous shoe boutique in the French quarter of New Orleans. As the story begins, she takes a couple of weeks off to attend a conference run by famous life coach, Simon Danbury. Simon’s conferences and seminars are designed specifically for women, to empower them to reach their full potential. He also has a regular vlog and has become very popular on the chat show circuit. Personally, I wouldn’t go anywhere near one of those seminars because I think they’re basically a rip off, but for the sake of the story I was prepared to go with it. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much of the affirmations which give me hives (I have memories of my mother going through a phase when I was in my teens and they still make me shudder in horror). However, for the most part, the seminar/conference is mainly the way for Simon and Charly to meet cute.

Simon doesn’t usually (ie ever) hook up with his clients but there is something about Charly he can’t define and his good friends who have seen him through a very rocky divorce (pre-business success) encourage him to go for it. Charly, for her part, doesn’t think Simon is a long-term partner candidate. She has a very black and white view of love and believes that she will “know” “the One” immediately when she meets him (because of what her father told her when she was a girl). Because Charly didn’t get hit by lightning or some such upon meeting Simon and because she is based in New Orleans and he is based in London, she cannot see any future for them – however she is willing to have a fling with him. He is, after all, hot, funny, charming and good in bed.

As it happens, Simon has a number of things to work through arising from his failed marriage and there are times when he shows his ass, jumps to conclusions and gets way too jealous for no reason. Charly doesn’t put up with that kind of rubbish fortunately. Go Charly!

Charly’s story arc is more about looking for a real relationship rather than a fairy tale. She never saw her parents fight and believed they had a storybook romance. Of course, that wasn’t the whole truth – her parents did fight and there were rocky times in their marriage. But Charly is blind to those things. Her memories of her father (who died some years earlier) are extremely rose-coloured. While he was an excellent dad, it didn’t help Charly navigate romantic relationships with much emotional maturity.

I liked Charly very much and I thought Rachel Fulginiti portrayed her well. Her New Orleans accent got stronger when she was upset but she always had that Louisiana honey in her voice. Sebastian York gave Charly a slightly more subtle but still definitely there accent and the combination helped me to see her as one character (unlike my trouble with Eli in Easy Love.)

However, neither Mr. York nor Ms. Fulginiti could do an authentic English accent. They tried – but saying “arse” instead of “ass” isn’t enough. I don’t think my views will take either narrator by surprise. To their credit, they didn’t try to maintain an English accent all the time. Mostly, it was very subtle – just enough to occasionally remind me that Simon wasn’t an American but not a caricature and not excruciating. No, it wasn’t a good British accent but it didn’t grate either (well, mostly it didn’t grate). And, the best thing was that both narrators’ performance complemented the other’s so that Simon flowed as a seamless character throughout the listen. Frankly, I’ll take this kind of not-great accent over quite a few others I’ve talked about here at AudioGals.

I don’t think many US listeners will have a problem with the accent thing at all though and even I, who admittedly is very picky about such things, felt the narrations were good enough overall to deserve a B. Both narrators are good with delivering character, humour, tension and romance and that was definitely enough to carry the day.

Kaetrin


Narration: B

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: Minimal

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Audible Studios

Easy Kisses was provided to AudioGals by Audible Studios for a review.

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