Getting Out of Hand by Erin Nicholas

Narrated by Kate Udall

Getting Out of Hand turned out to be just what I was in the mood to listen to. It was funny, sweet, sexy and just a little different.

Mason Phillips is a double-PhD genius. He spent his high school years in Sapphire Falls, Nebraska, a town of about 1200 people. He had skipped two years of school and that, combined with his IQ was the kiss of death for him socially. He doesn’t have many fond memories of the town and hasn’t been back in the 11 years since he graduated. The few happy memories he does have are of working on a local farm after school and during the summers, getting his hands dirty growing things. When the farm’s owner died and left him the farm he was touched but it’s been two years since then and he still hasn’t been back. Mason is now wealthy and successful and a success with the ladies. He and his best friend Lauren run an agricultural science lab which develops new grains, seeds and fertilizers to assist farmers particularly in the developing world. He’s at the top of his game. When he is invited back for a kind-of high school reunion he has no plans to accept but Lauren pushes him to leave town and take a few days off.

Sapphire Falls’s mayor, Hailey Connor, has invited a number of wealthy alumni back for a reunion weekend. She’s trying to raise money for “Sapphire Hills”, an artisan shopping centre which will, hopefully, bring tourist dollars to the town and generate economic growth. She wants to locate the centre on Mason’s land.

Adrianne Scott is Hailey’s assistant. She left a high-flying job in Chicago in her family’s very successful candy business after having a minor heart attack two years earlier. She changed her life, gave up smoking, reduced her stress and got healthy. She’s fine now but the heart attack still haunts her and makes her fearful of leaving her safe and quiet life in Sapphire Falls. She plans to open a small candy shop in Sapphire Hills. Plus, she’s Hailey’s assistant – Hailey wants to land Mason’s cash and land so Adrianne will try and make it happen.

Except, when Mason arrives, he immediately feels a connection to Adrianne he’s never felt before and the feeling is definitely mutual. While trying to keep Hailey’s man-eating mitts off of Mason and save the shopping centre project, Adrianne and Mason go and fall in love. It’s definitely not normal. It’s not rational. It’s not logical. But there you have it. Ordinarily, I don’t go for instalove but the way it was openly acknowledged as strange-but-true made it easier for me to buy into – that and the chemistry and connection that Adrianne and Mason clearly have. They talk and they “get” each other.

There’s plenty of humour and all of the characters are well drawn. Hailey is shallow in many ways (but not shallowly written) and quite selfish but she’s not all bad either. No-one is all bad or all good and this is actually pretty great.

I would have liked a little more detail about what happened with Sapphire Hills but I think that may well be explained in future books in the series.

It took me a little while to get used to the narration. I wasn’t convinced at first but Ms. Udall’s performance did grow on me. I wasn’t sure she was delivering the humour right initially but either I changed my mind or she changed things up – because by midway through the book things were great. Ms. Udall has a very smooth voice which is quite pleasant to listen to but sometimes she speaks too quickly and slurs her words a little – given the characters weren’t supposed to be drunk or super tired at the time, it didn’t fit with the story.

That said, the other aspects of the narration were still very good and Ms. Udall won me over by the end of the listen. I admit I kept listening at the beginning because I was charmed by the content but by the end both the narration and the story put a smile on my face.

Kaetrin


Narration: B

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: Minimal

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Audible Studios

Getting Out of Hand was provided to AudioGals by Audible Studios for a review.

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