Narrated by Alastair Haynesbridge
I was a big fan of Cindy Gerard’s books back in the day. When the paranormal aspects started coming into play I wasn’t as keen but her straight up romantic suspense usually hit the mark for me, with a great balance between the romance and the suspense. Sadly, I missed a lot of her more recent books but with their audio release, I’m hoping to catch up soon. All of the Bodyguards series plus the first of the Black Ops series were released on 21 March and then another seven books in the Black Ops series were released on April 4. Over the Line is book four in the Bodyguards series. It was first in print in 2006.
Given how long ago the book was originally released, I was wondering whether it would hold up to 2017 scrutiny. It does. There wasn’t really anything in the book that seemed to be overtaken all that much by current technology.
The plot centres around “Sweet Baby Jane”, aka Janey Perkins, a rock star in the vein of Pink or Lady Gaga perhaps, who is in need of protection from a former stalker who has been released from prison. Jason “Ploughboy” Wilson is a former Ranger who served under Nolan Garrett’s command. When Jason was discharged due to hearing loss from his exposure to explosives while deployed, “No” offered him a job at E.D.E.N Security. However, for six months, Jason bummed around, rootless and struggling with life out of the Army. When the book begins, however, he decides to turn things around and take up No’s offer if it’s still open.
Jason’s first assignment is to protect Janey. He’s not her only security but he is in charge of it. Janey will continue her US tour with security provided by the venues but Jason will oversee the security plan and make sure Janey has sufficient protection at all times.
Edwin Grim has been released on parole after being jailed for stalking Janey. Before he was arrested, he had broken into Janey’s house and things were mere minutes away from being very bad indeed.
When people around Janey begin to die and the bloody hearts of tiny birds are left for her (Grim’s signature), the tension ratchets up and the danger to Janey increases.
The forced proximity of the main characters also means there is no ignoring their chemistry. Jason manfully resists acting in his attraction but this is a romance novel after all, so it’s no surprise he can’t hold out for too long.
There are a number of candidates for villain of the piece apart from Grim. Even though I’d read the paperback (in 2009) I couldn’t remember all the plot details at first so in many ways it felt like I was coming to the story fresh.
Alastair Haynesbridge is a new-to-me narrator. He narrates all but one of the Bodyguards books (I’m not sure why he didn’t do Under the Wire as well.) I had a few reservations early in the story when he got the syntax of a couple of sentences wrong. For example, there was a reference to Jason “coming to” as in returning to consciousness but it was said as if the phrase were “coming to see me” (for example).
However, apart from those few early stumbles, Mr. Haynesbridge’s performance turned out to be quite good. His character differentiation was well done and his female voices, if not entirely female-sounding, were softened in pitch sufficiently to make it clear who was speaking without heading into falsetto territory.
There was one character whose depiction I didn’t love. Max, Janey’s longtime manager and close friend, sounded a bit dense even though from a narrative perspective he was anything but.
It can be a challenge in romantic suspense on audio where there is villain POV, to differentiate sufficiently well between the characters while still obscuring the identity of the bad guy. Mr. Haynesbridge did a creditable job here of striking the right balance.
I’d happily listen to the other Bodyguard books narrated by Mr. Haynesbridge. I wouldn’t put him (at least for now) in the very top tier of male narrators but his skills were still such that my listening experience was enjoyable and his performance elevated the text.
It was a lot of fun to revisit Over the Line and I definitely plan on picking up the others in the series.
Kaetrin
Buy Over the Line by Cindy Gerard on Amazon
