Till Death by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Narrated by Sarah Naughton

I’ve enjoyed Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Wait for You series, particularly on audio and I am a fan of romantic suspense so I was excited when I saw the author was writing in this subgenre. I requested Till Death straight away. Part of me was a little disappointed that Sophie Eastlake didn’t narrate this book as well, but the sample of Sarah Naughton’s performance convinced me I’d be in fairly safe hands.

The story begins when Sasha Keaton returns to her home town in West Virginia after being away for 10 years. It was always her dream to run the family bed & breakfast – The Scarlet Wench – with her mother and then take it over after her mother retired.

Sasha had left town after a terrifying and traumatic ordeal at the hands of “the Groom”, a serial killer responsible for the deaths of multiple women.

Almost immediately upon her return home, strange things begin to happen. Her car is vandalised and she feels as if someone is watching her. Also, a woman from a nearby town has gone missing and not much later, that woman turns up dead, dumped at the same site used by the Groom all those years before.

Sasha knows the Groom is dead – she was the only one to escape his clutches and he died during the police’s attempt to capture him. But someone is clearly copying the Groom. And Sasha is scared.

Prior to being abducted by the Groom, at age 19, Sasha had been dating a young cop, Cole Landis. Cole and she were both studying at the local college, Cole with the goal of becoming an FBI agent. After the six days of psychological torture, vicious beatings and violent sexual assaults at the hand of the Groom however, Sasha fled the town (after recovering in hospital for some time) and never saw Cole again. It is a regret that she has but back then she just couldn’t face him; she was dealing with significant trauma and she coped the best way she could. She regrets that she hadn’t had sex with Cole though – they hadn’t quite got that far in their relationship. Instead her first time was with the Groom. It has taken a lot of therapy and time to be comfortable with intimacy and in many ways she’s still closed off.

Returning to The Scarlet Wench, she is delighted to spend more time with her mother, as well as her best friend, Miranda and another friend from high school.

The day after she arrives home, Sasha has surprise visitor – Cole Landis who is now indeed an FBI agent living locally and working out of the Baltimore office.

Over the course of the book, Sasha rekindles her romance with Cole and also becomes the obvious target of whoever is terrorising the women of the neighbourhood and imitating the Groom. Things become very dire for Sasha before she wins her happy ending with Cole.

Because the romance was a second-chance-at-love, I was able to buy the super-fast pace of the relationship development. Nonetheless, it would have been easier for me to believe just how fast if I’d had a better picture of Sasha’s and Cole’s “pre-Groom” romance. My impression was that it was just starting but, obviously, that wasn’t quite right. Cole and Sasha are very much together almost immediately in this book and that didn’t quite jibe with the idea of a previous relationship only in its early stages. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more of the romance in Till Death. I’d have liked more time spent with Cole and Sasha developing the relationship and getting a real feel for them as a couple. Most of the time they are together, the Groom mark II (for want of a better name) is looming large.

The suspense plot was most definitely centre stage. I’d say the romance was maybe 35% of the book, with the serial killer storyline (including some serial killer POV scenes) dominating. Usually I prefer a greater proportion of romance and that is really my major criticism of the book. For those listeners who don’t mind that kind of mix, I think the story will work very well.

I did pick the villain early in the piece – something that is pretty unusual for me but it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment (if that is the right word) of the story. Perhaps I’ve just read too much romantic suspense? (In any event, I spent a few minutes congratulating myself for my brilliant deductive skills: D)

The violence is pretty graphic. There is sexual violence but not on page. It is referenced however. Most of the violence is against women and involves the use of fists and knives. I’d liken it to the level of violence in Nora Roberts’ The Search if that’s a help to any of our listeners. I think if a listener is sensitive to descriptions of women being beaten and having body parts cut off, this is not a book for them.

The narration was good without being outstanding. (I think Sophie Eastlake would have been better. My bias is clearly showing!) Ms. Naughton did a creditable job of making the characters distinct – somewhat of a challenge when trying to keep the identity of the killer under wraps until it is revealed in the book, while voicing that same character elsewhere in the story. For that reason, there were a few “suspects” who sounded the same. Given neither were Sasha or Cole – the two characters who held most of my interest – that didn’t bother me.

There were a couple of times however when Ms. Naughton seemed to use Cole’s voice for words spoken by Sasha and I thought her pacing, particularly at the beginning was a little slow. It may be that I was just impatient for the story to get moving, though.

From a technical perspective, the audiobook was solidly produced and there were no annoying things like words being pronounced oddly (*coughJohnLanecough*) or issues with audible breathing (*coughErinMalloncough*). I feel I am damning Ms. Naughton with faint praise but truthfully, I’d listen to her narrate again without hesitation.

Till Death definitely held my interest and I did buy into the romance between Sasha and Cole, even though I dearly wish there had been more of it. The plot was tight and tense and overall, I call it a win.

Kaetrin