Endurance by Amy Daws

Narration by Will M. Watt and Charlotte Cole

Endurance is perfect for fans of sports romances with smart heroines and the jock heroes who capture their hearts. This being the second book in the Harris Series (see the AudioGals review for Book 1, Challenge), I already knew that I enjoyed Ms. Daws’ witty writing and moreover, I had become invested in the personable characters that comprise the Harris family. My listening to this title confirmed my expectations. While I must admit that I was slightly more riveted by Challenge, which I simply could not put down, this book nonetheless soothed my desire for a light-hearted, romantic comfort listen that left me a with a warm and happy feeling in the end. As if the story is not reason enough to listen, however, the narration is simply divine, so I highly recommend the audiobook version of this title.

The heroine of Endurance is Dr. Belle Ryan, the roommate of Indie, a fellow doctor and the heroine from book 1. Dr. Ryan is training with a world renowned pediatric surgeon and is learning how to operate on and save fetuses in utero. Though you would think that would make her parents extremely proud, it has the opposite effect, as she comes from a very rich and successful family of lawyers who view her as a traitor for choosing medicine over law. Needless to say, having been raised in this type of pretentious, cold family has also affected her confidence in ever being able to have her own HEA.

Tanner Harris, in turn, is the perpetual playboy (as well as “London’s sluttiest footballer”). He definitely had noticed Belle, but once his brother, Camden, became serious with Indie, he knew that meant that Belle would unfortunately be off limits. In order to minimize the temptation, he has been avoiding Belle, a fact which Belle hasn’t overlooked. However, when Tanner calls one night because he finds himself in a desperate situation (his latest conquest kicked him out without his clothes), Belle reluctantly comes to the rescue. This one adventure, however, leads to a paparazzi spree the next morning where the media eagerly crucifies Belle as being Tanner’s latest in a long string of one night stands.

This sets off another series of events which lead Tanner’s soccer team (which is looking to downplay the negative publicity) and Belle’s self-interested father, with political aspirations to become a Supreme Court justice, to propose a “fake” dating relationship. But when real chemistry exists, can you ever be truly satisfied with a fake relationship, or will Tanner and Belle find out that opposites really do attract?

The narration by Will M. Watt and Charlotte Cole, who also narrated Challenge, is everything I look for in a perfect narration. To start with, the narrators use my absolute favorite narration style, which is only occasionally used in narrating audiobooks: the duet narration. For those of you that are not familiar with this approach, this narration style has the male narrator performing all of the male characters’ dialogues and narratives and the female narrator performing the female characters’ dialogues and narratives. Under this approach, you have both narrators involved in all the chapters and it sounds like the two narrators are actually talking to one another. This style to me sounds much more natural and is much more effective at producing genuine sounding male and female characters, as even some of my favorite narrators can sometimes struggle with producing genuine sounding opposite gender voices.

In addition to the style employed, however, the actual renditions by both Mr. Watt and Ms. Cole are fabulous. Mr. Watt’s sexy voice was perfect for Tanner. His ability to deliver tongue-in-cheek humor is also off the charts. Mr. Watt makes it sound like you are actually listening to a scene that is occurring in real time.

Ms. Cole, in turn, is equally talented in delivering personality appropriate voices. Additionally, Ms. Cole exhibited her great range in accents by producing English, American and Irish accented voices at different parts in the book and they all sounded genuine and she effortlessly switched between them.

All in all, this is a fabulous series for the sports romance enthusiast. Moreover, audiobook lovers should not miss the expert narration by Mr. Watt and Ms. Cole which really bring the story to life.

BJ