As You Wish by Isobel Starling

Narrated by Gary Furlong

As You Wish is the first book in Isobel Starling’s Shatterproof Bond series which – so far – comprises four books (and a prequel) in which the storylines are all inter-related and the romance progresses throughout. I knew before I started listening that this story wasn’t self-contained and that it is to be continued into the next book (Illuminate the Shadows) and beyond, so please be aware of that before you decide to listen to As You Wish.

It’s a novella-length listen, coming in at just over four hours, and opens with two very different young men bumping – literally – into each other at Heathrow Airport as they each rush to catch a plane. Uptight control freak Declan Ramsey isn’t pleased when a scruffy back-packer almost canons into him, and is even less impressed when he finds the same man in the seat next to his on the flight to Edinburgh. He’s flying home to attend his younger brother’s wedding; Oliver Ramsey is marrying Annabelle Aiken, daughter of Declan’s boss, an incredibly wealthy property developer, at a fairytale castle on the banks of Loch Lomond, and Declan and Annabelle’s brother, Sam, are sharing best man duties. Because Sam has been living abroad for the past couple of years – he works as an interpreter and translator for his father’s company – Declan and Sam have been corresponding by email during that time, working out various details and planning their joint speech, and very quickly fell into an easy online friendship. Truth be told, Declan is a bit of a grouch; at thirty-two he’s never had a serious relationship and all the dates he’s gone on lately have been disasters – but the emails from Annabelle’s young, geeky brother have never failed to cheer him up, and he’s looking forward to finally meeting the kid.

Yep. You guessed it. Sam isn’t a kid; he’s tall, blond and gorgeous… and is the scruffy backpacker who pissed Declan off at the airport.

Sam Aiken has just returned to the UK after working for two years in some dodgy places, most notably Russia and Saudi Arabia, places where being gay could have got him into serious trouble (or even killed). He’s looking forward to seeing his sister married, getting laid after a two year drought and then to starting a new job he’s got lined up in London; he’s charming, funny, clever and ridiculously hot… and Declan, who identifies as straight and has never even so much as looked at a man in a sexual way, can’t believe it when he realises that he’s very strongly attracted to Sam.

GFY (gay for you) stories can be difficult to get right, and I don’t think the author has quite managed it here, mostly due to the fact that the shorter page count means that Declan’s transition from “no, no, I’m straight, absolutely and without question” to being attracted to Sam, admitting it to himself and then to having sex with Sam happens pretty much in the blink of an eye. On a positive note, Declan doesn’t waste time beating himself up about it; he’s not sure whether to call himself gay or bisexual, but it doesn’t really matter to him. He likes Sam, he wants Sam and for the first time ever, he feels comfortable and happy with another person and loves the way that he and Sam are so in tune with one another.

Because the two have in fact known each other for a year through their email correspondence, the emotional side of the romance is more convincing. Their ability to quote chunks of The Princess Bride and their shared sense of humour help to ground their relationship somewhat, and makes it a bit easier to buy into Declan’s light-speed team-switching. Plus the sex scenes (of which there are quite a few) are mostly a nice mixture of hot, tender, sweet and dirty. (Although there’s one rather unsexy one I could have done without!)

I enjoyed the listen, but there were a few writing glitches I found jarring. While the story is told mostly through Sam’s and Declan’s points of view, there are some places where the PoV suddenly becomes omnipresent and a character seems to be describing their own appearance, or places where it switches abruptly from one character to another, which jarred every time. There are also some stereotypical characterisations that I wasn’t comfortable with, such as Annabelle’s best friend, who has been after Declan for a while and who is whiny, needy and almost permanently drunk. Then there’s the way Declan describes the women he’s dated recently as “fucking needy”, and his assumption that all gay men are into casual sex, so Sam is unlikely to turn him down. And Annabelle loves having a brother who is gay, because it’s such fun to ogle men together. I have no idea if that actually happens… it just felt a little off to me.

A couple of weeks back, eagle eyed readers may have noticed a fairly wide difference of opinion between myself and Kaetrin when we both reviewed two different historical romances narrated by Gary Furlong. To cut a long story short, he’s an A grade narrator for me and a C grade one for Kaetrin – vive la difference! – and if you’ve already listened to him, then you’ll have come to your own conclusion as to whether he’s for you or not. I enjoy listening to him, and in fact, I requested a review copy of this audiobook on the strength of his name alone. His pacing is just right in both narrative and dialogue, and he portrays the two central characters perfectly; Declan’s gruff Scottish brogue is spot on and he nails Sam’s character completely, his charm, his cheeky humour and, later, his despair at not being able to live life on his own terms. All the secondary characters are clearly differentiated and appropriately realised, and while the female characters don’t feature very often, he performs them without resource to falsetto – and the whiny, needy would-be girlfriend is just the right amount of whiny and needy :P

The main criticism I’ve made of Mr. Furlong’s work before now is that while he does a terrific job when it comes to injecting just the right amount of expression and nuance into the dialogue in a story, he tends to perform the narrative in a way that is extremely low key and can miss out on some of the emotional cues. Here, however, I didn’t find that to be the case at all; maybe that’s due to the fact that I’m very used to his style by now, or due to the differences in tone and feel between contemporaries and historicals… or he’s simply infusing the narrative with more expression. Whatever the reason, he delivers very accomplished and enjoyable performance, and if I do revisit this series, it will certainly be in audio.

As I said at the beginning, As You Wish is the beginning of a series – or, more correctly, serial – and it does a good job of introducing the characters and setting up their relationship. I liked both principals, and while the romance progresses very quickly – a common complaint I have about novellas – Sam and Declan are good together and I was able to root for them to get their HEA – or, rather, HFN, as the story is to be continued. I had guessed the final twist, which looks set to take things in a slightly different direction, and I think I might be intrigued enough to try book two.

Caz