Show Me by Abigail Strom

Narrated by Cristina Panfilio

I liked Tell Me, the first book in this loosely connected series but I admit the big draw for me in Show Me was Cristina Panfilio. I love her performances. Something about her voice just works for me. The blurb looked good too but mostly, it was Cristina Panfilio.

To be honest there have been many audiobooks in between Tell Me and Show Me and I didn’t realise the connection between the two books. The hero in Tell Me was Caleb Bryce. The hero in Show Me is Hunter Bryce, Caleb’s brother. In part, I didn’t twig to it because the narrators of the two books are different – Leora Ben-Zev narrates the first book – and so Caleb didn’t sound familiar. As it happens, this story begins when Caleb, Hunter and another friend are heading out for Caleb’s bachelor party just before his and Jane’s wedding, in Hawaii.

Caleb and Jane get married in Hawaii because Hunter is based there. He works for NASA and is about to be locked into a biosphere for the next eight months as part of an experiment relevant to a mission to Mars.

On their way to a local bar, Hunter literally bumps into Airin Delaney. Airin is on Oahu with her mother, who has an interest in the biosphere project as she runs a private space exploration company. Airin’s dad was a fighter pilot who died in action after 9/11. (Airin’s grandfather was also a fighter pilot who died in action.) Airin’s dad always dreamed of going to Mars. After his death, Dira Delaney started her company to achieve that goal in his honour.

Airin has led a very sheltered life. At age nine she manifested a heart condition which proved difficult to cure. She is now 24 – and 18 months prior she finally had open heart surgery. She now has a clean bill of health but her mother is so used to being over-protective Airin is having difficulty striking out on her own.

Airin has no experience with flirtation or relationships. She has never even been kissed. She was home schooled and kept apart from people as a result of her illness/her mother’s reaction to her illness. But tonight, she’s snuck out of her hotel suite and she’s having an adventure.

Thus begins the relationship of Hunter and Airin. He is smitten with her beauty and intelligence, she is similarly struck. He’s a handsome man, honourable (well, mostly) and kind. Because reasons they end up spending the evening together and they share her first ever kiss.

The night before Hunter is due to go into the biosphere they meet again and this time they decide to take things further than a kiss. They know it will be one night. He’s going into the biosphere and she’s going home to Massachusetts; no relationship is really possible.

But then something happens and everything changes.

I didn’t know going in what was going to happen and I liked it that way so I’m not going to say much more about the plot. I will say it does involve Hunter keeping a secret from Airin with regard to her mother’s continued involvement in her life. In all the circumstances, while it was not “honourable” it was understandable however. So I was able to give it a pass. I was confident Hunter would never repeat the betrayal of Airin’s trust.

The relationship between Airin and her mother is a big part of the plot, as is Airin spreading her wings and deciding what she wants to do with her life. She’s tremendously smart and wealthy so the world is her oyster but dare she pursue the dream she had when she was a kid?

The relationship which develops between Hunter and Airin was delightful. I enjoyed their banter and connection. I liked that Airin developed relationships with others as well and I loved that she wasn’t painted as the naïve innocent girl who didn’t know anything. Yes she had been sheltered but she wasn’t hiding under a rock. Her insights and thoughts and feelings were just as valid as anyone else’s. If anything, she was the more emotionally brave one. In that respect she reminded me a little of Clara in Maisey Yates’s Wild Ride Cowboy.

The narration was superb. I lapped it up with a spoon. I enjoy the slight huskiness to Ms. Panfilio’s voice and I love the humour she injects into her characterisations. I connected with both Hunter and Airin very quickly and a large part of it was due to Ms. Panfilio’s performance.

There were some small technical issues however. A non-trivial number of times during the listen, there were odd pauses in the middle of a sentence. My impression was that it was a pickup issue and that when the section was dropped in during edits, the timing didn’t quite work.

However, otherwise, I could find no fault with the narration. Perhaps Caleb’s voice sounded a little too much ‘comic relief’ than ‘former hero’ but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of Show Me.

While the hero hiding something from the heroine is far from my favourite trope, I did truly enjoy this audiobook. I loved the references to space travel and Mars and NASA and I adored the romance. Paired with a narrator the calibre of Cristina Panfilio, I spent the listen very happy indeed.

Kaetrin