Narrated by Saskia Maarleveld
Lovers of action/suspense romance will be excited by the special ops background and deep seated romantic tension in The Woman Left Behind. Although the central focus of this story is on the individual characters and their personal growth and mutual attraction, there is enough of a shadow of an action and suspense subplot to add a secondary element of intrigue. Additionally, the experienced narration by Saskia Maarleveld makes this a good title to experience in audio format.
Jina Modell is happy with her desk job in communications for a paramilitary organization that targets and eliminates terrorist threats, when her life is forever changed by a clandestine aptitude test that she scores high on without even knowing she was being tested. Specifically, the video games that she thought were just for fun for her and her co-workers during their work breaks actually were a spatial relations tests and she had one of the highest overall scores–meaning her employer now wants to reassign her to field work where her primary job will be to operate a sophisticated drone. However, Jina has never been trained for the field, so she’s sent to an intensive boot camp.
It is at this boot camp that she meets her new team—well, they will be if she can pass the physical tests. Jina has never seen a challenge that she hasn’t taken, and though she is miserably out of shape, she is determined to conquer this latest challenge and be cleared for field work. However, the all-male special-ops team she has been assigned to, particularly the team leader Levi (Ace) just see her as a liability, not to mention a temptation (and Levi never mixes business with pleasure, especially when it could mean disaster for one or more of his team members if he loses his concentration). Levi, however, soon starts to see and admire Jina’s spirit and determination, so he decides not to sabotage her efforts, even if it would mean that it would help her find her way to his bed sooner.
Will Jina be able to complete the training? Even if she can, can she resist her equal parts temptation and frustration with the hard headed and tough-as-nails Levi? Moreover, who is behind the terrorist threat the team is facing and what’s their motivation?
Saskia Maarleveld is an experienced narrator whom I have listened to several times in the past, and she never disappoints. The Woman Left Behind is no exception, and Ms. Maarleveld imparts her own magic into the action packed and suspenseful scenes as well as the more intimate ones.
In particular, one facet that I enjoyed about Ms. Maarleveld’s narration is her attention to detail. For example, the heroine is described as having a deep and raspy voice, and Ms. Maarleveld creates a voice for Jina that captures Linda Howard’s description well.
Another element of Ms. Maarleveld’s narration is her ability to provide distinguishing voices for the characters. Her skilled narration allowed me to sit back and enjoy Jina’s and Levi’s story, along with the large secondary character cast, without having to rewind to distinguish who was speaking or overly listening for dialogue tags.
All in all, if you enjoy romantic suspense or are a fan of Linda Howard’s alpha heroes, then I suggest you give The Woman Left Behind a listen.
BJ
Buy The Woman Left Behind by Linda Howard on Amazon
