Narrated by Stella Bloom
Rescuing Wendy is book eight in Susan Stoker’s Delta Force Heroes series. I have some of the earlier books on the TBR but I haven’t read any of them yet. For the most part the story stands alone well, however, and it wasn’t necessary to have read the earlier books to enjoy this one. That said, there are some spoilers for other books in the series which, depending on how one views things, may bother some listeners.
I said for the most part because the last section of the book is about characters other than the protagonists and, perhaps because I hadn’t read the earlier stories, I really didn’t understand why I should care about them – I expect those who have experience with the series will feel differently but for a newcomer it was a little strange for two basically new characters to take over the end of a book.
Aspen “Blade” Carlisle is a member of Delta Force and stationed at Fort Hood in Texas. For some months he has been speaking regularly on the phone with Wendy. They first “met” when she rang him in her capacity as telemarketer and tried to sell him insurance. It perhaps stretches credulity just a little that she was able to depart from the script enough to have a real conversation with Aspen and agree to call him again. But I went with it for the sake of the story.
Aspen didn’t endear me to him initially. There was some misogyny in his thoughts which felt uncomfortable to me. For instance, one of the things he really likes about Wendy is that she always asks him about his day, and in his experience, women don’t usually ask because they don’t really care. And, when they finally meet in person, he likes that Wendy doesn’t wear a lot of makeup because it indicates she’s not high maintenance.
The first time Wendy and Aspen agree to meet up, neither knows what the other looks like. In a strange turn of events which was never adequately explained, a sex worker at the bar extracts (without too much difficulty, it must be said) enough information from Wendy, who is waiting for Aspen to arrive, to impersonate her when he turns up and Wendy is in the bathroom. I could have understood – maybe – why another woman would want to impersonate Wendy; even then it’s a stretch, but a sex worker? I didn’t get it. It takes Aspen a little while to work out that he’s not actually speaking to Wendy and when he does the sex worker is a “whore” and worse. I disliked that characterisation intensely.
On the other hand, Aspen does actively want Wendy to be comfortable with him and to disagree with him and stand up for herself. And, when Wendy calls him out about things, he owns them and says sorry without equivocation.
When we get to the inevitable black moment, Aspen says some vicious things which felt very below the belt but he does eventually grovel well enough. And Wendy showed she could hold her own with him. I’m sure there will be a large subset of romance listeners who like Aspen just fine – just as there will be a large subset who think Aspen is a jerk who does not deserve a HEA.
My own alphahole acceptance level is largely dependent on how much of a doormat the heroine is. While Wendy had her moments of being hesitant, she did stick up for herself and the ratio of doormat to douchebag was sufficient for me to enjoy the book overall, albeit with some reservations.
Wendy Tucker and her younger brother Jackson have been on the run for years after something happened which I won’t give away here. Wendy is a curious mix of fierce badassery and shy reticence which I sometimes found jarring but I ended up liking her very much.
The secret Wendy is keeping is a huge barrier to her HEA with Aspen but the suspense plot is based around some older bullies harassing Jackson and his girlfriend. There were some pretty intense scenes which got me in the feels. I was genuinely concerned with what would happen to Jackson and his girlfriend at one point and had to keep listening until I knew all was well.
I had some questions about Wendy’s past but they were all answered eventually. Wendy’s naivete about her situation was perhaps explained by her youth when the [redacted] took place.
One of the draws for me with Rescuing Wendy was Stella Bloom. I’ve enjoyed her narrations before and I knew I was in safe hands.
She has good timing, pitch and tone and I enjoy her delivery of the emotion in a romance. Male character voices aren’t extremely deep but she made an effort to distinguish the various male cast from each other. Similarly, the wives and girlfriends of the other Delta Force team members are easy to differentiate, mostly by accent.
Stella Bloom narrates some of Kristen Ashley’s books and there were times when I felt like I was in a Kristen Ashley book – particularly during the interior decorating porn. Sometimes it was comforting and familiar, sometimes it felt a little weird. I guess that’s a thing that happens when one associates a particular narrator so strongly with a particular author.
But I do think that those who enjoy Kristen Ashley will probably enjoy this book because she tends toward the alpha male hero who isn’t always brimming with emotional intelligence and she doesn’t shy away from putting their characters into some pretty intense situations – both of which applies here.
Kaetrin
Buy Rescuing Wendy by Susan Stoker on Amazon
