Narrated by Robin Eller and Tor Thom
Man Cuffed is the fourth fun release in the Man Hands series by author Sarina Bowen and narrator/author Tanya Eby. Drama Queen Meg is an out-of-work actor waiting tables at a Renaissance-theme restaurant when her meet-cute with local cop Mac takes place. She mistakes him for a bachelorette party’s hired stripper and tries to undress him to placate the drunk women. Unbeknownst to either one, months later she moves in next door to him, where she’s subjected to his bedroom behavior due to abysmally thin walls between their apartments.
When Meg hears her new neighbor’s live-in girlfriend entertaining other men while he is out, she dreams up a scheme to let him know, which involves ladders, cuff links, boxers with “Hot Tamale” on them, a sling-shot, a crow, and breaking and entering. When she is caught, and they recognize each other from the meet-cute, Mac offers her a trade: if she’ll attend his sister’s wedding with him as his fake, demonstrative girlfriend, he won’t arrest her. (Then he and the other “girlfriend”, who was more a f-buddy, split up. It makes more sense in context.) Mac’s solid grip on discipline prevents him from acting on his feelings toward his neighbor, in spite of her many attempts to flirt him up; it’s just a fake date to appease his family.
Once Meg and the reader/listener find out why he needs to appease his family, the story takes a slightly more serious and somewhat emotional turn – Hot Cop Mac is hiding a painful secret from Meg, one many years in the making, that he needs to acknowledge. It’s spoiler territory, and if you read/listen to it, it will have more of an impact if you don’t know going in. Nobody dies, so don’t feel any trepidation about the story.
The story is also about Meg’s journey – she’s wanted to be an actor since she was 4, but now that she’s 30 and can’t find enough acting work to pay the rent, she’s reconsidering her priorities. She’s not ready to settle down and she’s having a hard time giving up her dream, but she meets some women through Mac’s sister who provide a community outside her theater life. It was good to read about women helping each other up, and not just the sort of evil f-buddy cheating on Mac (he didn’t see it that way and was not at all invested in the other woman.) Meg creates a flash mob for a marriage proposal that choked me up a little both times I listened to it, with help from these women and her theater friends. That experience shows her that she can find creativity other ways than acting, and maybe directing and producing is her new dream.
Tor Thom was new to me as a narrator, and my first reaction was WHOA, step aside, Sebastian York, and get in the back seat, Teddy Hamilton; my new narrator voice boyfriend is Tor Thom! His low basso profundo, sometimes growly voice and dry delivery had me laughing out loud several times, although, to be fair, it was Bowen and Eby’s writing that was funny. He also delivered emotion for my ears in the scenes where Mac’s dysfunctional life was exposed. His differentiation was slightly cartoony for his cop partner Lance, but that worked for me since Lance was portrayed as goofy. He used a voice for Meg that also worked for me, a little lighter (and admittedly, breathier) in tone and a touch higher in pitch.
After I finished the first time, I scanned our reviews for others including his work and was stunned to see that Caz found him “monotone” with audible breaths that broke up the flow of the prose. It’s like we listened to two different people. So I started the book again, with that in mind, and honestly I liked the book and his delivery just as much the second time around. I heard what she meant in the samples of the two books she reviewed here (The Hunt by J.M. Dabney and The Pros and Cons of Deception by A.E. Wasp) – if there are several phrases, or even short sentences, in a row, he could be heard taking a breath between each one, where another narrator might deliver the entire line, or paragraph, more smoothly. But I didn’t notice anything like that in Man Cuffed, although I was more attuned the second time around to listening to his breath before and between sentences. And I am one who is totally turned off by inappropriately timed pauses and loud breathing while narrating! I did not hear either of those issues here. I have a few theories about our different experiences – (1) he has changed his narration technique, for this book or in general, (2) this material works better with his delivery style or maybe (3) Caz and I will just have to agree to disagree! (Per Caz, “There’s no accounting for taste.” Insert laughing emoji here.)
On the other hand, there was Robin Eller – also new to me this time (I think) although she has a large catalogue of titles at Audible, 20% of which are Romance. Her acting was spot on, with good comic timing and dialogue delivery, and her differentiation of characters worked well for me. The book is in first person point of view, so that the character is the narrator of her own story. What tripped me up was, during Meg’s narration, Eller has to say “I said” and “he said” fairly often, but those phrases were often stilted and in a different tone, so that her “Meg” voice sort of paused and Robin stepped in to say “I said” and “he said” – I can’t explain it any better, but those dialogue tags interrupted her delivery in a big way. It was consistent at least – it seemed like almost every time she said one, it sounded out of character and came from a third party somewhere else in the room. I know different narrators use different ways of slipping in dialogue cues – some make it an extension of the sentence, using the same timbre and tone as if it’s part of the line, while others drop their voice and say it softer and pitched lower. As long as it seems to come from the character in first person POV, either way usually works for me. This time, the approach of 3rd person jumping in to read them was disruptive. It did not ruin the experience, and neither did Thom’s mispronunciation of “mischievously” which is one of my trigger words. [Y’all, it does NOT rhyme with “deviously” – come on!]
All in all, the story and the narration together made for a very positive, often comical and a bit emotional experience, but maybe Sebastian York and Teddy Hamilton don’t have to give up their positions in my elaborate fantasy audio life, after all. Still, I liked it! I really liked it!
Melinda
Buy Man Cuffed by Sarina Bowen and Tanya Eby on Amazon
