Oz by Lily Morton

Oz by Lily Morton

Narrated by Joel Leslie

Lily Morton’s books have been on my radar for some time now. They are often highly recommended by trusted friends, so I decided to dive in with Oz. While it was my first, it won’t be my last.

Oz Gallagher is an Irish-born Londoner in his twenties and perpetually unlucky in love. His most recent romantic disaster is moving in with his boss only to find said boss shagging the new assistant in their bed some three weeks later. Which means Oz is without a boyfriend, without a home and without a job, all at once.

Oz’s best friend Shaun points him toward an ad for a live-in House Manager to oversee the renovations on an ancestral estate in Cornwall for six months and Oz thinks it could be just the ticket, so he applies. However, when he’s surrounded by public school graduates all awaiting interview, he thinks he’s unlikely to be chosen for the role. He’s missed out on jobs in his field (he has fine arts and art history degrees) many times because of classism. So he relaxes during the interview and doesn’t hold back, something which was hilarious to me but which, lucky for Oz, also charms the interviewer. He gets the job.

Oz then relocates to Cornwall and Ashworth House, the home of Silas, Earl of Ashworth. Silas is in his mid-thirties and equally unlucky in love. Though Oz and he experience immediate sparks of attraction, neither wishes to make a move – Oz’s predecessor was Silas’s boyfriend and he left after Silas refused to take time off work to party with him in London. Both men have had a complicated romantic history and don’t feel comfortable moving forward for quite a long time. This does give them the time and leisure to become good friends and to learn all the things about the other that make them different from prior boyfriends (and in Silas’s case, girlfriends too – as he is bisexual).

Silas inherited the title and the house from his father but he also inherited a mountain of debt and in order to try and stave off disaster he is undertaking some renovations with the plan to open parts of the Elizabethan house to the public for six months every year and generate some revenue.

Oz is organised and dedicated, scarily competent and tremendously protective of those he cares about. He quickly comes to care about Silas – even when things are not romantic between them and so he turns his considerable expertise on getting the stalled renovations on track and coming up with innovative ideas so Silas can keep his beloved home.

Most of the book is from Oz’s point of view but there are chapters from Silas’s too – I’d say the split was roughly 1/3 Silas to 2/3 Oz.

Oz, being Irish, has the accent to match and Silas has a posh English accent with a hint of Cornish burr to it – both performed excellently by Joel Leslie. Oz also has a slightly higher pitch to his voice than Silas’s deeper rumble and both characters are therefore easily distinguished.

At its heart, the story is fairly simple; two people working together toward a common goal spend a lot of time together, fall in love and get their HEA.  Oz is brash and forward but this hides a soft underbelly of vulnerability which Silas sees through quite quickly. Oz isn’t trusting that others will care for him and most of the conflict of the story is Oz realising that he’s found his home and safe space with Silas. 

What makes the story shine are the characterisations of both leads. Oz is so funny. He’s witty and quick, with some lovely turns of phrase. I’m sure hearing them made them work even better for me – Joel Leslie certainly delivered on the humour.

Silas is not without his sense of the ridiculous either – after all he has a dog called Boris Johnson because it’s fair (in colour) and a bit stupid (he’s a golden retriever) – but it’s more understated. Silas hasn’t really had anyone stand up for him and in Oz he finds a pint-sized knight-errant who will do whatever it takes for Silas to be happy.

My only real criticism of the book is the dearth of female characters. There are very few (too few) of them.

The narration was so good – there were a couple of small errors but for the most part it was stellar. I liked the way Joel Leslie depicted all the various cast members – including those too-few women I mentioned. I breezed through the listen, charmed not only by Oz and Silas as characters but also by their voices in my ears.

Kaetrin


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