Narrated by Tatiana Sokolov
The Home They Built is the third book in Shannon Stacey’s Blackberry Bay series. While it’s not strictly necessary to have read the earlier books to enjoy this one, there is some particular context in book 2 (Their Christmas Baby Contract) which does add some flavour to this story. It’s also somewhat of a spoiler for the second book so listeners will need to decide how much they care about that when deciding whether to start with this listen.
This is your spoiler warning for Their Christmas Baby Contract – don’t read on if you don’t want to know.
In book 2 of the series, we found out that Brady Nash, one of the leads, had a half-sister named Anna. His mother left her with her father as a baby when she felt unable to care for her. Christie Nash didn’t tell her sons, Chris and Brady about their sister and never intended to, but a reaction to drugs after dental surgery made Christie loose-lipped and the truth came out.
We also briefly met Tess Weaver and her grandson, Finn, Brady’s best friend. Tess is an older woman but very spry. She’s also a mountain of trouble.
When The Home They Built begins, Finn is being advised by his beleaguered mother that Tess has signed a contract to be on a reality/home reno show called “Relic Rehab”. Tess has a lovely old Victorian home which is a bit run down and she can’t quite manage the upkeep. She has flat out lied to the show’s producers and told them her home is the “Bayview Inn” (narrator voice: her house has never been an inn) and her business has suffered because the inn does not have modern conveniences. She has identified Finn (who is not particularly handy) as the inn’s handyman. Relic Rehab funds the renovation and films it for TV. Most of the work is done by the property owners but there is some help from the staff of the show. They particularly choose old houses in the New England area which have a business operating out of them so the lie was the only way to get the producers to even look at Tess’s application. Tess’s family are horrified because she has been fraudulent. They feel obliged to go along with the lie to try and keep her out of trouble. Perhaps she does plan to open an inn after the renovation is complete. At least that’s what they tell themselves, Tess included. Tess has bullied the entire town into going along with it, such is the force of her personality. (Sure, it’s a bit of a stretch to believe but I went with it.)
Anna Beckett is the host and founder of Relic Rehab. She saw through Tess’s story very quickly but felt that the location was a “sign”. Blackberry Bay was where her birth mother lived as a child. Maybe she can find out some information about her while she’s there. “Christine Smith” is not a very unique name and she’s had little success finding out any useful information until now. While Anna doesn’t know for 100% certain that Tess never ran an inn out of her home, she doesn’t look too hard to find the proof of the lie.
Because Anna really knows, it didn’t seem like a massive deception for Finn to go along with Tess’s story. He mostly lied by omission but there was something about the set up that didn’t feel terrible.
Anna and Finn have an immediate chemistry but neither of them feel they can act upon it; in Finn’s case because he is lying to Anna and in Anna’s case because of her own not-quite-ethical behaviours. However, after a couple of months of forced proximity, their resistance crumbles.
The “injured party” in the fraud (let’s call it what it is) is the network funding the show. They’re not hurting for money and so it’s not all that difficult to “justify” everyone’s behaviour for the most part to get to a HEA. There are consequences, though less than what Tess probably deserves but I couldn’t find it in my heart to be all that fussed about a wealthy TV network losing money. Still, in real life, this would be very not okay. I think the book walks the line well enough to explain that Tess’s behaviour was inappropriate while not beating her up about it.
Finn and Anna are lovely together. There is little which keeps them apart other than the deception that lies between them about the Bayview Inn. They are otherwise sympatico from the start and it was not at all difficult to imagine their HEA.
The subplot about Anna’s birth mother was not angsty. Christie has some work to do to explain the situation she faced as a new mother to Anna when they finally meet, but it is not long before Anna enjoys her newfound extended family, particularly her brothers, their wives and her nephews.
I did get a little confused about everyone’s age. Anna is 27 in this book. She is the eldest child; Christie having had her before Chris and Brady. In Their Christmas Baby Contract, Brady, who is the younger brother is described as “almost thirty”, so it seemed to me there was a bit of fudging with the numbers.
The narration was enjoyable, as it usually the case with Tatiana Sokolov (aka Tanya Eby). She has a good depth to her male character voices and also delivers Tess’s more mature tones well without turning her into a caricature. Sometimes her performance was just a little staccato but for the most part, the narration was smooth and very well done, with good characterisation and emotion.
The Home They Built is category length, which works out to just over 6 hours to listen to. The length worked just right for the story, the ending wasn’t rushed and the journey wasn’t drawn out. The story was warm and cosy – just what you’d want from a Harlequin Special Edition really.
Kaetrin
Buy The Home They Built by Stacey Shannon on Amazon
How nice to see a photographic cover that includes the stuff you’d actually need to do some decorating, and not another bloody cartoon!