Narrated by Kelsey Navarro
Book one in Olivia Dade’s There’s Something About Marysburg series, Teach Me is a sweet, uncomplicated, low-drama romance between rival history teachers, both of whom are divorced and in their forties. I enjoyed the story – and the performance by new-to-me narrator Kelsey Navarro – although I can’t say it bowled me over like last year’s Spoiler Alert did.
Rose Owens has been teaching for more than twenty years, and despite the constant frustrations that come with the job (too much admin, school politics etc.) she loves it and is utterly dedicated to helping her students be the best they can be. She’s especially proud of her success in recruiting students to the AP program (and here I have to say that all the talk of AP students and Honors students lost me – the UK system is completely different – but I think I got the gist of it) who might not ordinarily have gone on to study history at a higher level. Just before the beginning of the new school year, she learns that a number of the classes she’d expected to be teaching have been assigned to someone else (a new – male – teacher), and she’s devastated at the news as well as intensely worried about the survival of the AP program, as the change in her teaching groups will mean that not as many students are likely to follow her from Honors into AP next year. But Rose absolutely refuses to let anyone see how upset she is; she’s long since learned to keep her feelings to herself and present a calm, friendly and slightly aloof demeanour to the world.
Martin Krause has moved to Marysburg to be close to his daughter, who has moved there with his ex-wife. It’s Bea’s last year of high school and she’s figuring out which college she wants to go to, and Martin wants to spend as much time with her as he can before she leaves. Getting a job teaching history at Marysburg High was ideal and he’s looking forward to it – even though his new colleague Rose is a bit stand-offish towards him. It’s not until several weeks later that Martin finds out why and he feels terrible about it. Having seen how important Rose’s students are to her and how committed she is to giving them every chance to succeed, he determines to do as much as he possibly can to make sure that they don’t lose out because of the change of teacher.
Rose knows that it isn’t Martin’s fault that her classes were reallocated (and that it was a way for the administrator to get back at her for having rejected him in the past), and once she’s seen him in front of a class, she realises he’s a superb teacher. They soon embark on a more cordial working relationship and, over the course of the following weeks and months, they start to get to know a little more about each other, and to work through their various issues. Martin is attracted to Rose (and a little in awe of her) from the start – I liked that he was prepared to put himself out there and ask her out – but Rose makes it clear she’s not interested in anything other than a professional relationship, even though she’s more than a little attracted to him, too.
It’s not a spoiler to say that they do eventually start seeing each other, and their romance is a nicely-done slow-burn. It’s so refreshing to have a central couple who actually act their ages, and Rose and Martin communicate really well, sharing their boundaries and being sensitive to each other’s needs. They’re likeable, well-rounded and complex characters who are both carrying emotional baggage from their pasts. Rose grew up dirt poor and later married a wealthy man who accused her of only wanting his money and constantly criticised her for being (her words) fat; Martin’s hyper-masculine father constantly belittled him for not liking sports and his ex-wife told him she kind of ‘drifted’ into marriage and that he wasn’t what she really wanted. Their difficult upbringings and marriages provide areas of commonality, but what’s different is the way they’ve handled their responses to them. Where Martin is emotionally open and has learned to value himself and to never again to accept less than he deserves, Rose has closed herself off and hides her genuinely caring nature behind a polite façade – and this leads to the main source of conflict in the romance.
There’s a lot to enjoy about Teach Me. For starters, both characters are in their forties with plenty of life experience under their belts. Rose is smart, confident, kind and completely unapologetic about her size, her looks and what she likes, and Martin is a wonderful beta hero; sweet, sensitive and wonderfully intuitive, he’s smitten with Rose from the start and thinks she’s gorgeous. His relationship with his daughter is really well-written, and Rose’s former in-laws – who treat her better than her ex-husband ever did and who’ve kept in touch with her since the divorce – are a hoot. There’s a real warmth to the story overall and the humour is dry rather than played for belly-laughs; I particularly enjoyed the scene where Rose and Martin have a sneaky game of bingo during a professional development session. I may not have understood all the stuff about AP programs, but I could certainly sympathise with teachers forced to sit in overlong after-school sessions being talked-at by consultants who don’t tell them anything they don’t already know. Been there, done that, got a wardrobe full of T-shirts.
Kelsey Navarro is an experienced romance narrator with well over a hundred titles to her credit, but this is my first time listening to her. I enjoyed her performance overall; she has a pleasant, mezzo/contralto-range voice, which is definitely my preference when it comes to female narrators, her pacing is good and she differentiates effectively between the various characters. She captures the different aspects of Rose’s personality really well and I particularly liked the way she shows her gradually lowering her defences around Martin and allowing her humour and softer side to come through. Ms. Navarro’s male voices are generally good and her portrayal of Martin is nicely done, too. I did notice quite a few mispronunciations though (not words that are pronounced differently in the US – seriously why is “risotto” pronounced “ris-oh-toe”? It’s not pronounced that way in Italy!) and there were some production issues with the copy I had. There was some background noise in a few places – not mic noise or different ambient sound, but actual thumps and bumps, and places where the dialogue kind of “skipped” – had it been thirty years ago, I’d have said the tape skipped or had been spliced wrongly! I did have an advance copy though, so hopefully those issues will have been fixed prior to release.
I enjoyed Teach Me and would recommend it to anyone in search of a low-angst romance between two likeable, intelligent and mature people who bring out the best in each other.
Caz
Buy Teach Me by Olivia Dade on Amazon
Yes, I read this a while back and loved it
Yes, I’d been meaning to pick it up for a while, but finding time to read ebooks I’m not reviewing is difficult, so I’m glad it got an audio release.