Featherbed by Annabeth Albert

Narrated by Kirt Graves and Alexander Cendese

The Vino and Veritas series is one of four new series of contemporary romances set in the world created by Sarina Bowen in her True North books. Each of the series is multi-authored, and the books are all standalones; although some characters do cross over between books, the stories in each are self-contained, so you can dip in and out without missing anything important. The V&V books are all queer romances – mostly m/m, but there are some f/f ones, too – and there’s a fabulous line-up of authors, some of whom are personal favourites. One of them – Annabeth Albert – kicks things off with Featherbed, a sweet, sexy, low-angst romance that, for all its cuteness and strong characterisation, needed a bit more oomph.

A former lawyer, Harrison Fletcher has left the bustle of New York and relocated to Burlington in Vermont where he’s about to open his new venture – a combined bookstore and wine bar he’s named Vino and Veritas. Part of his reason for moving is to because he wants to make mother happy; ever since she retired from her job as a librarian, she’s been at something of a loose end and he knows that owning a bookstore has long been a dream of hers. But he knows he needed a change, too, especially as he thinks he won’t have much more time to spend with her; both his father and his grandfather died before reaching the age of forty-three, and with his forty-second birthday approaching, Harrison can feel the ticking of the countdown clock. Still, even though it’s a move he wanted to make, it’s been something of a culture shock – something brought home even more strongly when one of the deliveries he’s expecting for the bookstore half of V and V turns out to be a box of chickens rather than a box of books.

Harrison’s new store assistant helpfully points out that the address on the box is similar to the address of the V and V – and even more helpfully says that it should probably have gone to the farm run by the hot chicken guy (as in the guy is hot, not the chickens!). Harrison makes a phone call and sure enough, the chickens were meant for Puddlebrook Farm. Harrison is rather taken with the deep masculine voice on the other end of the line, and after a brief discussion as to what Harrison should do – and not do (under no circumstances should the chickens be let out of the box) – he agrees to sit tight and wait for Finn Barnes to arrive to collect them.

No prizes for guessing what happens next. Yep. When Finn arrives to collect his rare, heritage-breed Ayam Cermani chickens at the end of what has been a really frustrating day, he’s not best pleased to see a few of them running around loose in Harrison’s storeroom. He takes one look at Harrison, and immediately pegs him as a useless city-type –

…what with his fancy pants and white shirt that had undoubtedly started the day pristine and ironed.

– who thinks he’s far too good to be doing something as mundane as handling chickens.

Tempers are fraying, but thankfully Harrison’s mother Audrey arrives to smooth things over a bit, and by the time Finn leaves, he’s calmed down enough to realise that he never thanked the pair of them for their help, so the next day he goes back to take them a gift basket of some of the farm’s produce as a peace offering and a thank you. By the end of the short visit, Finn has issued an invitation for Harrison and Audrey to visit the farm – and both men are trying hard not to be attracted to each other.

Harrison and Finn are great guys and complete opposites. Finn is big and muscly where Harrison is tall, lean and elegant, and their backgrounds and life experience are very different. But no matter how hard they try to convince themselves otherwise, the spark of attraction between them is impossible to ignore, and soon, they’re becoming friends and bonding over a shared love of queer historical romances and good food. Needless to say, it’s not long before they to start to fall for one another, but both of them have reasons for holding out against love; Harrison because he thinks he’s a bad bet as a long-term partner, and Finn because he was burned by an ex who dumped him because he hated the farm life that Finn loves.

I’m a big Annabeth Albert fan, and I’ve really been looking forward to listening to Featherbed; in fact, I deliberately opted not to read it when it came out in print in March because I wanted to wait for the audio. Maybe I’d built my expectations too high, but in the end, I wasn’t as invested as I’d hoped I’d be. Don’t get me wrong; it’s quiet and sweet and sexy and lovely, the two leads have great chemistry and the author does a great job of showing them – and us – how their differences complement each other and how perfect they are for one another. It’s just a bit slow and uneventful for my taste. There’s a very small amount of conflict introduced near the end to add a touch of uncertainty, but it’s not particularly convincing, and I was a bit uncomfortable when Finn persisted in calling Harrison “Harry”, even after he’d asked him not to.

Kirt Graves and Alexander Cendese are very experienced romance narrators and they both deliver expressive, well-paced performances here. Mr. Graves reads the chapters from Harrison’s PoV and his soft, husky tones are a great fit for the character, while Mr. Cendese’s brighter sound and upbeat delivery provide a nice contrast and work equally well to delineate the extrovert, more gregarious Finn. I know that for some, having two voices of such different tone and timbre can be problematic – I see reviews complaining that “X’s version of this character is too different to Y’s so it sounds like a completely different character “ – but that doesn’t generally bother me; two different people = two different voices and as long as (in the case of m/m) the performers can agree which of the leads is going to use a higher pitch and which a lower, and can make them sound sufficiently different to one another, I don’t expect one performer to attempt to impersonate the other. (If they do and make a good job of it, it’s an added bonus!) Both narrators characterise and differentiate the secondary cast well, and although Mr. Cendese’s female voices can sound a bit caricature-ish, he doesn’t use falsetto or go wildly over the top, and I don’t generally mind it. He can also speak a bit too quickly at times; he doesn’t mangle or trip over words, he just sounds a bit rushed. Also – advance warning – there are a couple of places in the text where Finn whistles; Mr. Cendese actually does whistle, and even though it’s supposed to be quiet, it made me jump both times!

I did enjoy the characters and performances in Featherbed, but even though its running time comes in at just under five and a half hours, it feels a bit overlong and the romance, while very well-written, was a bit too low-key for me. But YMMV- I know a lot of people have gravitated towards less complicated, gentler stories over the last year or so, and if that’s you, this might be just what you’re looking for.

Caz

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