Narrated by Tim Paige & Gavin McAllister
He Owns My Heart had a kind of gay Pretty Woman vibe according to the blurb – albeit more angsty. As Pretty Woman is one of my favourite movies and Tim Paige’s narration is a big draw, I decided to give this new-to-me author a go.
Toby Carmichael is a 26-year-old escort in a coercive contractual arrangement with his “handler”. Basically, he’s being trafficked. Landon Jenks is a 35-year-old former pro-baseball player who has been unlucky in love. After a humiliating breakup he decides to hire an escort for a night and that’s where the book begins.
Landon and Toby have a magical connection but Toby is not free to spend time with Landon and so he has to return to his handler’s home and continue to turn tricks for his room and board and to pay off a family debt.
Once Landon establishes that Toby actually would like to be spend time with him and begins to appreciate Toby’s circumstances, Landon buys Toby’s time for an entire week. The bulk of the book takes place in this one week. The men have a lot of sex (there’s sex in just about every chapter in the book; I got bored and skipped over some of it) and lots of deep, angsty emotions. Toby feels he has nothing to offer Landon. He’s a prostitute with no money and no prospects, bound to contractual indenture for another 3 years. Landon is a wealthy son-of-a-senator, with a successful post-baseball business and fame as well as fortune.
Landon doesn’t see it that way but to be honest, Toby had a point. Not because of the prostitution – but by the time the book ends, the core question hasn’t really been answered. Landon has all the money and Toby has none. How that power dynamic would work long term was unclear to me. Toby comes to Landon with almost nothing. While Landon doesn’t begrudge Toby anything and is very generous, the fact remains that Toby’s home, food and clothing rely on Landon’s largesse. That seems… not great. I suppose it could be regarded as a kind of Cinderella story but in the modern world I had questions.
Landon and Toby each have their own issues and between them they need about a hundred years of therapy. The story is angsty and overwrought. The characterisations felt uneven. For instance, I had trouble believing Landon was 35. He had an emotional maturity much younger than his stated years. It also didn’t quite fit to me how he was so successful but so lacking in confidence. A pro shortstop, it seems to me, would have had to have had some level of confidence to be successful surely? (Also, I’m told that 35 is very young for a successful pro-baseball player to retire.) But the way he is written, he is lost and broken and lonely until Toby comes along and makes everything better.
I didn’t mind the concept of the story. But there was just too much going on – the characters had too many serious problems for any of them to be really dealt with in the book. Much of the air time was spent having sex (there was even a BDSM subplot shoehorned in there). The ultimate solution for Toby’s “contract” was simple and obvious but created its own set of issues (which were not addressed). The bad guys were all uber villains, the action overly melodramatic and soapy.
There will be listeners who will lap this up. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. Mainly it just felt all too much. I was kind of exhausted with all the fraught, intense interactions while at the same time, a little bored with some of the excruciating detail of domestic life.
The narration, on the other hand, was very good. I preferred Tim Paige’s performance to that of Gavin McAllister but both were solid. They each gave the main characters distinct voices so it was easy to hear who was who and that differentiation continued throughout the rest of the cast. Considering the melodrama of the narrative, both managed to deliver the dialogue without overacting. Even so, they couldn’t help the text they were reading. Tim Paige’s performance was generally more polished to that of Gavin McAllister but I enjoyed both.
The sex scenes were intense, emotional and plenty hot enough if that’s your jam. Like I said earlier, there will be listeners who will be all over this. The narrators delivered on the sizzle and chemistry between the main characters as well.
For those listeners for whom this kind of id-listening appeals, He Owns My Heart will certainly provide all the feels. For me however, the structure and foundation of the story weren’t strong enough to hold all the rest of it. I hovered between a C- and a D for the grade. For those who like hurt/comfort and intense emotion with over-the-top everything (and I’m not judging – there’s a big audience for it, it just doesn’t include me) the listening experience will be very different and far more successful. The strong performance by both narrators is a bonus in any event.
Ultimately, He Owns My Heart was not my cup of tea but with an average rating of 3.94 on Goodreads, clearly it is for many others.
Kaetrin
Buy He Owns My Heart by Evie Drae on Amazon
I suspect my level of patience with a story like this would be the same as yours; given the ages of the characters, it might not strictly be termed New Adult, but from what you say, it sounds like that’s the mindset, especially with the “over-the-top everything.”
I like New Adult pretty well for the most part. This felt a little more like fan fiction where the goal was to up the angst every chance there was. (Not that I have much experience with fan fiction and not that all fan fiction is like that…)