Narrated by Michael Dean & Dan Calley
Heartscape is book 2 in the Vino and Veritas series, set in Serena Bowen’s True North world. Tanner Reid is the manager of the Vino bar – which is a little surprising because he knows nothing about wine. He’s taciturn, insular and a man of few words. As the book begins. Tanner’s brother, Gabriel, is leaving town for work and expresses concern for Tanner so there’s clearly some history there and the listener gets the sense there are significant mental health issues in Tanner’s past.
That same day the backpacker’s hostel across the road burns down and all the guests have no place to stay. Tanner notices a handsome man outside the hostel; he’s obviously someone who’s been affected by the fire. Eve is Tanner’s brother’s kind-of girlfriend and Tanner’s friend too. She’s also a college friend of the man Tanner spotted outside the hostel. She offers to help find him a place to sleep for the night – which ends up being on Tanner’s couch.
Tanner is instantly attracted to the handsome redheaded man, Jax, but it takes a long time before anything happens between them.
Jax is originally from Cornwall but came over to the US to pursue a surfing career. Until recently, he had been in California. After suffering a horrific injury following in a shark attack, he stopped surfing and is now a wildlife photographer and videographer. He’s in Vermont to assist the local wildlife adventure trail business and he’s trying to find and photograph various wildlife including an elusive Canadian lynx.
Jax stays at Tanner’s house for a while as he gets on his feet again. And in that time, the two men become close friends. Jax has his own baggage. He was married and was treated quite badly by his wife and her father. He’s now at the point where he’s beginning to make decisions for himself after feeling quite paralysed in being able to decide anything because of his past.
Tanner formerly worked in mountain rescue and clearly suffered from a mental illness (PTSD?) as a result of the various traumatic things he saw. The year before the book begins, he had some kind of mental break and his friends and family became very worried about him.
It takes quite a while for the background of Tanner’s life to come out in the story but it’s clear that he has suffered significant trauma. Jax’s involvement in the wildlife adventure trails causes Tanner quite a bit of stress.
The two men begin a physical relationship just before Jax moves out into his own place. Jax needs to live on his own and be his own person in order to be in a healthy relationship with Tanner. And so things move relatively slowly in their romance after that. It’s not a matter of “Jax moves in and never leaves”. The couch surfing was really only the beginning of things. But after that they develop a very strong friendship and from there a romance blossoms.
There are external things going on and a bit of suspense and adventure at the end. But for the most part, the story is about two people that have significant baggage finding someone they can love. It’s a very simple story, but effective.
The narration is by Dan Calley and Michael Dean. Dan Calley narrates Jax’s sections and Michael Dean narrates Tanner’s. This was my first experience with Dan Calley and I was quite impressed by it. I enjoyed his sections much more than Michael Dean’s.
Mr. Dean’s narration was good apart from the accent he gave for Jax for most of the book. The accent was Irish, not anywhere close to Cornwall. What was really frustrating was that there was approximately a chapter when Mr. Dean actually did give Jax a Cornish accent so I know he could do it. It just wasn’t consistent throughout the book and I’m really unclear as to why. There was just the one chapter that had the right accent – and that right chapter was approximately chapter 3. I have to say the accent really bugged me. And hopping between the two narrators where one (Mr. Calley) got the accent right and the other got it wrong was really jarring.
Apart from the accent issue though, the way the narration unfolded was otherwise very good. And I suppose if people aren’t fussed about accents, it’ll make less of a difference than it did to me.
Most of the book is fairly insular and focused tightly on the developing relationship between Jax and Tanner. Right near the end there’s a bit of adventure which serves to bring the true feelings that the men have for each other front and centre.
I wasn’t as caught up in this story as I wanted to be. And I suspect a fair bit of this was because of the accent issue that I had with Michael Dean’s performance. I’m also generally not a huge fan of the evil ex trope, particularly in M/M romance. I should note there are some heavy topics in this book including domestic abuse of the emotional variety, financial abuse and depression and suicidal ideation. Pleasingly both characters have had or are getting therapy by the end of the book. And true love doesn’t fix everything. But both of them are better together. I did believe in them as a couple even though the book didn’t really grab my soul.
Kaetrin
Buy Heartscape by Garrett Leigh on Amazon
I liked this one in print, but I’m not a fan of either narrator so decided to skip it in audio. Michael Dean /Pauley is incredibly popular and is obviously very experienced – the few times I’ve listened to him, I hear that he knows what he’s doing, he differentiates well and does all those other technical things absolutely right – but then he ruins it with his tendency to over-emphasise things and go right over the top dramatically. I’m glad I didn’t get to experience the accent!fail.
Dan Calley seems to have become Garrett Leigh’s narrator of choice, but unfortunately, he doesn’t work that well for me either. I don’t really know why as, again, he knows what he’s doing, and as a Londoner (or nearly!) his accent is right and authentic for many of her books. I don’t know whether it’s intonation or something else, but while I’m a Leigh fan, I’m sticking to print for now.
I enjoyed this book in print, a solid B for me, but like Caz I’m not a big fan of either narrator. Michael Dean has been hit and miss. I’ve only listened to one book by Dan Calley and it was fine, but Calley doesn’t infuse the narrative sections with much emotion and he tends to use some upspeak (ending sentences on a rising terminal) as well. Upspeak is a real irritant for me when listening to audiobooks. I can’t seem to concentrate on the words since my brain starts tracking the speech pattern instead. Unless you’re Australian (or narrating one), you should avoid upspeak, imo. :-)
I don’t think that I’ve listened to either of these narrators before but I’m very sure that the accent issue you mention would annoy me enormously! Also the evil-ex is amongst my least favourite tropes, so I will give this a miss.
I’m really not sure why dual narrations are considered necessary/a good thing for m/m books. I can understand why some people might like them for m/f romances but, personally, I prefer to have one good narrator, with one consistent voice for each character.
I agree about dual narration on mm books. I’m happy to listen to two good narrators, but there are talented narrators more than up for the challenge of narrating alone, and I mostly prefer that anyway.
Same on the dual narration issue. I see lots of people around FB groups saying how much they love dual narrations, and then I see others who hate them because the two narrators can’t make the characters sound the same.
I think I’ll always prefer one really good narrator – there are several in m/m who are more than capable of carrying a book on their own – but it does seem to be the preference for many contemporary romance audios.
I don’t mind either one or two narrators but consistency is important for me – when there’s an accent I need to hear both narrators (if there are 2) using at least a similar version of it. Swapping back and forth between a “good” accent and a “bad” one did my head in a bit in this one.