Turnabout by Laurel Greer

Narrated by Gary Furlong

The Vino and Veritas series has been something of a mixed bag overall. I’ve loved one or two of the books, liked a few and found several to be distinctly ‘meh’. It’s introduced me to some new authors, although I have to say that the books I’ve enjoyed the most have been those by authors whose work I’m already familiar with (Garrett Leigh, Jay Hogan, L.A. Witt etc.). I admit that I picked up Laurel Greer’s Turnabout because Gary Furlong is the narrator; I always enjoy listening to him, and given that the two leads in this book are an American and a Scot, I knew I wouldn’t be wincing at any horrible accent!fails.

The story is built around your typical city-big-shot-returns-to-small-home-town-and-rekindles-youthful-romance trope, and features Carter Prescott, who left Burlington and his father’s small artisanal print shop to work for a hugely successful office supplies company based in Montreal and Auden Macarthur, who left his home in Scotland to attend college in Vermont (where he met Carter) and who stayed in Burlington when Carter left. Carter is very happily climbing the corporate ladder and has recently been appointed VP of OfficeMart – the youngest ever – when he gets a phone call from his dad Francis telling him that his mother has left him, citing the fact that he’s always put the business first and never has any time for her. His dad is flying out to Paris to try to work things out with her and wants Carter to drop everything and come home to help out for a few days while he’s gone.

Carter is, naturally, worried about his mother and the state of his parents’ marriage, and makes arrangements to go back to Vermont – he can do his job remotely, he has a very capable 2IC (second-in-command) in the office and he can handle whatever needs handling at the shop. It’ll be fine. Even though it will bring him face-to-face with Auden, whom he’s rarely seen since they broke up ten years earlier.

The romance proceeds as you might expect, with an awkward reunion and a few recriminations before Carter and Auden begin to realise that they’re still attracted to each other. When Francis calls to say he’s staying in Paris for a bit longer to have an actual holiday with his wife -something he hasn’t done in years – Carter isn’t best pleased, but agrees to find a way to make it work for their sake, and risks pissing off the people at his real job in the process. He and Auden decide to make the most of the short amount of time they have together before Carter goes back to Montreal, and agree to a short fling – even though it’s quickly clear to both of them that whatever is going on between them, it isn’t casual.

Most of the conflict in Turnabout comes courtesy of Old Man Prescott, who is, quite simply, an arsehole for pretty much the entire book. It’s clear early on that the main reason Carter left Vermont and Imprescott Designs was because of his father’s stubbornness in insisting on doing things the way they’ve always been done and refusing to even listen to any of Carter’s ideas to develop and grow the business. I didn’t blame Carter at all for wanting to get out and forge his own path, and I didn’t blame him for leaving Auden behind either, because Auden was basically too chickenshit to follow his heart. Carter bends over backwards to help his dad, yet all he gets in return is criticism and snide digs even as he’s doing the man a massive favour, and having to watch his dad treat Auden like a son.

And speaking of Auden, I never worked out what Carter saw in him and never warmed to him. Auden’s father walked out on him and his mum when Auden was little, and his mum basically brought him up to value security above all else. It’s understandable, but Auden has continued to live like that, always putting her experiences above his own, afraid to take a risk and holding back from going for what he wants. He’s really wary of going against any advice she gives him, and he also behaves very much like Carter’s dad at times, shutting Carter down about anything to do with work.

It’s the death knell for a romance when you end up thinking that one of the protagonists just doesn’t deserve the other, and that’s how I felt about Carter and Auden here. Carter is a great guy – intelligent, creative, loving – and Auden is just… there.

I also found it really difficult to become invested in all the minutiae of paper and card types, and printing, and inks and typefaces and fonts… in short I just couldn’t see the fortunes of a small-town print-shop as some kind of high-stakes enterprise. I get that there would be no story without it, and I appreciated how the author handles the ‘how do we make this business successful while retaining its artisanal heart and soul’ dilemma – but there’s just too much of it, and the pacing falters while the story meanders off into discussions of papers and inks and whathaveyous. I started to tune them out – which isn’t exactly ideal when listening to an audiobook!

Gary Furlong is one of my go-to narrators, and as I said at the beginning, his name on Turnabout is why I picked it up. He doesn’t disappoint, delivering an expressive, expertly characterised performance that brings the characters vividly to life and perfectly realises their emotions and experiences. The narration is well-paced and clearly differentiated, with male and female characters easily distinguishable; and Mr. Furlong’s considerable skill at adopting a variety of accents is on display as he switches seamlessly between American (Carter), Scottish (Auden) and French (Carter’s 2IC), and making a decent job of the handful of French phrases he’s called upon to say. It’s a very good performance, and his Scottish accent will no doubt cause widespread swooning (!) as will the various mentions of Auden wearing a kilt, but I’m afraid the sexy accent didn’t make me like him any better!

Despite the excellent performance, my advice would be to Turnabout, walk away from this one, and find a romance where you can believe the protagonists truly belong together.

Caz

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