Narrated by Jon Waters
I was so impressed with Jon Waters’ narration in KD Casey’s Fire Season that I immediately went to Audible to look for more of his work. He’s narrated a couple of series by Hayden Hall, but they’re New Adult/College Student stories, which are not generally my bag, so when I saw Mr. Waters listed as the narrator of another Hall title – Rescued – which seemed as though it would be a meatier, angstier story, I decided to give it a go. The narration was, as I’d hoped, excellent – the story, however, was a bit of a disappointment. It starts really well, but kinda goes downhill from there; the middle is flabby and drags, and the love interest is barely two-dimensional, which made it very difficult for me to become invested in the romance.
When Rescued begins, it’s the middle of the night and Archer Navarro is getting ready to flee his home and his emotionally abusive partner of six years. His fear of getting caught and the tension in the atmosphere are palpable as he quietly leaves the bed and creeps into the main room to find the bag he’s packed and locate the keys for the car. He makes it out and to the car just as the light inside goes on and Thomas must know he’s no longer in bed; panicked, Archer fumbles with the ignition a couple of times until, on the third try, the car starts and he pulls away. He doesn’t have a plan and he doesn’t have much money (just over a hundred bucks) but at least he’s out of the house he’s been almost a prisoner in for years.
He hasn’t been driving for very long when he sees flashing lights in the rear-view mirror and hears the blare of a siren; the officer who stops him tells him he was speeding and has a broken tail-light, and things are pleasant enough until Archer opens the glove compartment to get the registration and finds Thomas’ gun inside. The police officer immediately yells at him to get out of the car, cuffs him and places him under arrest.
Fortunately for Archer, the detective who questions him is sympathetic, and organises a place for him at a local shelter, a place specifically for queer people that doesn’t ask for “a bunch of papers, police reports or a history of abuse”.
And here’s where things start to go downhill.
The day after he moves in to the studio apartment he’s been allocated, Archer meets his handsome next-door neighbour, Brooklyn and is smitten pretty much immediately. Brooklyn is a little bit mysterious and has an air of Bad Boy about him, but he and Archer quickly become friends, and Brooklyn seems to have appointed himself Archer’s protector. When Archer says he wants to see Thomas to try to get some closure, Brooklyn offers to drive him and wait outside the café where they’ve arranged to meet. Later in the story, he drives Archer to see his ailing father, an abusive drunk who never gave a shit about either of his kids (Archer has an older sister, Brie) and who was the main reason Archer jumped at Thomas’ invitation to move in with him after they’d been together for less than a year – and again, waits for him outside to make sure he stays safe.
So Brooklyn is a good guy who seems to genuinely care for Archer – but because we never get his PoV, we never really know what he sees in Archer or why he falls for him. He also seems to be living at the shelter because his mother threw him out at sixteen (over a decade earlier) and now assuages her guilt by donating large sums to the place, and he lives there permanently. So he’s essentially taking up an apartment that could house another abused person fleeing their abuser. And I just couldn’t credit that Archer – who has just got out of a SIX YEAR relationship with someone who manipulated and gaslit him – would jump straight into a relationship with someone he’s known for just a couple of weeks. Workshops and activities for the people living at the shelter are mentioned, but Archer never goes to any of them or seems to do any of the work on himself that he needs to, or take any time to heal – it’s all about his attraction to Brooklyn and the amazing sex they’re having within about two weeks of meeting.
The story picks up again towards the end, when Archer, still carrying a lot of guilt over not being there for his sister, for leaving her to cope with their dad alone and not being around to realise that her husband is violent, decides it’s time for him to step up and remove her and her daughter from an abusive situation. This decision makes sense in terms of who Archer is as a character – but he’s only at the beginning of his own journey towards recovery, and not in the best position to be a support for someone else. He focuses on his need to help Brie, but has no real plan, which leaves him vulnerable.
Given Archer’s situation, I’d expected Rescued to be a slow-burn romance building from an initially tentative friendship in which Archer would slowly learn to trust again with Brooklyn’s help and support. Instead, Brooklyn remains mostly on the sidelines, except in the sex scenes (which, by the way, are way too long, don’t add anything to the story and feel like they belong in a different book), and there’s no real sense of connection between them. While there are some aspects of the story that work – Archer’s family situation is frustrating, but at least it’s interesting – the romance, sadly, isn’t one of them.
As I said at the beginning, Jon Waters delivers an excellent performance, and it’s largely thanks to him that I made it to the end of the book. The narration is well-paced and strongly characterised, with clear and identifiable voices for the entire cast, and a wide range of emotion and expression is employed throughout. Mr. Waters’ interpretation of the two leads is very good, the slightly higher pitch adopted for Archer lending him an air of innocence and contrasting well with Brooklyn’s deeper tones and slight edge of cynicism. The various secondary characters are well-rendered, too – there’s a harsh edge to Thomas’ voice and a gravelly, bitter note to Archer’s dad’s that work to show the listener just who these people are – and Mr. Waters’ portrayal of the female roles continues to impress.
Sadly, though, the terrific performance couldn’t disguise the weaknesses in the story, and I can’t recommend Rescued. I remain eager to listen to more from Jon Waters, but I think I’ll be looking for books by a different author.
Caz
Buy Rescued by Hayden Hall on Amazon
Add the narrator to my list but not the author- Check!
Thanks for the review. I’ve eyed a couple of this author’s books recently but was hesitant because many are New Adult, which like you, is not my cup of tea.
I don’t know if this is the case or just that I notice it because it’s NOT my thing, but it seems to me that a vast majority of m/m is NA/college age stories. I regularly look through the lists of m/m releases per month on GR, and most seem to fall within that category.
I really hope Jon Waters gets to narrate some better stories soon – he’s very talented and deserves better material than this.
I’ve been noticing the same thing. There are a few NA books I’ve read and enjoyed (Anabeth Albert’s True Colors series), but overall I’m not interested in reading aboout a college-aged person’s love life. That means I’m skipping a lot of well-reviewed (at least on GR) m/m books and authors. I’m willing to give authors I already know and trust, like Ms. Albert, a try, but am reluctant to jump in with an unknown author.
And so many of the synopses sound exactly the same. They’re in love with their closeted roommate, they’re looking for a Daddy, they’re in hate-lust with their rival, they want to lose their v-card, and other variations on the same themes. As you say, some authors can make it work, but college romances aren’t usually for me either.