Joy Ride by Lauren Blakely

Narrated by Sebastian York

Max Summers is all man – he’s a man’s man, a top mechanic, the king of custom built dream cars, who might occasionally, in private, indulge his softer side in his claw-foot tub with a bath bomb or two. Five years ago, he was mentoring an extremely talented employee, treated said employee a little harshly, and the younger mechanic stormed out. Now, Henley Rose Marlowe is back in town and she’s working for his biggest rival. And Max and Henley have just been tapped by a cable DIY show to trick out a Lamborghini, together. Game on.

Lauren Blakely is a prolific recent entry to the contemporary romance/romantic comedy world – she self-pubbed her first book 3 years ago – and had the incredibly good luck to use some of the best narrators for her style, including Sebastian York, who brings this one to your ears. (Might not have been just luck – might have been really great taste in narrators!) Her style borders on the “New Adult”-ish craze, which I consider a more serious, angsty genre with late-teen, early 20s protagonists, not this sassy, funny version of rom-com. They are written in first person, and when written from two perspectives, she uses two narrators. I think part of the newer twist on contemporary from Blakely and other authors, like Emma Chase, is the slightly more graphic and a little raunchier descriptions in first person of pretty much everything – I started to write “sex”, but it’s also a little grittier and more stream-of-consciousness view of the protagonists’ worlds in general, even when it’s funny. In so many ways, this ain’t your mother’s romance (me being the “mother” in this scenario) but I’m still a fan!

In Joy Ride, Max and Henley have to find a way to get past the explosive argument that erupted when Max declined to give her the promotion she thought she deserved five years earlier, even though she made a pretty big mistake painting a car the wrong color. It’s clear from the first words out of Max’s mind at the top of the book that he had it bad for Henley from the beginning, in spite of his declarations of being a serial-one-night-stand guy to the core. (Note: the author told us one thing, but showed us something else! Love it!) So maybe they both need to bend a little about it, and find a way to deal with the electricity sparking between them. And without any real angst, just some manly-smelling bath bombs, a recipe for mac-and-cheese, and a monkey, they find middle ground pretty happily, and hopefully ever after. I laughed a lot and smiled and felt some heart-string-tugs – so yeah, this one was good.

Sebastian York did his trademarked SY thing – he was good too! He has a terrifically sexy voice, low and just a titch gruff, with a very natural pace and delivery. He doesn’t go very much out of his way to separate Max and Henley by pitch or range, he mostly just softens up Henley a little. Admittedly, more than once he softened up Max – who really was a softy deep down – and I got confused about who was speaking for a sec. He makes subtle changes to his voice for other characters – his sister and brother, the other mechanics in his shop – so that I felt comfortable knowing who was talking 99.9% of the time. His acting chops are finely tuned, which makes his narration sound more like he’s actually recounting a personal story. He’s got all the best attributes of an experienced and talented romance narrator – no awkward pauses ever, no loud breathing, and he incorporates the author’s vocal cues into the dialogue without punctuating with them (by this I mean, I have never heard SY say: “He chuckled – heh heh” which I have heard other narrators do, much to my horror.) His delivery of the intimate scenes, which as I said, are a just little raunchier in style than, say, contemporary romance a decade ago, is done well and fits the overall tone of the story.

I’ve been rating this style of story and narrations B+ pretty much across the board, to indicate my positive recommendation. Somehow, I find it hard to elevate them to my A-level rated favorites, and I’m questioning why, internally and externally for you now. I generally use a gut feeling for my A rated books – these are books that inspire me to listen to them again and again, books that touch me whether through the humor or the pathos or even the angst. From them, I find eternal truths and deeper knowledge – ok, by that I mean they speak to me, my life, situations that I can relate to. And all that to say, I don’t have a left-brain, scientific reason why one book gets A/A- over another that evokes a B+ (now, those A+ just jump out, no questions asked). And I’m thinking maybe I’m a little prejudiced – maybe these newer authors, with their 20-something protagonists, in their shorter stories, just haven’t inspired me or maybe I’m holding back, thinking there’s no way Blakely can compete with classics like SEP’s Chicago Stars. OK – that was my navel-gazing moment. I don’t have any real answers – I’m just telling you about an audiobook I enjoyed, and I hope you enjoy it as well!

PS Fun cover concept, but where are his legs?