Narrated by Alexander Cendese and Sean Crisden
I’m not a fan of sports of any kind (my idea of exercise is opening a good book!) so I’ve tended to steer clear of sports romances because I had the feeling that the parts of the story dealing with the sport in question would probably bore me to tears. But I was encouraged to dip my toe into the genre a little while back, and liked what I heard (in, among others, Serena Bowen and Elle Kennedy’s Him and its follow-up, Us) – and quite honestly, seeing as I’ve as little idea about Football, Cricket and Rugby as I have about American Football, Baseball and Ice Hockey, I realised the type of sport doesn’t matter as long as I’ve got a couple of characters I can root for and a good story in my ears.
I admit, though, that what attracted me to The Blueprint were the narrators. I’ve listened to both Alexander Cendese and Sean Crisden before (in different audiobooks) and really enjoyed their performances, so the idea of listening to them narrating the same book was an attractive one – and one that really paid off. The storyline, while enjoyable, isn’t particularly original, but the narration really elevated the story and enabled me to get past the creakier moments without too much trouble.
Kelly Cannon is a twenty-nine-year-old physics professor at a small but highly respected college. He’s a hip geek, he enjoys his job, his friends, has a loving family and he’s in love – sounds like he’s got it all, right? The trouble is that the guy Kelly is in love with is the guy who’s been his best friend since they were twelve, star NFL player Britton ‘Blue’ Montgomery. Who is straight. Kelly knows it’s stupid, he knows it’s hopeless, and he knows his feelings for Blue have sabotaged pretty much every relationship he’s had since he was sixteen… but it’s not something he can just turn off or ignore. Still, he knows he can’t spend the rest of his life pining for a guy he can never have, so he decides to try to put a little distance between them.
Blue has always known his football career has an expiration date, and at thirty, he knows that date isn’t too far off. He’s continually under pressure – whether it’s on the field during games, off the field from his coaches who want him to finish the season without injuring his previously damaged knee, or from his younger, hungry team-mates who are just waiting for their chance to shine. He’s at the top of the pile; hugely successful, a fan favourite, never without female company when he wants it… but even with all that going for him, when he realises that Kelly is becoming distant, Blue hates it. The Cannons were far more of a family to him than his own ever was, and Kelly is more than his best friend; they’re as close as two people can be without being lovers, and the idea that Kelly is avoiding him – of not having Kelly in his life – fills Blue with dread.
Blue has never been attracted to men, but when he inadvertently stumbles on Kelly and another guy in an intimate moment, he’s surprised to find he’s… jealous? Of course not. Even after he gets drunk one night and asks Kelly to kiss him, Blue continues to deny the attraction or that he wants anything more than friendship… and actually, he’s a bit of a git to Kelly, especially after Kelly has the guts to fess up and tell Blue he’s in love with him. I wanted to smack Blue upside the head at this point; he comes on to Kelly and then, once they’ve had sex, retreats, saying that he’s basically straight and that nothing has really changed between them. In spite of that, however, and even as I was fuming at Blue for trampling on Kelly’s feelings, I could understand his position. He’s always known what he wanted – career wise, anyway – and has been set on a path towards achieving that every day, a path that didn’t include discovering that he’s attracted to, and might want more than friendship from, his best friend. Add to that confusion the fact that he’s a high-profile figure in a notoriously homophobic sport, and it’s not surprising that Blue takes a while to work things out. The trouble is that he hurts Kelly while he’s doing it.
That might make Kelly sound like a bit of a doormat, but he’s not. He’s sharp and funny and loving, and when he has the opportunity to touch Blue the way he’s wanted to for so long, he can’t pass it up. He has a life that doesn’t revolve around Blue, good relationships with family, friends and colleagues and even though he can’t help but wonder if he’s just a bi-curious experiment, there’s a limit to how much crap he’ll put up with. I liked that he was prepared to put himself out there and tell Blue the truth about his feelings, while Blue is waiting for his brain to catch up with what the rest of him has known for years.
As I said at the beginning, the two narrators were the big draw for me on this one, and they most definitely didn’t disappoint. Alexander Cendese narrates the chapters from Kelly’s PoV, and he absolutely nails the character, perfectly capturing his deadpan sense of humour and geekiness, his self-awareness and capacity for warmth and tenderness. He drops the pitch of his voice to portray Blue, and all the secondary characters are skilfully delineated so there’s never any question as to who is speaking. His pacing is spot on and his delivery simply crackles with an infectious energy, which serves as a nice contrast to Sean Crisden’s slightly more laid-back delivery in the portions of the book told from Blue’s PoV. Where Mr. Cendese’s voice has a slightly harsh edge to it that works well to describe Kelly’s generally upbeat character, Mr. Crisden’s is like listening to warm chocolate being poured over velvet, slightly deeper in pitch and richly resonant. His portrayal of Blue is excellent, a great mixture of confidence and confusion, and he does a superb job with Kelly’s dialogue, too, as well as with the handful of female secondary characters who crop up from time to time. In fact, if I have a complaint overall, it’s that Mr. Cendese’s female voices are a little close to caricature, but honestly, there aren’t many of them, and that slightly exaggerated quality actually works to his advantage in the part of the story where Kelly (finally) comes out to his family (Kelly’s mother is hilarious). So I suppose it’s not really a complaint, more of a “by the way”.
The Blueprint is an entertaining friends-to-lovers, GFY (or should that be BiFY?) story that doesn’t break any new ground, but which has plenty of snark and chemistry between the leads, and benefits from fabulous performances from two very experienced, engaging narrators. It’s funny, sexy and relatively low-angst; the ending is HFN and a bit rushed, but there’s a sequel coming out at the end of October (in print – I’m not sure about audio) which will no doubt tie up any loose ends.
Caz
Buy The Blueprint by S.E. Harmon on Amazon
