Unbound by Cara McKenna

Narrated by Lucy Rivers

Unbound tells the story of Merry Murray who, after losing a lot of weight, goes on a walking tour of Scotland, the place of her mother’s birth. There, she falls ill and seeks shelter in the secluded cabin of grumpy hermit, Rob Rush. Rob is in self-imposed exile; alone in the Highlands, he is safe from the seduction of alcohol and, what he feels is his problematic sexuality. Over the course of a few days as Merry recovers, she and Rob give in to their attraction and Rob finds in Merry someone who will not turn away from his fetishes – in fact, who actively encourages them.

I struggled with this book.  I’ve come to realise that this narrator doesn’t work for me.  I can’t say that she’s a bad narrator (really, that would be unfair), just that she’s not to my taste.  I didn’t like the voice she used for Rob.  While there were times it was okay, even convincing, more often, it felt really fake – the female narrator equivalent of the male narrator’s dreaded drag-y female voice.

To be fair, at first I thought Rob’s accent was the worst Scottish accent in history but after a chapter or two, the text does say he’s actually from Leeds and he only moved to Scotland to get away from it all. I don’t know if the accent is authentically Leeds but it is working class UK, so it might be. The accent was mostly okay (once I knew he wasn’t supposed to be Scottish) but I didn’t care for the narrator’s voicing of his character.

I didn’t realise the heroine’s name was Merry until I looked the book up on Goodreads to check my spelling and the publisher details. It was pronounced Mary to my ears.

It is quite an interior book, with not as much dialogue as I would have liked, resulting in a lot of telling and not enough showing. Some parts of the story felt didactic and not terribly romantic or sexy.

On the other hand, there were moments that felt almost uncomfortably intimate. It is a close, claustrophobic kind of book, as you’d expect in a cabin romance I suppose. While I didn’t like it (like I said, uncomfortable), I think it achieved its aim in that regard.

Lucy River’s narration was not always what the text called for. As an example, there is one part where Merry says “Lie down Rob” and the dialogue tag tells me she says it coldly. Except her voice sounded warm and kind of sexy – not cold at all.

How much of my struggle was due to the narration and how much was due to the content is difficult for me to say. Certainly, it didn’t help that I interrupted my listen of Unbound to listen to Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels
(which was AMAZING). And, honestly, almost any book would pale in comparison.

Rob has a paraphilia/fetish about rope and he’s also into humiliation. He can become aroused by a woman but he can’t get off without the rope (or at least thinking about the rope). This was new to me. I’ve read and listened to books that deal with kink but they were, mostly, books where the characters were comfortable in their sexuality or where the kink was an optional extra or at least not a necessity every time. For Rob, the rope was the most important aspect and I found it a bit difficult because it seemed to me he wasn’t as attracted to Merry as much as her willingness to go along with his rope fetish. Rob liked to be dominated and that may have made me uncomfortable as well. I’ve read and very much enjoyed Joey W. Hill’s Natural Law and that features a female Domme and a(n alpha) male submissive. I’ve also read plenty of m/m romance where there is a BDSM component and necessarily the submissive is a male. Did I have a problem with the Dominant being a female?  I honestly don’t know. I didn’t in Natural Law; Mac Nighthorse was a very different character to Rob Rush though – so maybe that has something to do with it.

I was a bit surprised at how willing Merry was to explore the rope and humiliation aspects of Rob’s sexuality, particularly as she had never done it before. However, she didn’t appear to be hesitant when it came to tying Rob up, even though, as I understand it, rope play can be a little dangerous and care is needed to ensure circulation is maintained, etc.

Rob’s unremitting self-loathing made it difficult for me to see him as a romantic hero. He had not dealt with his addiction and he is still bound by shame in relation to his alcoholism and his sexuality. He’s not magically cured by love (this is a good thing) but he was so far from being okay that I felt he wasn’t ready for a romantic connection. I struggled to see what Merry found so attractive about his neediness. She falls easily into a caretaking role and their relationship felt very unequal to me.

There is a happy ending and it doesn’t take place until Rob has done quite a bit to sort himself out, which I appreciated. I’d describe as more a HFN (happy for now) with a good deal of promise for the future rather than a HEA though – which was entirely appropriate for the story.

In the end, I didn’t connect well with either of the main characters. Some of it, I’m sure, was me. Some of it was the good book hangover from Lord of Scoundrels (did I mention how good it was?). Some of it was the story (I do think I would have enjoyed it a little better in print as I would have been able to skim much of the navel gazing) and some of it was a narrator who doesn’t work for me that well.  I adored Cara McKenna’s Curio as well as Willing Victim, but I’m sorry to say, this one wasn’t to my taste for one reason or another.

I’m afraid this isn’t a very useful review, but there you have it.

Kaetrin

Narration:  C-

Book Content:  C-

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  None

Genre:  Erotic Romance/Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Tantor Audio

Unbound was provided to AudioGals for review by Tantor Audio.