Not Quite Enough by Catherine Bybee

Narrated by Amy McFadden

Not Quite Enough is my first Catherine Bybee but it won’t be my last. I think I have found a new contemporary author to read/listen to. There were a few things I didn’t care for but both the story and the narration were very entertaining and I liked the characters very much.

Monica Mann is an ER nurse at Pomona General in LA. After a really bad day at work, she breaks up with her would-be boyfriend (they’ve been dating only two months and he’s ready to propose – she’s ready to run far far away). That evening, she hears of an horrific earthquake and tsunami in Jamaica and one of the ER doctors asks if she will join the “Borderless Nurses” team heading over to give aid. She has had training with the organisation but this will be her first actual experience in disaster relief. Her supervisor at work doesn’t like her and isn’t happy about Monica taking leave and insists she arrange someone to cover her shifts (I suppose this happens in the US? Here it would be the supervisor’s job to do that).

In Jamaica, things are very dire, with many people killed and injured and a severe lack of services, personnel, and equipment as you’d expect after a disaster. Helicopter pilot Trent Fairchild flies Monica and two others to the hospital (as the roads are so bad) and there is an instant spark of attraction between them. Neither thinks it’s very likely much can come of it given their circumstances, but Trent hopes to see the pretty nurse again and Monica appreciates his smile and strong, steady presence, when all around her is so much suffering.

The next day, Monica is asked to head to a remote clinic on the other side of the island to help out and Trent escorts her there. His home is close to the clinic and he offers his shower and (full) coffeepot for her use. Thus begins a friendship between the two. I liked that they didn’t just jump into bed and that neither Monica nor Trent acted irresponsibly (as regards to their professional obligations) in taking a few moments here and there to get to know each other.

After new personnel arrive at the clinic to give Monica some relief, she is ordered to have 24 hours off to rest (she hasn’t slept in three days) and eat and replenish herself. Trent and Monica picnic on a secluded beach and consummate their physical relationship in the nearby cave.

The blurb gives away that they become trapped in a life or death scenario so I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say they are trapped in the cave when a significant aftershock occurs. Monica is injured and Trent must take care of her while they wait for rescue.

Not Quite Enough is the third in the Not Quite series – I gather the earlier books feature Monica’s sister Jessie and her now-husband Jack (a millionaire hotelier) and Jack’s sister, Katie and her now-husband Dean (not that I was lost in this book at all). Trent comes from money – he and his brothers own a multi-national travel and charter service. The wealth of their respective families makes an otherwise unlikely rescue believable.

When I read the blurb I kind of expected that the book would finish after their rescue – it’s a romance so I knew they would be rescued. To my surprise, things don’t happen that way. There is more to the story when Monica returns home. This gives Monica and Trent the chance to work out some kinks in their relationship and to get to know each other in non-life threatening circumstances so they can both be sure in their feelings. I liked this but it also meant that the ending was somewhat anti-climactic.

I appreciated the fact that Trent didn’t try to be a superhero in the cave and that they took some time to get to know each other – I’m not a huge fan of the instalove. There were a couple of overly saccharine moments for me involving a patient of Monica’s at Pomona General and I didn’t like that the jerk-ex didn’t get the comeuppance I wanted him to get. There is also a period in the book where Monica and Trent are at odds and given that it was based on a “big misunderstanding” (never my favourite trope), that didn’t thrill me either.

There was definite chemistry between Monica and Trent and the audio format only enhanced this. Amy McFadden is a new-to-me narrator but, again, I will definitely be listening to more of her work. She doesn’t have a super deep voice for her male characters but they are sufficiently differentiated to make it clear who is talking and she delivers the “vibe” really well.

I think it must be a challenge for a narrator to perform some characters – here, there were quite a few Jamaican people to be voiced, both male and female. I thought Ms. McFadden did a good job of something that could easily have fallen into caricature and/or be seen as appropriation.

The movie, The Impossible, which is set in Thailand after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, was criticised for showing the disaster from the POV of a white English family rather than the native people. I suppose a similar thing could be said here except that the story was about Monica and Trent and part of the setting was the disaster in Jamaica. Nevertheless there are some parallels. The author did make an effort to include some Jamaican people in the story and make them more than just window dressing but at the same time, there is an element of “white people to the rescue” which may be uncomfortable for some listeners (it was occasionally uncomfortable for me).

Amy McFadden’s narration was easy and not hyperbolic and her pacing suited the style of the story. I felt she delivered the emotion of the novel very well; the devastation of the quake, the growing connection and love between Monica and Trent, and the strong familial bonds between Jessie and Monica and Trent and his brothers. (I wonder if Trent’s brothers are going to get their own books? I bet they will.)

While I hadn’t heard Ms. McFadden’s work before, her voice had a similar quality to a number of my favourite narrators of contemporary romance (Kate Rudd, Sophie Eastlake, Tanya Eby), just as Ms. Bybee’s book had a similar quality to a number of my favourite contemporary authors (Nora Roberts, Virginia Kantra, Robyn Carr). They’re not exactly the same of course, but if listeners like the ones I mentioned, I think they will enjoy this too.

Kaetrin

Narration:  B+

Book Content:  B

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Minimal

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio

Not Quite Enough was provided to AudioGals for review by Brilliance Audio.