Single by Saturday by Catherine Bybee

Narrated by Tanya Eby

Single by Saturday is the fourth book in Catherine Bybee’s Weekday Brides series but I think this book stands alone well.  Samantha Elliot runs Alliance, a matchmaking service. Hollywood action star Michael Wolfe seeks a temporary wife to throw the paparazzi and industry people off the scent that he’s actually gay. Samantha’s friend, Karen Jones, agrees to be that temporary wife. This book starts at their first anniversary party – their marriage has but a few months left according to their contract, but they have become good friends even though there is no sexual spark between them (of course).

Michael’s family lives in Hilton, Idaho. They are very upset that they have never met Michael’s wife and delegate oldest brother Zach to visit and put the hard word on Michael and Karen to come for a visit. There is instant chemistry between Zach and Karen but, of course, Zach is horrified at the thought. Karen is his brother’s wife and he has no idea about the truth of their arrangement. Karen is similarly horrified even though she doesn’t have the same issues Zach does.

Bowing to pressure, Michael and Karen head to Hilton for the family visit. Karen, who has little by way of family, is quickly absorbed into the large loving brood of Gardners and it is bittersweet for her – once she divorces Michael she will never see them again. Her attraction to Zach grows but she tries to resist it.

Due to her own family history, Karen’s mission in life is to help runaway teens. When she meets a pair of teens in trouble in Hilton, she ends up staying to help and this puts her in closer proximity to Zach than she intended.

Technically, Single by Saturday is both a marriage of convenience book and an adultery book. It’s unusual in that the MOC is not between the hero and heroine. And, as for the adultery, it is saved from being completely icky by the fact that Karen and Michael have never been intimate (though for the longest time, Zach doesn’t know that) and by Michael’s own hook up with an old friend in Hilton (with Karen’s blessing). Also, Karen and Michael are close friends and she doesn’t deceive him. These things had me being prepared to accept the relationship without the ick factor. That said, the structure of the story necessarily meant that there wasn’t a lot by way of intimate scenes and what’s there comes fairly late in the piece.

Zach’s family isn’t Mormon but there is mention of the Mormon church. Right up until the end, I was a bit concerned that it was presented very negatively, but some balance was obtained late in the piece. If this is a hot button for you, I can promise that it gets better but whether it will be enough will be a matter for individual listeners.

While I’d like to think that a gay actor in Hollywood would be accepted these days, it is still the case that homophobia and prejudice exist so I was prepared to accept the setup for the sake of the story. And, I appreciated that not everything was all neatly tied up in a bow at the end.  (Perhaps it will be in future stories – Zach’s sister Judy is the heroine of the next book.)

Tanya Eby is one of my favourite narrators so I knew I’d enjoy her performance here. There were more than a few times however when the sentence as performed, didn’t quite finish at the right place – that is, one sentence was split into two where no full stop was meant to be. That’s really my only complaint. It might sound a bit nit-picky but when I have only audio cues for punctuation, pauses and a rise or fall in intonation take on extra significance.

Ms. Eby has a satisfying male character voice and I appreciated her subtle differences for brothers Michael and Zach. Brother-in-law Joe and most of the other male characters around the same age sounded quite similar, but they didn’t appear all that often so it wasn’t a big deal. She is able to age up or age down her tones and so Michael (and Zach’s) parents sounded convincingly older and little Eli was sooooo cute (but only in the book briefly). I share Eli’s phobia so I had a special soft spot for him.

The story has a kind of women’s fiction vibe to it as well as the romance. Zach and Karen don’t spend tons of time together and I did feel their exchange of “I love you” came a bit too fast. There were moments in the listen which were quite emotional and I appreciated that Ms. Eby didn’t overplay these moments; rather, she allowed the text to speak for itself.

I liked the story well enough and with the bonus of a Tanya Eby narration, I was a fairly happy camper with Single by Saturday.

Kaetrin

Narration:  B

Book Content:  B-

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Minimal (some domestic abuse off page)

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio

Single by Saturday was provided to AudioGals for review by Brilliance Audio.