Concrete Evidence by Rachel Grant

Narrated by Meredith Mitchell

If you love to immerse yourself in highly detailed and original suspense romances, then I highly recommend Concrete Evidence. Rachel Grant scores a hit with her debut novel by culling from her experience as an archeologist and crafting a first-class suspense story with an interesting amount of romantic tension. While the narration is really just an average performance that more closely resembles an actual reading than the more typical dramatizations with their highly differentiated characterizations that I am more accustomed to in the romance audiobook world, the refreshing and intriguing story more than makes it worth your listen!

Erica Kesling, an underwater archaeologist, is over $100,000 in debt due to her mother who stole her identity before she died. Desperate to make ends meet, she takes a job with a treasure hunter (a career suicide move). When she finds out her employer is stealing Aztec artifacts from a 500 year-old shipwreck, she attempts to stop the crime, but instead just manages to get caught up in an even bigger crime ring. Barely escaping with her life, she hands over the artifacts to the bad guys.

With her career in tatters and fearing for her safety, Erica moves across the country to D.C., and takes a job with an engineering firm that has yet to learn that she has been blacklisted. Determined to clear her name, she starts weaving her way to find out who has purchased the stolen artifacts. Erica believes that if she can find the buyer, then she will be able to prove who the true thieves are. Before she can prove her innocence though, she is tasked with “supervising” a supposed 25-year-old intern, Lee Scott. Lee surprisingly intrigues and charms her despite his lack of career drive which doesn’t seem to fit with the many other facets of his personality that she begins to discover and like.

Lee, however, is no intern and, in fact, has been brought in by the powers that be to unmask a thief within the company who has been smuggling artifacts from Iraq. With her piles of debt and other factors that Lee uncovers in his background search, Erica becomes his prime suspect. Determined to do whatever it takes to unveil what Erica is hiding, Lee will stop at nothing, even prying secrets from her during their love making if that’s what it takes. Quickly, however, Lee discovers that it’s Erica who has mesmerized him, and that he can’t help but fall for her charms.

This is my first experience listening to Meredith Mitchell. I was surprised to find that her style is very different from the typical romance narrator. She sounded like she was reciting, rather than acting out the various scenes. For example, her male characters sounded very similar to her own voice, and she provided practically no differentiation amongst them. Even the Indian tribe chief and the older senator sounded relatively similar to the other male characters. In these cases, rather than change her intonation for the two older male characters, she just slowed down her speech. Additionally, with the exception of a few minor pieces, she didn’t vary her speed or otherwise communicate changes in emotions. I found this approach to be very bland and somewhat monotonous. All that said, it did not detract much either. It just failed to add anything, which is a shame given that the story was first rate. A great narration could have made this a top-notch romance audiobook on all fronts.

But what a refreshing and intriguing story! If you enjoy contemporary suspense romances and are looking for something different, I suggest that you give Concrete Evidence a try. However, if you need a performance from a narrator, rather than a mere reading, I recommend that you read rather than listen.

BJ

Note: the recording narrated by Meredith Mitchell is no longer available so the link below goes to the 2021 re-recording featuring Nicol Zanzarella and Greg Tremblay, reviewed Sep 20 2021 by Caz.