Truly Sweet by Candis Terry

Narrated by Xe Sands

Book 5 in the author’s Sweet, Texas series, Truly Sweet brings the youngest Wilder son home from war in Afghanistan, injured and spirit almost broken. For a small town romance, the prologue is almost too graphic, too emotional – Jake and his men are ambushed, stranded and have to tough it out, waiting for backup and rescue. In the ensuing firefight, men are lost, and Jake almost loses his own life when a bullet tears through his thigh.

Chapter 1 opens a few months later, with Jake in Sweet, still using a cane, and honorably discharged from the Marines. He’s living at home with his mother, the last single Wilder boy, looking for his reason to live. His survivor guilt is almost palpable, and he’s convinced he caused the death of his best friend in the war. Into this scene comes girl-next-door Annie Morgan, his pal from school, the one he fought with and stayed up late talking to, but never the one he had any lust or love for.

Annie knew when her mad crush Jake left to join the Marines years ago, he wasn’t coming back to her – he never saw her that way. Trying to find herself, she left Sweet, Texas, for Seattle, where a grunge rocker stole her heart, knocked her up and left her alone, pregnant and scared. Now she’s back home with 12-month-old Max, where her safety net is her sister Abby who is married to Jake’s brother, and Jana Wilder, Jake’s mother.

I’ve liked this author’s voice – as it were – since I started reading her Sugar Shack novels several years ago. She’s one of many authors who set up fictional small towns populated with families of multiple eligible, hot sons, eccentric elderly, and a lot of gossipy people always getting in other people’s business. She does it well without getting overly cartoony. This one is no different – which may be why it didn’t quite reach a full bore A grade for me. So many self-aware people with all the right answers, and so sweet it was close to making my teeth ache. If angsty and edgy is your thing, you won’t be satisfied with this story – but if you like your heroes romantic and a teensy bit alpha, and everything to really work out very well for everyone in the end, then you’ll enjoy this. Also – there’s a Notable Pet, a rescue dog, so animal lovers, take note!

Xe Sands is one of the really great American contemporary romance narrators. Her delivery and pacing are superb – she radiates the emotions of the brief war chapter as well as later chapters, for instance when a young mother grapples with a preemie birth and the loss of her husband. Her soft, understated accents are enough to evoke Texas without making you feel like you’re inside a honky-tonk, and her grasp of intimate scene delivery is excellent. She lowers her voice and makes it slightly husky for the hero, and she manages to differentiate him from his brothers as well, mostly with pitch. Check out the audio sample below. If you’re a fan of Xe Sands and Candis Terry, there’s an anthology releasing September 8, 2015, with a short story/novella in this series, Confessions of a Secret Admirer.

Melinda

Narration: A

Book Content: B-

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: Minimal (an opening war scene)

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Harper Audio