My Kind of Wonderful by Jill Shalvis

Narrated by Karen White

The combination of Jill Shalvis’ prose and Karen White’s narration is an auto-buy for me. Shalvis writes warm, light-hearted contemporary romance, and My Kind of Wonderful is the second book in her new Cedar Ridge series about the Kincaid family in Cedar Ridge, Colorado.

Hudson Kincaid carries the world on his shoulders – he’s a local cop, head of the family resort’s ski patrol, takes care of his mentally ill mom, and worries about his twin Jacob, who left town at high school graduation and has not been seen since. He figures he has just enough room in his heart for his family and work, with nothing left for anyone else – a mode that has made relationships that go more than one night pretty much off the table. He has enough to do to help his family try to get the resort out of the debt his father left it in when he walked out on them years ago.

When Hud’s mom “buys a woman” on the internet – an artist hired to create a large mural of the family on a wall of the resort – he once again steps in to salvage the situation before more damage is caused. But Bailey Moore’s eyes stop him in his tracks. Bailey has been in and out of hospitals, undergoing cancer treatments for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma for a decade. She’s been living her life as a bucket list – trying to get in all the experiences she can before cancer beats her. Although she’s never done a wall mural, she’s game to add that to her list and tackle the challenge. With her hair just starting to regrow after the last round of chemo and the ravages the cancer and the treatments have done to her body, she’s just barely up to the physical demands, but determined to make it work – that is, if she can convince Hud to let her paint, and then let her go.

The story is the back-and-forth of two strong-minded people living life full out but from two totally opposite directions – Bailey’s determination to experience everything and Hud’s equal determination to keep his family protected. Bailey tries to convince Hud to step outside his comfort zone by making a list for himself; Hud tries to keep Bailey safe but also at arm’s length because he can’t risk his heart to anyone else.

There’s not much more I can say that is new or unique about the wonderful that is Karen White’s narrating talent. She tackles the story as if it’s her own, with a natural pace that sounds like she’s just telling the story off the top of her head. She’s completely consistent with the various character voices. She has developed a certain blend of range/pitch/timbre to imply men’s voices, so that it’s clear who is talking, although the brothers did sound alike. Her delivery of emotional moments is genuine. Most of the time, those skills manage to become submersed in the story (this is a good thing) so that you are not aware of anything except the characters and the plot. There is a hitch for me, in this story, that I’m not sure is from the prose or the delivery, or a combination of both: the Kincaid family members yell a lot. A lot. For long moments at a time. White does not actually raise the volume for this (thank goodness!) but implies the yelling with tone and speed. There were unfortunately a few places in the audio that I wanted to just ask Karen and the characters to please stop yelling – that strident tone for long periods of time (in audiobook years; maybe 1-2 minutes in real time) wore on my nerves. This reflects the relationships of the Kincaid siblings – they are always playing pranks, and they are several grown men and women who are fiercely devoted to one another as well, so it’s not out of character for them to be loud. I just found it a little too much a couple of times. YMMV.

So – good story, great narration, a couple of hitches = recommended for a fun read. One other caveat – in re-reading Diana’s review of the first in the series Second Chance Summer, I agree with her that Shalvis’s series are not that much different from each other. Her writing and story-telling is so good, I would love to see her branch out and try something new.

Melinda

Narration: B+

Book Content: B-

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Hachette Audio

My Kind of Wonderful was provided to AudioGals by Hachette Audio for a review.