Narrated by Sophie Eastlake
I’ve been enjoying Katie Reus romantic suspense lately and with Sophie Eastlake as narrator I always know they will be reliably good listens. The Red Stone Security series is short (novella length), so if I’m not sure what to listen to next, this series also acts as an excellent palate cleanser. Sworn to Protect is book 11 in the series but they stand alone well and it’s not necessary to listen to them in order.
As is usually the case when I start listening to a book, I had forgotten the blurb. When the book begins, our hero, Quinn Brody, at that time a Miami policeman, assists Suzanne White, the wife of a fellow officer, to escape from her abusive husband. I tend to imprint like a gosling in romance; very often the heroine is the first female the hero sees – and so I was a little taken aback when chapter one introduces Athena Manikas. (This is also why I should probably check the blurbs more often).
As it happens, the prologue is to set up the bad guy of the story – Glenn White goes to prison for six years following Quinn helping Suzanne and upon White’s release, he goes looking for Suzanne (he thinks Quinn knows where she is – he doesn’t) and revenge against Quinn.
Athena is just about to commence work as a marketing/event coordinator for Red Stone Security. A couple months before, she had been dating Quinn but he had bolted when he found out she was a virgin. The reader knows that Quinn regrets this and it wasn’t actually her virginal status that made him run. In fact, Quinn thought Athena was relationship material of the kind that lasts for decades and he didn’t think he was ready for that. Turns out, he was wrong.
Athena wants to lose her virginity which has now become something of a burden to her. She doesn’t expect this will necessarily happen with her one true love, but she does want to care about the person it happens with. She is really upset with Quinn for bailing on her when she told him she was a virgin.
Imagine her surprise therefore, when it turns out that the previously unnamed security firm Quinn works for is the exact same one Athena is about to start working for.
By the time this meeting occurs, Quinn has realised what a doofus he was to split up with Athena in the first place and he’s after another chance with her. When Glenn White targets Athena to get to Quinn, things heat up – both in terms of the suspense but also in terms of Quinn recognising his feelings for Athena and them being in forced proximity while he protects her.
The story was, as I expected, entertaining, sexy and suspenseful. Glenn White was a nasty bad guy. Athena isn’t a security expert but she’s not a TSTL character either. She takes sensible precautions and behaves in smart ways. Quinn grovels nicely to earn Athena’s forgiveness and, when they do start to get down to the business of ridding her of her pesky virginity, the sex is hot and dirty in the best ways.
Sophie Eastlake, also as I expected, performed the characters with skill and charm. Her pacing is excellent and conveys the tension – both the sexual kind and the danger kind – of the story. Ms. Eastlake narrates the sexy times straightforwardly and lets the words do most of the work, rather than overplaying things, something I always appreciate. Her hero voices do sound similar from book to book, but here Quinn was given a sort of New York-ish accent (or at least it sounded that way to my Australian ear) and so he was differentiated from other leads in the series.
In a novella, there isn’t a lot of time to develop character or detailed storylines and, there is usually not a lot of time for courtship either. Here, I had the advantage of knowing that Athena and Quinn had gone on a few dates before the book began and an epilogue some months after White is dealt with, but I’d still have to say the romance is very fast. That is probably more about the limitations of work count but nevertheless, my grade reflects these issues.
Sworn to Protect was a very entertaining romantic suspense novella and narration by Sophie Eastlake was the icing on a very satisfying cake.
Kaetrin
Narration: B+
Book Content: B
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence Rating: Fighting
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: KR Press LLC
Sworn to Protect was provided to AudioGals for a review.
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