Narrated by Teddy Hamilton & Ava Erickson
When I was browsing at Audible for new and upcoming releases, Hitched caught my eye. It promised a kind of modern day marriage of convenience story. In historicals this is one of my favourite tropes – the forced proximity means I get lots of hero/heroine time and that is catnip to me. The trope is rarer in contemporary romance. So of course, I had to request it.
The first thing I need to say is something that I only realised right at the end of the book. It’s not the full story. When it says “Imperfect Love book 1” after the title, it’s referring to a series about the same two protagonists, not, as I had thought, a standalone romance in a series in the same universe. There was no warning in the Audible blurb that Hitched is not the full story. In fact, the title is something of a misnomer and no actual hitching takes place in this story. Book one of the series is by way of lead up to the wedding. There is no HEA or HFN and there is no resolution at the end. That’s right: cliffhanger alert!
Had I known, frankly, I would not have requested it. My grade reflects my conflicted feelings about the audiobook. I enjoyed the listen but the story ended up being very unsatisfying because it was incomplete. My recommendation, for those like me who live and die by the HEA, would be, at the very least, to wait until all the books are available on audio before diving in. Being HEA-blocked is no fun.
Noah Tait and Olivia Cain both work in the Manhattan head office of Tait & Cain, a marketing firm started by their respective fathers. Noah has had a thing for Olivia for ages but she won’t give him the time of day (mainly, I gather, because he’s a player).
Tait & Cain are in financial trouble and the death of Noah’s father the year before didn’t help. Olivia’s father is sick with cancer and wishes to retire. The only way that Noah and Olivia can be joint CEOs and try and save the company is for them to get married. I knew from the blurb that the reason for the marriage was because of a stipulation in a will. That may fly in historicals a little better than in contemporaries I’m thinking. I knew going in that the set up was on the thin side so I can’t really complain about it here and I’m not – but I am saying that for those listeners who can’t overlook a dodgy setup in order to enjoy the forced proximity might want to skip this one. Because dodgy it is. Not only does Noah’s dad’s will state they have to get married – she has to be pregnant within 90 days! (cue all the eyerolls.) I didn’t really mind because: forced proximity yay! but I don’t pretend it makes a great deal of sense either.
The story starts with a prologue immediately before the wedding and then backtracks to a month or so earlier when it all began. There is a lot of Noah and Olivia together and that I did like. Noah is kind of your typical manwhore-with-a-heart-of-gold who seems common in a certain kind of contemporary these days – you know: the kind Sebastian York often narrates. Noah is voiced here by Teddy Hamilton who had the smooth charm down pat and, apart from the occasional slurring together of some words, was pleasing to my ear and delivered on emotion, humour and pacing. His female voice was more a softening rather than a change in pitch but it was discernible and I didn’t mind it. I wasn’t super-impressed with the British accent given to Noah’s friend Stirling but he fortunately doesn’t feature strongly in the story.
Ava Erickson’s narration was perhaps a little more impressive but there wasn’t a lot between them. She also delivered a balanced performance and didn’t over-emote. Her version of Noah wasn’t terribly deep-voiced, but I was never in doubt who was speaking. I liked her performance and definitely plan on listening to more of her work.
Some aspects of the story, even knowing what I knew from the blurb, stretched my credulity. For instance, when Noah and Olivia are presented with a signed lease to a penthouse apartment as an “early wedding present” they both move in that same day. And, of course the apartment has only one bedroom. (It’s a penthouse apartment – aren’t they usually really big??) Some of the motivations for certain actions were fuzzy and my impression was that they were really there to keep the couple in the same room or to give one or both of them the opportunity to shine, rather than being entirely organic to the plot and characters.
However, the story was entertaining enough and I blazed through the listen in a little over a day and a half. Hitched is more of a foreplay kind of book – in all senses of the word; there is steam and smoke but no, er, fire, if you get my drift. In the end however, it left me… unsatisfied.
[section label=’Audiobook Information’ anchor=’Audiobook Information’]
Kaetrin
AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION
TITLE: Hitched: Imperfect Love, Book 1
AUTHOR: Kendall Ryan
NARRATED BY: Teddy Hamilton & Ava Erickson
GENRE: Romantic Series - Contemporary
STEAM FACTOR: Glad I had my earbuds in (language)
REVIEWER: Kaetrin [button type=’link’ link=’http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ITNX28G/?tag=audiogalsnet-20′ size=’btn-lg’ variation=’btn-default’ target=’blank’]Buy Hitched: Imperfect Love, Book 1 by Kendall Ryan on Amazon[/button]
Grrr… there seems to be a trend towards seriAL (as opposed to series) books in romance at the moment and I agree it’s frustrating when there’s a cliffhanger you weren’t expecting. Authors/publishers need to put something in the blurb so we can decide whether to start reading/listening straight away or wait until all the books are out and we can binge on them all at once!
I think the print/digital version and the listing on Goodreads makes it clearer that this is the first in a series and perhaps, had I had that cue I would have looked more deeply and discovered it wasn’t one of those series’ which has a HEA in each book (ie with different h/h’s). But, as it was, the Audible listing gave me no clue that this was not the complete story. Stealth non-HEAs are always sad-making IMO.