Good Girl by Lauren Layne

Narrated by Loretta Rawlins and Eric Michael Summerer

Jenny Dawson is a young country music singer catapulted to fame by her second album. Her publicist convinces her to move to Los Angeles to be one of the glitterati and hopefully jump start her next album; instead, she finds she’s tabloid fodder and is scandalously linked to a married colleague in spite of her reputation as a Good Girl. In addition, she seems to have lost her muse – so she hightails it back to the south, this time to a remote mansion in Louisiana where she spent a summer as a child. The property’s previous owner has died but left it to his son, Preston Walcott, with whom Jenny has been corresponding by email.

Noah – or is it Preston Walcott? – was the by-blow of an affair his wealthy, married father had with Noah’s mother, the housekeeper. His father didn’t even acknowledge him until he was in his teens, so he grew up in a totally different world as Noah Maxwell, with a single mother who could barely make ends meet. At 14, his half brother died, and his father concentrated on making amends with Noah, who now goes by Preston Walcott so as to fit in to society. So it’s understandable when Jenny arrives in Grove and sees Noah with his “country club” friends that she mistakes him for the caretaker, not the owner. And Noah (and his friends) decide to play along, mainly because all they know of Jenny is her spoiled homewrecker persona from the tabloids.

It’s a trope that doesn’t always work – passing as someone else, then getting involved – but Layne has Noah acting pretty much like an asshat whenever he slips and lets on that he’s got a heart of gold. This behavior makes it seem like he’ll manage to keep his distance and keep from getting attached. Noah also has reasons to hide out in the country, so he moves into the caretaker’s cottage on the estate and proceeds to fix up the houses that he didn’t even know existed before Jenny emailed him. He figures the spoiled brat won’t want to associate with a lowly caretaker, right?

Ah, the best laid plans!

The story is told in 2 perspectives, both first person, and narrated in the same manner. This was my first time to hear Loretta Rawlins and Eric Michael Summerer. Rawlins has a very young sound and gave Jenny a pretty good southern accent. Shannon’s assessment of Rawlins in 2 other books reviewed here (Tennessee Bride and If You Stay) was that she wasn’t very good about differentiating between characters of the same gender, but since this was a Cabin Romance, with the main protagonists making up most of the action and dialogue, so Jenny was about 95% of Rawlins’ voice, I didn’t have any trouble with that. I do feel that, while she was easy enough to listen to, her delivery and pacing were not 100% natural, although as I got more involved in the plot, these took a back seat for me (which is good). She was able to differentiate between Jenny and Noah/Preston, slightly dropping her voice for Preston. I find it easier to give a pass on character differentiation when a book is written in first person, however, because in my mind, it’s the character telling you the story anyway, so I don’t necessarily expect a full array of voices. Summerer’s pacing and delivery were better (not Sebastian York, but still…) He also gave all the characters marked southern accents (and not fake Cajun accents, thank you very much!) Again, because it was told in first person, I wasn’t too picky about his delivery of Noah’s two best friends, and I didn’t have any trouble telling the 3 men apart in the few scenes they were in.

The story has 2 Notable Pets – Ranger, Noah’s lab, and Jenny’s Pomeranian, Dolly – who add a lot of fun to the story. There are also some song lyrics by Jenny, which I thought lost their effectiveness spoken instead of sung, but I guess if Layne didn’t provide any music, what are narrators to do? It was a fun tale, nothing too deep, nothing too unexpected, recommended for contemporary romance fans.

Melinda

Narration: B-

Book Content: B+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Tantor Audio