Narrated by Alexander Cendese & Carly Robins
Manhattan fifth-grade teacher Fawn Callaghan and Homicide Detective Levi Fremont meet one day in the park when Fawn literally runs into him – hence the title Running into Love. Exactly why she is running with her eyes closed and waving her hands around like a weirdo is never addressed. It did make me question Levi’s attraction just a little actually because, seriously, that behaviour is odd.
It’s also possible that Fawn is the world’s slowest traveller because in the time she is walking home, Levi moves apartments – to right next door to Fawn.
It’s fair to say the opening chapter had me rolling my eyes more than a little.
However, afterwards, the story settled to a fairly predictable, if low-conflict, romance between two attractive, single people with little keeping them apart.
Fawn takes a very long time to clue in that Levi is interested in her. Even after Levi tells her he likes her and is attracted to her, she is still dubious about what is going on. I never really bought that. Fawn was much smarter than this made her appear and there wasn’t much by way of context to show a reason for her cluelessness.
Levi is heavy on the alpha-scale. He becomes possessive quite early in the piece. Perhaps another listener may find his jealousy cute but I found it annoying. It’s not a big feature of the story but it was there. He also calls Fawn “babe” a lot – and really soon after they meet too. It felt very presumptuous.
All that said, Levi and Fawn are pretty cute together. And their families are big, boisterous and often inappropriate. Both mothers are thinking grandbabies well before they’re on either Levi’s or Fawn’s radar.
Carly Robins narrates most of the book, with the sections from Levi’s perspective being performed by Alexander Cendese. The first section is from Levi’s POV and Mr. Cendese’s tone in this part felt markedly different from his later contributions. Levi sounded tougher and a little mean here. I guess that may not have been unreasonable given a weird out-of-control runner just barrelled right into him but it didn’t match the later tone and I found it jarring. Ms. Robins’s narration fit the mostly light-hearted and comedic style of the story better as did Mr. Cendese’s later sections.
Mr. Cendese’s female character voices aren’t fabulous. They’re not the worst I’ve ever heard either but Fawn sounded nasal and a bit whiny and it didn’t help me bond with her. Ms. Robins’s depiction of Fawn had me more in sympathy with the character. Ms. Robins also has a solid hero voice. Both narrators delivered in terms of pacing and the production values were good.
The romance moves very fast once things get physical and I have a feeling that much of the humour attempted in the book was wasted on me unfortunately. But after that first chapter, I did mostly enjoy the story even though I doubt Running into Love will be one I recall in any detail in a few months.
Kaetrin
Buy Running Into Love by Aurora Rose Reynolds on Amazon
