Narrated by Andi Arndt and Joe Arden
Five Years Gone is the heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting story of a young woman whose life is ripped apart when the man she loves says goodbye one day and then disappears without trace. I tend to be a fan of angsty stories, so this one sounded right up my alley; and for a lot of the time it was – although a few things about the set-up didn’t quite convince, and there were a couple of times early on when I felt the story was stretched rather thin and needed to move on. I’ll say now that there are obvious (and presumably deliberate) parallels to 9/11 and its aftermath in the novel, but Ms. Force doesn’t belabour the point and there is nothing at all in the story which is gratuitous or insensitive.
Ava Lucas is twenty-one when she meets John West, a Naval officer stationed in San Diego where she’s just finished college. They literally bump into each other one night at a bar and hit it off straight away – and for two years, they’re blissfully happy together… until the day that a terrorist attack on an American cruise liner – The Star of the High Seas – kills four thousand people and John is immediately deployed.
And then… nothing. Ava hears nothing from or about John. She checks the news reports and online sites several times a day, she tries calling the naval base – all to no avail. Nobody knows him or anything about him. It’s as though he never existed.
Ava makes a pact with herself; if, after five years, she hasn’t heard from John, or he hasn’t returned, she will accept it and move on with her life. And that’s what she does – or tries to do. Her sister Camille is getting married in New York (where Ava and her family are from), so the timing is a (sort of) happy coincidence, and Ava decides to move back to New York and make a new life for herself there. What she hadn’t expected was to find that the tragedy still resonates so strongly in her life; not just because of John, but because almost every day, she meets someone or comes across something that was – directly or indirectly – affected by it.
And she hadn’t expected Eric.
At Camille’s wedding, Ava, as maid of honour, spends a lot of time with the best man, who is also the groom’s brother, Eric. He’s good-looking, charming and funny, and when Ava has a bit too much to drink, he takes care of her, staying with her overnight to make sure she’s okay, and behaving like the perfect gentleman. He’s obviously smitten with Ava – as is she with him – although Ava doesn’t see it like that; she likes him and Eric has proven himself to be a great friend, so when he asks if he can see her again, she agrees without too much soul-searching.
Eric, too, is trying to tell himself that he’s viewing this new relationship as friendship. He’s still smarting from the way his ex-fiancée ‘ghosted’ him, completely disappearing from his life without explanation almost a year earlier, and certainly isn’t looking for any new romantic entanglements.
This is a romance novel, so it’s not a spoiler to say that Ava and Eric slowly begin to fall for one another. The author does an excellent job of building a friendship between them and showing the depth of their feelings for one another before they admit – and act on – their mutual attraction. It’s not an easy progression though. The night after she and Eric first kiss, Ava is wrecked by confusion and guilt, and for the first time opens up to someone – her flatmate, Skylar – who encourages her to seek therapy. As a result, Ava is able to find the courage to tell Eric about John and what happened; and with no secrets between them any longer, she feels ready to move forward and to open herself up to the possibilities of a future with the man she is falling deeply in love with.
This is one of those stories that puts listeners through the emotional wringer. Ava’s bewilderment over John’s disappearance, her need for closure, her growing anger, her guilt over being attracted to another man – all of it is very well done and the emotional roller-coaster that Ava is riding feels very real. And Eric, too, has his own issues to deal with – his ex really did a number on him and he can’t help feeling somewhat insecure about Ava and whether she will ever be able to truly let John go.
These conflicting emotions – Eric’s insecurity, Ava’s guilt and her tendency to shut down emotionally when things get too difficult for her – threaten the new relationship growing between them, even as both of them know, absolutely and completely, that they want to move forward together. The ending is incredibly bittersweet and I suspect that even the toughest of us might shed the odd tear in the last part of the story, as Ava is finally confronted with the knowledge for which she had been waiting so long.
I did have a bit of a problem with accepting that Ava and John were able to keep their relationship a secret from everyone for two years. The author gives reasons for this – Ava suspected he was likely in the sort of job where he wasn’t supposed to get involved with anyone, she liked that it was just the two of them – but they didn’t ever double-date or go out with friends? She’s in her twenties and she WORKS IN PR – she doesn’t have a Facebook or Instagram account? They never had friends over for dinner? I couldn’t quite buy it. And there were moments in the first part of the story that felt repetitive, but once Ava decided to seek professional help, the pacing picked up and I became much more invested in the story once that happened.
The events of Five Years Gone are related mostly from Ava’s point of view, with some parts from Eric and a few from some of the secondary characters, so the narration is split sort of 65/35 (I haven’t counted, it’s just the impression I got) between Ms. Arndt and Mr. Arden, who you’ll hear more from in the second half of the book than the first. Both narrators have been reviewed positively here at AudioGals, and Ms. Arndt is a firm favourite with pretty much everyone I know (!) – for a very good reason. She’s terrific. Her voice sits nicely in a kind of mezzo range, which means she’s able to portray young women very positively; one of my pet peeves when it comes to narration, especially in contemporary romance, is that some female narrators have voices that are too highly pitched for my taste (and I realise this is down to personal preference) so I can never take them seriously as adult women. Ms. Arndt’s smooth tones are youthful but not girlish; she makes the emotional lifting this story requires seem effortless, giving Ava exactly the right degree of strength and vulnerability and isn’t afraid to pull out all the emotional stops when she needs to. Her male voices are good all round, and she differentiates well between Eric and his brother in scenes in which they both appear.
Joe Arden is someone I’ve been meaning to listen to for AGES (and now I have to ask myself why I waited so long!) and although I was a little disappointed that he doesn’t get to do an equal share of the narration duties, I enjoyed his performance very much. Eric is warm, funny and sexy, and Mr. Arden does a great job of conveying his sterling qualities as well as the insecurities he tries to keep buried. His voice has a slightly gravelly note to it that is very attractive, and while he doesn’t raise his pitch very much to portray the female characters, he does enough to differentiate them clearly for the listener.
Enhanced by wonderful performances from both narrators, Five Years Gone is a poignant and ultimately engrossing story of loss and love that will break your heart and slowly put it back together again. Make sure you listen to the last few chapters with a box of tissues handy.
Caz
Buy Five Years Gone by Marie Force on Amazon
