Narrated by Stella Bloom
Okay, so I have to start this review with a confession or two. I picked up a review copy of Rescuing Mary without knowing very much about it. I expected a book in a series called Delta Force Heroes to be romantic suspense (was I really dumb for thinking that?) rather than contemporary romance featuring guys who just happened to be special forces buddies. I also missed the bit in the blurb that said that while all the earlier books (eight of them) worked as standalones, this one would work better if one was familiar with the other books and had perhaps read/listened to book one, Rescuing Rayne, as the central relationship in this instalment began there. So… oops?
Rescuing Mary opens with a prologue that affords listeners a few short snapshots of Mary Weston’s life through the years. Aged just five, her mother is already ranting at her about how men are all bastards and never to be trusted, but that it’s okay to use them to get what she wants. Never believe a man when he says he loves you, her mother tells Mary – aged nine – and never open your legs for one because he’ll be off like a shot after he’s done. As she gets older, Mary does wonder at her mother’s intense dislike for men, considering she has a new “uncle” every few weeks.
Then, at twenty-two, Mary meets Rayne Jackson, and the two women become lifelong best friends. When Mary is diagnosed with breast cancer, Rayne is there for her – holding her head over the bowl when she’s sick, holding her when she’s in pain, doing the housework when Mary is too weak to look after herself… Mary knows there’s nothing she will ever be able to do to repay her. When the cancer returns, however, Mary is determined not to be a burden to her friend and decides she can’t go through it all again; not only will her insurance not cover the treatment, she just can’t face the chemo and the radiation therapy – all of it – so she distances herself from Rayne and their circle of friends, basically intending to hole up somewhere until the end comes.
But Ford “Truck” Laughlin (and yeah, all the guys have dumb nicknames like Ghost, Chase, Coach, Fish… Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch!), who has been in love with Mary from pretty much the first moment he met her – finds out what she’s doing and refuses, absolutely, to let her give up. When he asks her to marry him, for a moment Mary – who is as head-over-heels for him as he is for her (not that she’d ever admit it) – thinks he’s asked her because he wants her… until he says that will mean she’s eligible for all his army benefits, including his health insurance.
Truck won’t take no for an answer and they’re secretly married three days later. When Rescuing Mary opens proper some months later, Mary has been given the all-clear and is pretty much living – platonically – with Truck, nobody knows they’re married, and she and Rayne are still estranged. Things might not have changed had it not been for the group of robbers who hold up the bank at which Mary works at the same time as some of her friends – including Rayne – have paid her a visit. Facing danger together helps Mary and Rayne get their friendship back on track, and with that hole in her life repaired, Mary decides it’s finally time to tell Truck the truth; that she wants to stay married to him and for them to be a husband and wife for real. It’s scary, but she’s looking forward to making that change in their relationship.
BUT. As if fate hasn’t punched Mary in the face enough, it’s got a couple more big blows in store for her and Truck when he’s injured on a mission… and THEN as if THAT wasn’t enough, they end up in a life threatening situation which really could mean the end of everything.
I admit when that last thing happened, I rolled my eyes so hard they hurt. Because by that point, the story seemed to have become an exercise in “let’s see how much crap I can heap upon these people”, and it was a heist too far for this listener.
The author deals with Mary’s cancer in a sensitive way and shows clearly how much the disease has affected her and the way she interacts with people. Add to that a truly shitty childhood, and it’s not surprising she became a hardened cynic who uses biting sarcasm as a defence mechanism. She really does go through hell, and the author does a superb job of conveying her roiling emotions – the bitterness and anger, the exhaustion and hopelessness, her insecurities about her attractiveness and her worries that maybe Truck only married her out of pity… it’s emotionally raw and hard to listen to at times because it feels so true to life.
When I realised my misconceptions about the book, and the fact it might not work so well as a standalone, I adjusted my expectations accordingly. The falling-in-love part of Truck and Mary’s story happens in the other books, and I was disappointed by that – almost certainly because I haven’t been invested in the couple for eight books. I do, however, applaud the author for telling the story of what happens after the wedding, because the “post-HEA” isn’t something we often see in romance beyond an epilogue.
And speaking of epilogues, the one in this book is really – and I mean REALLY – one for the fans. It’s well over TWO HOURS long and is a series of vignettes peeking into the lives of the couples who appear in the series at various points in the future, ending with a look at Mary and Rayne twenty-five years hence. (And preceding it is an entire chapter devoted to the set up for the next book.) Again, if you’ve been following the series, it’s a great way to say goodbye, and some of the storylines were poignant and affecting. But as I wasn’t really invested in any of those other couples, it all went a little over my head and I zoned in and out a bit.
Stella Bloom is a very experienced but new-to-me narrator who delivers a confident, accomplished performance. With so many secondary characters from previous books popping in and out, it must have been difficult to differentiate them all clearly, but she makes a very good job of it overall, making sure that all the men or women in any given scene sound different, and assigning distinct character voices to the principals and the major secondary characters. Ms. Bloom adopts a lower pitch and varies the timbre of her voice to portray the men, her delivery is smooth and her pacing is neither too fast nor too slow. The accents she adopts for Mary, Rayne and some of the other characters sound authentic to my British ears, and those two ladies are always easily identifiable in their scenes together and with others. It’s a very strong performance, and I’m certainly not averse to listening to her again.
My content grade undoubtedly reflects the fact that Rescuing Mary wasn’t what I’d expected, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other things about it that prevent my rating it more highly. The overblown drama of one life-threatening situation after another, the repetitiveness of Mary’s insecurities about Truck when his every word and action scream “I LOVE YOU!” and the horribly stereoptyped minor female character who has ‘man-stealing-bitch’ practically stamped on her forehead all contributed to that grade. If you’ve been following the series, Rescuing Mary is probably going to work better for you than it did for me.
Caz
Buy Rescuing Mary by Susan Stoker on Amazon
