Legend by Sawyer Bennett

Narrated by Joe Arden & Andi Arndt

I enjoy sports romance even though I know very little about ice hockey – everything I know it I learned from romance novels in fact – and I like Joe Arden and Andi Arndt’s narrations so I decided to dip my toe into the Arizona Vengeance series with Legend.

I’m not sure if the origin of Legend’s name was ever discussed in the earlier books – that’s the hero’s name – Legend Bay. He’s the goalie for the Arizona Vengeance hockey team. His next-door neighbour is Pepper Nantais – a children’s book author/illustrator who loves garden ornaments and holidays.

Legend and Pepper have had a somewhat fraught relationship in the previous months because of her over the top love of garden bling. I gather her Christmas decorations rival the Griswald’s and Legend doesn’t see the appeal. Not unlike Mercy Thompson’s trolling of Adam Hauptmann in the early books of the eponymous urban fantasy series by Patricia Briggs, Pepper has taken great delight in tweaking Legend’s tail and upping her game – going to far as to “decorate” his yard with plastic flamingos and the like.

When Legend arrives home and sees a package on his porch therefore, he initially thinks Pepper has left him another “present”. However, the “gift” is a baby girl – complete with a note from her mother, Lida Martin (an ex of Legend’s from when he was in Florida) saying that she’s unable to care for the child and giving her to her dad. Given that Legend didn’t even know Lida was pregnant, to say he’s shocked is a vast understatement.

Legend immediately seeks Pepper’s aid and from there the pair basically become inseparable. With baby Charlie, they eventually form a little family.

I say eventually but the entire book takes place in a little over two months so everything happens super-fast. The timeframe was a problem for me because it was too fast. Lida is suffering from a severe case of post-partum depression (possibly even post-partum psychosis), yet within mere days she is saying she’s on medication and she’s “better” and agitating for visitation and shared custody. I don’t think antidepressant medication works that fast.

And the romance between Pepper and Legend was lightning quick. I went with it because they were pretty perfect together but they’re basically living together after the second night.

Added to that, Charlie is the world’s best baby. This infant never seems to cry or be cranky. Legend is able to keep up his hockey game without a blink, despite having no parenting experience and being handed a newborn baby to care for. There is a brief mention of night feeds but the sleep deprivation that is inherent in parenting a newborn isn’t a factor here. It was all a little too unbelievable for me.

I did like Legend and Pepper together however. They had scorching sexual chemistry, yes, but they also talked to each other. I thought Pepper’s history of having severe fibroids and having had a hysterectomy because of them was a nice inclusion – I don’t see this kind of character represented very often.

I was less comfortable about the portrayal of mental illness in Lida’s character. By the end of the book there seemed to be some more sympathy for her but most of the story was about the “crazy baby mama” and a lot of the time she was a caricature. I’m not generally a fan of the evil ex-girlfriend trope anyway – but here that concept was pushed to 11.

The narration was solid, in particular, the performance by Andi Arndt. Joe Arden’s reading was a little less impressive than I’ve heard him deliver in other books such as Unbreak My Heart which I listened to last year. My teenage son (who also is an audiobook lover) heard a snippet in the car and thought he had a “robot voice”. I don’t quite agree but there was something in his cadence which didn’t quite work for me this time – not terrible by any stretch but not as great as I’ve heard him in other books. (For instance, his parts in Birthday Suit – I have a review coming up – were wonderful.)

Lida is described as having a faint Cuban accent but it was only Ms. Arndt which indicated this vocally.

Otherwise, the listen was technically very good and the emotion and tension of the story was well conveyed by both performers.

Legend is an entertaining enough listen and there are certainly some hot scenes with a bit of dirty talk to spice things up even more, as well as a relationship which is based on more than just sex. When I didn’t think too much about the issues I had with the plot I enjoyed it better. It was no hardship to listen to but there were certainly some things that made me raise my eyebrows and roll my eyes in turn.

Still, I am a sucker for a single dad story and Legend falls hard for Charlie the instant he holds her so that certainly helped.

Kaetrin