Narrated by Iggy Toma and Alexander Cendese
May Archer’s The Gift – the second book in her Love in O’Leary series – is a cute, low-drama, fake-relationship/GFY romance set in a small town in upstate New York where everyone seems to know everyone else and has their nose in everyone else’s business. That intrinsic busybody-ness is part of what sets this particular story in motion, when one member of the community, thinking to spare a friend from the gossip-mongers, basically announces to everyone in town that he (who is gay) and said friend (who is not) are romantically involved.
Daniel Michaelson moved to a small house in the woods outside O’Leary some months earlier after his big city life imploded and his career went tits-up. Wanting to get away from everything – his friends, his family and, most of all, reminders of his failure – he keeps himself to himself, travelling into O’Leary rarely and, unbeknownst to him, gaining himself a reputation as a bit of an oddball. Towards the end of the previous book in the series, that reputation caused the O’Learyans to become suspicious of him, the rumour mill even going so far as to suggest that he may have been involved with the recent disappearances of a couple of hikers – and it’s this suspicion that causes the town vet, Julian Ross, to give Daniel an alibi by telling everyone they’re a couple.
Which… they’re not, although they’ve actually been friends for a few months, since the day Daniel rescued an injured owl and rushed it to Julian’s surgery. They get together regularly to share a meal and talk about books, watch movies and just hang out, but that’s all there is, or all there can be between them because while Julian is very much attracted to Daniel, Daniel is very much straight. He’s also very unforthcoming about his life before O’Leary and his background; he clams up whenever the subject of family comes up, he won’t talk about what he does for a living or divulge anything about his past, and Julian learns to skirt around those topics, even though, the longer their friendship progresses, the more hurt and frustrated he becomes at Daniel’s unwillingness to tell him anything at all.
I like fake-relationship stories as a rule, and in spite of the rather awkward beginning to this one, Julian and Daniel make a cute couple and I liked them as friends, as a couple and as individuals. Julian is a really sweet guy who longs for connection, but even though he’s highly competent when it comes to his job, deep down, he’s insecure about his attractiveness and so worried about meeting everyone’s expectations and keeping them happy that he’s forgotten that he’s entitled to happiness, too. Daniel has recently ended a marriage (to a woman) that lasted just a year, and is on the outs with his family; like Julian he struggled under the weight of expectations, but in Daniel’s case, he knows he’s a huge disappointment to his parents – and to himself – given the circumstances that sent him running off to O’Leary in the first place. The trouble is, however, that when we FINALLY learn those reasons, I found myself thinking “Huh? That was IT?” because they’re really anti-climactic and, to be honest, make Daniel’s wound-licking seem a little pathetic. The revelations are also too long in coming – which I’m sure also contributed to my general feeling of “meh” once they came out; the author spent so much time building them up that I’d expected something really serious instead of… well, what actually happened.
In terms of the romance, the author creates a really strong friendship between Julian and Daniel, which makes their transition to lovers feel like a natural progression; they have good chemistry and the author creates a strong sense of the attraction and connection they feel for and to each other. Daniel can’t help feeling confused when he starts to realise that he’s attracted to Julian when he’s never felt the slightest bit attracted to a man before; but when he decides to acknowledge and accept that attraction for what it is and try for something with Julian, I liked that he didn’t try to second-guess himself. He doesn’t know if he’s gay, bi or something else, and as far as Daniel is concerned, it doesn’t matter, labels don’t matter. He’s falling for Julian, and he wants him in his life… and that’s enough.
We met some of the secondary cast in the previous book (The Fall); the O’Learyans continue to be a likeable bunch for the most part, and I was pleased that the main sub-plot was a lot less bonkers this time around.
I’ve listened to both narrators several times before, and have enjoyed their collaborations so far in Eden Finley’s Fake Boyfriend series, so I was pleased to see them teaming up again. Iggy Toma pitches his voice a bit lower and gruffer than usual to read the chapters from Daniel’s PoV, while Alexander Cendese lightens his up a bit to read those from Julian’s. I admit that I’d expected that to be the other way around, but it didn’t matter; I like listening to both of them, and they captured the essence of Daniel and Julian’s characters really well, so it’s still a win! They do an excellent job with the vocal characterisations across the board in fact, from crusty old Henry Mayor to the town gossip and mean-girl, Karen Mitchener-Martin who, in the hands of Alexander Cendese is, quite simply, a hoot. I’ve mentioned several times that his female voices can often seem caricature-like, but in many cases, the characters are supposed to be that way, so the voices work for me. Both narrators bring the town and its colourful inhabitants to life and are really good at picking up on the humour in the text, but most importantly they convey the strength of the emotional connection between Daniel and Julian really well.
The Gift is an entertaining listen in spite of its flaws. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first book in the series (the absence of the bonkers sub-plot was a big help on that score), and although it’s a bit cheesy in places, I liked the central characters and bought into their romance. It’s an undemanding listen with a heavy helping of cute, and the excellent performances from Iggy Toma and Alexander Cendese earn it a recommendation.
Caz
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