Narrated by Michael Dean
May Archer’s Whispering Key series is loosely linked to her Love in O’Leary books by virtue of the fact that one of the principals in Off Plan, Dr. Mason Bloom, is the younger brother of Micah from The Secret (book three). Off Plan introduces a new set of characters and a new location, and although I had some issues with the narration and some aspects of the story were a bit repetitive, I enjoyed it and will probably listen to future books when they appear.
In an attempt to get away from the “perfectly okay” sort of life he’s drifted into after being dumped by his fiancée, Dr. Mason Bloom accepts a job as private doctor at an exclusive, five-star resort in the Florida Keys. A three year contract running his own practice, his med school loans paid off, the chance to network amongst the elite clientele – it’s a great opportunity and in spite of his brother Micah’s scepticism, Mason is determined to make the most of it. The trouble starts when the guy appointed to pick him up from the airport immediately rubs him the wrong way, and continues when Mason discovers that the five-star resort he’d been expecting is actually the run-down Five Star Hotel, and that the ‘exclusive’ resort is still a pipe dream.
Fenn Reardon has made his home on Whispering Key for the last few years, and works for his uncle Rafe’s firm, Goodman Outfitters, the island’s only tour boat company. He’s a bit of a grouch, and while he does love his uncle and cousins – who gave him a home when he badly needed one – he’s never really fit in and feels as though he’s regarded as the poor relation or the black sheep of the family. He’s also highly suspicious of his uncle’s money-making schemes and his oft stated intention to revitalise the island and bring back the tourists. Big Rafe – who is also the mayor of Whispering Key – talks a big game, but Fenn isn’t here for any of it.
Rafe sends a reluctant Fenn to collect the new doctor from the airport – and they don’t hit it off. At. All. Mason looks at Fenn and sees a man who holds himself aloof from everybody around him and reminds him of the mugshots of serial killers in TV crime shows, and Fenn sees a buttoned up, prissy snob – which makes that pesky little spark of attraction they both feel more than a little inconvenient for both of them. Add to this that Mason has always identified as straight and Fenn doesn’t mess about with straight guys, not after his last relationship – with a lover who wanted to remain firmly in the closet – turned really nasty… and inconvenient is a serious understatement.
The pair of them avoid each other when they can and snark at each other when they can’t, but there’s no escaping the fact that Mason and Fenn are drawn to each other, no matter that Fenn doesn’t want to be, and Mason … well, he hasn’t been attracted to men before and isn’t sure what’s going on, but whatever it is, he wants to explore it rather than run from it. He’s surprised that he can have lived thirty-five years without realising he’s not straight, but he doesn’t spend ages agonising and hand-wringing about it and I liked that. In fact, he’s more bothered that it’s taken him so long to question his sexuality than he is about the fact that he’s probably queer. The conflict in the relationship really comes from Fenn’s doubts – he thinks Mason is probably just experimenting – and his experience of life, which has taught him he’s just not enough.
As in the Love in O’Leary series, we’ve got a small town full of quirky characters who are in and out of each other’s business, and a central family whose members are, I’m guessing, going to feature in future stories. Fenn and Mason are appealing leads with great chemistry, and their romance is a sexy slow-burn; there’s plenty of humour in the story and the secondary characters are well-drawn and likeable, and there’s a feeling of genuine warmth and camaraderie amongst them. There’s also an amusing secondary plot surrounding the piratical history of the island and buried treasure, a dramatic finale and the ending, while a bit pat, is a satisfying one all round.
On the downside, the story is slow to start, and there’s a fair bit of padding in the first few chapters in particular. Later on, around the middle of the story, things slowed down again (when Mason was trying to work out what was going on and Fenn was avoiding him), with not much new happening; it seemed as though the story was treading water for a bit.
Michael Dean – who in the past recorded as Michael Pauley – is a prolific, experienced and highly regarded narrator with well over five hundred titles to his credit at Audible. I’ve listened to him a few times and have rated him fairly highly, although I’ve found some of his more recent performances to be somewhat over-the-top and overly dramatic, especially in scenes of high emotion. He also has a habit of pushing out a breath at the ends of some words, making them sound as though they have an extra syllable, and while in some cases that works in context, in many others it doesn’t. Here though, I was pleased to note that he’s reined-in both those tendencies; they’re still present, but not to the degree I noticed in the last couple of his performances I’ve listened to, and that made for a more comfortable audio experience. His pacing is fine, and I like the fact that he acts rather than just reads the words (characters laugh and shout when they’re supposed to), and he does a great job with all the character voices, portraying each one according to age and gender and differentiating effectively between all of them, leads and secondary cast alike. Mr. Dean portrays Mason and Fenn very distinctly; Mason’s voice is deep and resonant, as per the text, while Fenn’s is higher pitched and he speaks slightly faster, so I had absolutely no problem telling them apart during their conversations. When it came to the narrative portions, however, it’s a different story, and this is the main problem I had with the performance overall – I wasn’t always able to tell whose PoV I was in from chapter to chapter. The story is narrated by Mason and Fenn in alternating chapters, but I often had to stop to think which of them was the PoV character because the difference that Mr. Dean employs so effectively in their dialogue is not always present in their respective narrative sections. I’m not always the biggest fan of dual narrations, but I think it would have made it sense to do that here, as using two completely different voices would have avoided the sort of confusion I experienced. Of course, that isn’t a choice made by the narrator, but it did mean I was taken out of the story a few times while listening.
Still, it’s a very good performance overall, and my reservations won’t prevent me from listening to more audiobooks in this series. Off Plan kicks the Whispering Key series off to a good start and earns a recommendation.
Caz
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