Forget About Me by Karen Grey

Narrated by Emma Wilder and Brian Pallino

Forget About Me is the second book in Karen Grey’s – better known to many as narrator Karen White – Boston Classics series of Retro/Vintage/Modern Historical romances. (It’s set in the 1980s, which, having lived through them, feels “contemporary” – until I look at a calendar. So pick whatever term you prefer!) Although there are cameo appearances from the hero and heroine of book one, What I’m Looking For, Forget About Me is a complete standalone, so you can jump in here without any prior knowledge. It’s a charming second-chance romance featuring a cute dog, a gorgeous hero, a prickly heroine, mix-tapes, and enough eighties references for those of us of a certain age to get nostalgic over!

Lucy Minola and Ben Porter have known each other almost all their lives and Ben, who lost his mother when he was very young, is like part of the large, boisterous Minola family. But in the summer of 1981, everything changes. Lucy has carried a torch for Ben since she was a girl, and now she’s eighteen, she’s determined to turn that attraction into something more. She knows Ben ‘likes’ her, too, so she sets out to seduce him, asking him to be the one to take her V-card. Ben is a bit shocked – she’s his best friend’s little sister after all – but he’s been in love with Lucy for years, and he can’t say no. Throughout that summer, Ben and Lucy spend as much time together (in bed and out of it) as they can, but at the end of it, with Lucy going away to college, Ben says he thinks they should cool it and that Lucy should feel free to date other people. It kills Ben to say it, but he thinks he’s doing the best thing for Lucy.

By Thanksgiving, both of them have realised that splitting up was a big mistake, and that they really want to be together. Lucy asks her brother Tony to come to pick her up from college, and Tony – who has no idea about what his little sister and his best friend got up to over the summer – asks if Ben wants to go along for the ride. Eager to see Lucy again, Ben jumps at the chance, but on the way, Tony’s truck is hit by a drunk driver, and he’s killed outright.

This tragedy changes both Ben’s and Lucy’s lives, both of them feeling the burden of guilt for Tony’s death. Lucy blames herself for being so whiny and needy that she had to ask Tony to come get her rather than take the bus or train home; Ben blames himself because he and Tony were arguing at the time of the accident and he thinks that maybe if Tony hadn’t been distracted, he could have avoided it somehow. After the funeral, Ben’s acting ambitions (he’s a drama major) take him to California – where he veers off course slightly and becomes an incredibly successful model – while Lucy erases every trace of what she calls her “bad girl” self and becomes her family’s housekeeper, cook, cleaner, parent to her younger brothers and just about everything else as her mother throws herself into campaigning against drunk drivers and her father retreats into his work. Oh, and Lucy also puts aside her dreams of becoming a vet and instead now works – full time – as a vet technician at a local practice.

Seven years later, Ben returns to Boston after his dad has a heart attack, planning to stay to look after him and help out with his business for a few months. Ben is acting again for the first time in years, in Shakespeare Boston’s production of Romeo and Juliet (he’s Romeo, natch), and it’s exhausting, but he loves it. He hasn’t attempted to get in touch with Lucy – he doesn’t even know if she still lives in the area – but when he finds a stray dog camped out on his doorstep one morning, a visit to the local vet answers that question. Lucy’s still there, still beautiful and Ben’s still as much in love with her as ever. The trouble is that Lucy doesn’t seem all that pleased to see him.

Ben ends up adopting the dog – whom he names Puck (why everyone assumes he’d name a dog after a hockey puck was a mystery to me – hasn’t anyone in this world heard of A Midsummer Night’s Dream?) – and incorporating him into the next Shakespeare production (Two Gentlemen of Verona, where he’s going to play one of the comic characters, who happens to have a dog). Using an animal on stage could be risky, but Ben has the idea of asking Lucy to train him – which of course, enables them to spend time together, rekindling their friendship and eventually, the mutual attraction that has never died.

I liked the story in general, but it felt overlong and there were places it seemed to be just treading water. Ben and Lucy have great chemistry, the romance is nicely done, and I liked the storyline that saw Lucy’s family (at last) stepping up and Lucy reclaiming her life and even starting her own business – but the pacing is fairly slow and things dragged in places, especially around the middle and the early second half. The third act “Black Moment” was telegraphed so far ahead that by the time it finally arrived, I was so over waiting for it that it was completely anticlimactic.

There are some fun secondary characters, and Ben is a lovely hero, but I really struggled with Lucy to start with. For pretty much the entire first half of the book, she’s closed-off and prickly, and actually seems to delight in her misery. She’s clearly discontent with her life but doesn’t make any effort to break the cycle, plus she appears to be carrying a load of religious guilt as well, labelling herself a “bad girl” for sleeping with Ben outside marriage, going to confession and doing her penance, none of it making her feel any happier about her choices (and if anything making her feel worse). Fortunately, she does – at last – realise that she has to take control of her life, and a more confident, outgoing Lucy appears, one who is open to possibility and to living rather than just existing.

There are a fair number of flashbacks dotted throughout the story, which can sometimes be problematic in audio, unless the time jumps are date-stamped. Here’s where the author’s experience as a narrator comes in handy, as she’s come up with a way to indicate the difference between “now” and “then” that is unique to audio; she opts for a sound effect, a cassette tape being wound back very quickly when we jump back, and then again to indicate we’re returning to the present. One word of caution though, the first time it happened, it almost made me jump because it was a bit loud and I wasn’t expecting it! The narration itself is excellent, as one would expect of two such popular and experienced performers. I haven’t actually listened to Emma Wilder before, but I enjoyed her performance a lot. Her male voices are terrific, deep and gravelly without sounding silly or strained, all the characters are clearly differentiated and I liked the subtle differences in her portrayal of “then-Ben” and “now-Ben”. My one real criticism is that sometimes her voice is TOO even-toned, so even though Lucy is often uptight and struggling with guilt and what-have-you, she rarely sounds it.

Forget About Me was one of the last things Brian Pallino recorded before his untimely death at the end of October 2020. He was an incredibly talented vocal actor and musician, possessed of an absolutely gorgeous, deep voice that was full of richness and colour, and with it, he brought to life the sexiest of romantic heroes. His female voices are terrific, his character work is excellent, and best of all, his portrayal of Ben is typically swoonworthy, showing him to be a genuine, caring man who is obviously crazy about Lucy, the love and connection Ben feels coming through clearly in his performance.

I enjoyed the story for the most part, although the uneven pacing and lack of conflict in Forget About Me sometimes made it a less than compelling listen. However, the superb narration is definitely worth the price of admission, and if you’re after a low-angst romance featuring a cute mutt, a hot model-turned-Shakespearian actor and the dog trainer he loves, then it might just be a perfect fit.

Note: Karen Grey reads the closing credits herself, and speaks briefly about Brian Pallino:

“He had told me how much he loved recording this book, and I do hope that it was a good escape for him – and I’m also terribly sad that his struggles with depression came to an end much too soon, and the way that they did.

If you’d like to support his memory, please consider making a donation to the National Association of Mental Illness – www.NAMI.org”

Caz

---

Buy Forget About Me by Karen Grey on Amazon