Never Say Never by Felice Stevens

Narrated by Kale Williams

Felice Stevens’ Lost in New York series comes to a close with Never Say Never, in which snarky restaurant critic and unapologetic manwhore Francisco – Frisco – Martinelli, best friend of Pressley from book one, Fool for Love, finds his HEA in a most unexpected quarter. It’s an angsty enemies-to-lovers (sort of) story featuring two men who have been burned by love – but while one of them is moving forward and getting on with his life, the other is stuck in an emotional limbo, unable – or refusing – to see how locking away the hurt and pain of a decades-old betrayal has changed the direction of his life and continues to inform his decisions. The mechanics of the basic premise are perhaps a little wobbly, but it’s worth getting past that in order to enjoy the rest of the story, which is a beautifully written and deeply felt romance.

Frisco is a food critic for Ultimate NYC, a glossy, up-market magazine “for the uber rich who can afford to Uber everywhere.” He tells it like it is and doesn’t hold back on his opinions, and his scathing reviews can make or break a reputation. For the last couple of years, he and Salvatore Grant, writer of the popular food blog New York for Real New Yorkers have been engaged in an online feud; Grant accuses Frisco of being an elitist, “a pompous, arrogant food snob”, pointing out that the restaurants he visits are way beyond the budget of most New Yorkers and that he favours the chic and the overpriced over the things that really matter – the food and the people who produce it. Grant’s blogs haven’t gone unnoticed by Frisco’s managing editor, who decides it’s time for him to broaden his horizons and visit some of the less exclusive places in the city. Which is how Frisco finds himself in an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn one evening, fully prepared to hate it – but is (somewhat reluctantly) impressed by the quality of the food, which has obviously been lovingly prepared from the freshest ingredients, the ambiance and the service. Especially the service provided by his waiter for the evening, a gorgeous guy with dark curls, a generous mouth and eyes the colour of the finest chocolate.

Salvatore – Torre – Rossi (Grant is his mother’s maiden name) lives in Brooklyn, in the downstairs apartment of his childhood home (he abandoned plans to move out following his father’s death), and he sometimes helps out at his brother Mike’s restaurant, Mangia. He lives a full life surrounded by his loving, close-knit family, and although romantic love hasn’t worked out for him so far – his boyfriend of two years cheated on him and then dumped him – he hasn’t given up on it and believes that someday he’ll find ‘the one’, although for the moment, he’s content to be single and see what happens. He’s not a fan of one-nighters, and when the handsome customer with the piercing blue eyes blatantly propositions him, he turns him down. The first time. But the pull of the attraction Torre feels towards this stranger is so strong, that he later changes his mind and takes Frisco back to his apartment. The sex is hot, frantic and a real eye-opener for Torre, but he’s not at all surprised when he awakes to find Frisco gone in the morning and doubts he’ll see him again.

Frisco doesn’t do repeats. He doesn’t do relationships or believe in love; having seen his parents’ sham of a marriage and experienced first-hand the damage love can lead wreak, he decided long ago that sex with a string of willing partners – both men and women – was the way to go and sees no reason to change that. But try as he might, he can’t forget Torre – and a couple of evenings later, finds his way to the other man’s doorstep and stays the whole night (something he never does) and even cooks breakfast the next morning.

Frisco has no idea what’s happening to him – or if he does, he ignores, denies and fights it like mad. He can’t stop thinking about Torre, and in an attempt to try to force himself to forget him, to remind himself Torre is nothing special, Frisco ghosts him for several weeks until, unable to stay away any longer, he shows up at Mangia – in time to face the wrath of both Torre and Mike. Before he can finish apologising, a kitchen emergency sees Frisco donning whites and offering to help with the evening’s service, and he’s forcibly reminded of how much he’s always loved cooking (he’s a classically trained chef) and how far off course he’s drifted over the last couple of decades.

I always love a romance in which the firmly “I don’t do love” type is brought to his knees by it, and that’s certainly what happens to Frisco in this book. He does some dumb, unkind things (see ghosting, above) and sometimes acts like a moody teenager having a tantrum, but he’s running scared – his growing feelings for Torre completely blindside him and he doesn’t know how to handle them. His backstory is certainly a heart-breaking one and makes his issues with love and commitment easy to understand, and I loved the moment near the end when he attends one of the Lost in New York support group sessions with Pressley and finally gives what happened to him the right name. He’s a complex, damaged character and I really appreciated the way his personal growth is depicted in the story; thanks to Torre and his family, Frisco starts to learn to let people in, to let go of his feelings of hurt and betrayal, and to realise what he truly wants from life. Yet the author wisely doesn’t give him a complete personality transplant; by the end of the story he’s as forthright and snarky and flirtatious as he always was, it’s just… tempered by love and happiness.

Frisco is one of those force-of-nature personalities, but Torre is no pushover. The intensity of his attraction to Frisco knocks him for six, too – he’s never felt anything like it before, and certainly not with his cheating ex – but he’s not going to put up with any crap, and after Frisco ghosts him, Torre makes him work to get back into his good books. He demands honesty, he calls Frisco out when necessary and pushes him – literally and figuratively – out of his comfort zone. He’s just what Frisco needs and thankfully, Frisco eventually comes to see that for himself.

As to the “wobbly” thing I mentioned at the beginning. For well over half the book, Torre and Frisco have no idea they’re online enemies. Both of them use aliases for work – Frisco makes a point of being as anonymous as possible so he can visit places without being recognised and Torre is treading a fine line, being a food blogger and having family in the restaurant business – and although they never actually lie to each other about their identities, I couldn’t quite believe that “Francisco” and “Salvatore” never connected “Frisco” and “Torre”. It’s one of those things that kinda niggled at me a little bit, but which I realised I just needed to accept to move on with the story. YMMV.

Kale Williams has delivered intelligent, emotionally resonant performances in the previous books in the series and the same holds true here as he expertly conveys the many conflicting emotions experienced by the characters. His pacing is good, and the secondary characters are all clearly differentiated and appropriately voiced; from softly-spoken Pressley to Frisco’s boss at the magazine, a slightly world-weary older gentleman – and I especially liked the big, booming tones he adopts for Torre’s brother, Mike, complete with a Brooklyn accent that sounded accurate to my English ears! Unlike in the other books however, I sometimes had trouble distinguishing between the two leads, especially in quieter moments. Both voices are placed in the same register, and while Torre’s voice is usually a bit lower-pitched, the differences between them are so subtle that at times I had trouble working out who was speaking and had to rely on dialogue tags. It’s not too much of an issue when it’s the two of them in conversation, but when the PoV changed (it’s alternating first person PoV) from chapter to chapter, it could be difficult to work out whose head I was in because I couldn’t tell from the tone of voice alone. I would still recommend the narration (and the audiobook), but I had to knock off half a grade point because of that.

Even so, I did enjoy listening to Never Say Never and would recommend it – and the whole Lost in New York series – to anyone who enjoys angsty, heartfelt and emotional stories about people with realistically messy lives and equally messy problems finding love after heartbreak.

Caz

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