Love Him Desperate by E.M. Lindsey

Narrated by Nick Hudson

Love Him Desperate, book five in E.M Lindsey’s On the Market series, is a slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance between two complex, damaged individuals who have a lot of soul-searching to do before they can finally be together. It’s beautifully written and richly characterised, with two likeable leads and a strong secondary cast, and Nick Hudson’s excellent performance certainly makes the case for experiencing the story in audio.

Raphael Meyer lives with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and while life hasn’t been easy, he’s comfortable in his body and has always lived life as himself, as a proud disabled person. He was born and raised in Germany and lived there until his thirties, when his American lover asked him to accompany him when he returned to the US. Even though Raphael sensed that their relationship wasn’t really built to last, he was restless and ready for change, so he agreed, settling in Cherry Creek after that relationship ended. Now approaching (or in? I don’t recall if his exact age is given) his forties, Raphael is mostly settled and mostly content – although he continues to search for the love and connection he longs for and hasn’t yet managed to find. He knows that being with him can be difficult, and has come to think that romantic love – lasting romantic love – isn’t for him, as everyone he’s loved – and who has loved him – has left him eventually.

Although Dmitri Williams grew up in Cherry Creek, he has a complicated relationship with the place for a number of reasons. Drug-addicted (adoptive) parents, a youthful incident of reckless driving that almost killed someone and anger-management issues have given him a certain reputation, and that he’s Chinese and was adopted by white parents in a mostly white small-town only adds to his being perceived as ‘different’. Now eighteen, graduated from high school and legally an adult, he’s determined to put all that behind him and move on with his life… he just has to figure out what exactly he wants to do with it. In the meantime, he’s working a couple of jobs, making some new friends, and hoping that maybe he’ll find the love and companionship he craves with someone who will be able to see past his reputation and his disinterest in sex (he’s asexual) and care for him as a person.

Raphael and Dmitri are friendly acquaintances until Dmitri’s nineteenth birthday, when they wind up spending the evening together, talking and getting to know each other. From then on, their friendship grows into a deep affection and a special bond develops between them, perhaps borne of their being both insiders and outsiders in Cherry Creek.

Another year passes during which their friendship continues to deepen. By the time he’s twenty, Dmitri has realised he has a massive crush on his friend, and Raphael has become helplessly drawn to Dmitri. These two care for each other SO MUCH and know each other so well – and it’s obvious to everyone but them just how far gone they are for each other – but they keep their feelings to themselves, Dmitri because he believes his asexuality is a bar to anything more between him and Raphael, and Raphael because he knows that falling in love is a guarantee of heartbreak when the one he loves leaves him.

I enjoyed Love Him Desperate, but I’m conflicted over it, too, because while it IS a love story and has an HEA, the vast majority of it is focused on the personal journeys taken by Raphael and Dimitri individually rather than as a couple. In fact, though their friendship is extremely well written and the intensity of the longing they feel for each other is palpable, there are no signs of things turning more overtly romantic between them until the last few chapters – and when they finally do get together, we get to see very little of their “happily ever after”, which made the book feel somewhat unbalanced overall. With that said though, I liked following them on those journeys, especially watching Dmitri coming out of his shell and embracing a new direction and career.

Because this sort of thing is important to romance listeners, I’ll mention that Raphael embarks on a relationship with one of Dmitri’s college professors in the second half of the book – a relationship that Dmitri sort of pushes Raphael towards, believing this guy will be a better fit for Raphael than he could ever be himself. And Raphael, trying to resign himself to the fact that he can never have the person he really wants, goes along with it in the attempt to get over Dmitri – which is a bit mean of Raphael, as Ryan is a good guy. Also, there are two sex scenes early in the book between Raphael and his friend and regular fuck-buddy Isaac (Birdie) – again, I know that some don’t like to read/listen to intimate scenes between characters other than the leads, so just FYI.

Despite the reservations I’ve expressed about the way the romance evolves, the book is nonetheless full of UST and longing, and there’s never any doubt that Raphael and Dmitri are perfect for one another – they just have to allow themselves to realise it and find the courage to act on it. The ‘friend-tells-X-that-Y-loves-them’ thing isn’t exactly a favourite plot device, but here, both men are so firmly entrenched in the belief that the other will be better off with someone else that it’s hard to see any other way that would have enabled them to find their way to each other, so maybe I can forgive it, just this once ;)

Nick Hudson has narrated all the books in the On the Market series, and I’ve enjoyed his performances very much. He’s an accomplished and versatile voice artist and an excellent vocal actor; his pacing is just right, and he voices an ensemble cast distinctly and consistently. He does an especially good job with Raphael’s German-accented English, adjusting his pronunciation to reflect the way native speakers verbalise certain letter sounds differently (for instance, pronouncing “w” as “v” and “th” as “z”) and giving him a gruff, slightly gravelly tone that’s easy to recognise. All the character voices fit really well, and his ability to communicate the wealth of emotion in the story made it easy to immerse myself in it.

The author has clearly done a lot of research into Raphael’s health issues and portrays them in a sensitive manner, and the way she writes about Dmitri’s asexuality is sympathetic and thought-provoking. More than anything though, I came to love these two characters, admire their determination to live honestly and really feel their desire to love and be loved. It’s the fifth and final book in the On the Market series, so there are appearances by characters from the other books in the series, but it works perfectly well as a standalone and I’m happy to recommend Love Him Desperate for both the story and the narration.

Note: The story contains incidence of acephobia and there is one scene (off page) of attempted sexual assault.

Caz

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