Drawn Together by Lauren Dane

Narrated by Lucy Rivers

Drawn Together is book 6 in Lauren Dane’s Brown Siblings series. I loved the first two series’ entries in particular but the later books have been a bit of a mixed bag for me. Raven Smith, the heroine of Drawn Together, has been a problematic character in the series and I was interested to see how she was “redeemed” here. I’ve heard praise about this book from many of my blogger friends, so it seems I’m a bit of an outlier because, sadly, I didn’t love it.

It is always difficult, when there is an audiobook that’s not a huge success, to know how much of that was due to the writing and how much was due to the narration. I gave it a bit of thought throughout the listen and I’ve come to the conclusion that in this case, it was mostly the story.

Raven Smith is a tattoo artist, who works (at least for now) with Brody Brown in his shop. She had a thing with Brody years before but Raven never promised to be monogamous and when Brody fell in love with her and wanted monogamy, the relationship fell over. But, it’s not like she made promises to him she didn’t keep. They had a kind of “friends with benefits” relationship when she blew into town, until Brody met Elise and things changed. Raven is close friends with Brody’s sister, Erin, and since Erin’s son, Alexander, was born, she has been in town much more often.

I don’t think this is a book which would be easy to read/listen to without having some background of the series. Nearly all the previous couples have more than a passing cameo in this book and this includes not just the Brown Siblings books, but also the Delicious books – a spin off series.

Jonah Warner was introduced in one of the Delicious books (he is the brother of that book’s hero). At the engagement party of Levi and Daisy, Jonah sees Raven and feels a strong attraction to her. He is also interested in getting a tattoo, so he approaches her to design and ink a large back piece for him. Pretty soon, he’s scorching up the sheets with Raven and requesting a monogamous commitment and she’s making changes she never thought she would.

There is a D/s element to their sex life which I was a bit disappointed by actually. Not that I have an objection to BDSM in books per se, but here, I was hoping for more of an equal sexual relationship, or maybe even one where Raven was in charge. While I could see the attraction for Raven in letting someone else be in charge from time to time, that it was all the time in their sexual relationship bothered me. I will remind everyone here that I’m an outlier.

I found it difficult to warm to Jonah. I thought he was bossy and pushy and I got a bit tired of his high-handed ways. I was also a little surprised (and, again, disappointed) that their BDSM play included no discussion of limits or safe words.

Raven has a fairly tragic backstory which gives context to much of her previous “bad” behaviour in the series. I did feel that she had become a bit homogenised by the end, but perhaps I was just grumpy. There is a lot of minutiae in the novel which is a stylistic thing that doesn’t appeal to me but it obviously does to many others. I found it more problematic in audio since I can’t skim in this format.

There is something else too. And I think it was worse (or, at least, more highlighted) in audio. Some of the conversations felt unrealistic to me and kind of … indulgent; in that they seemed more what someone might want to hear but not what people would actually say. Hearing it out loud made the unreality more obvious to me.

Lucy Rivers’ narration was pretty good, with one caveat. While Raven and Jonah did have different voices, there was enough similarity that from time to time, they became indistinct. Most often this occurred mid conversation so, it would start off being clear as to who was speaking but then it would become confusing. As the author doesn’t use a lot of dialogue tags, this was even more problematic.

I was feeling a bit jaded about the book so I took special care to note things about the narration so I could be fair to both the story and the reader. I thought Ms. Rivers’ character voices were, with the exception mentioned above, fairly good. The male voices were kind of rougher and a bit husky rather than particularly deep, but they were quite well differentiated. When Brody was speaking, I was never in doubt. Jillian’s English accent was impressive and Erin’s tones were contrasted with a deeper voice for Raven. The children’s voices were also believable and pleasing and I thought, overall, the emotion of the story was well delivered.

Ultimately, I wasn’t as engaged as I would have liked to be. I didn’t love the voice given to Raven or Jonah – they were too similar and Raven’s tones seemed somehow fake – as if it was put on rather than organic. Perhaps that was merely a product of trying to come up with a different sound for each of the women. But most of my lack of engagement, was, I think due to the story. As I didn’t love Jonah, I couldn’t really cheer for the HEA and I did end up feeling that Raven was somehow diminished rather than empowered and emboldened by the relationship. Again, I’m an outlier I think.

If a listener has enjoyed the earlier books in the series, this one might well be a winner and the narration did succeed for the most part.

[section label=’Audiobook Information’ anchor=’Audiobook Information’]

AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION

TITLE: Drawn Together

AUTHOR: Lauren Dane

NARRATED BY: Lucy Rivers

GENRE: Erotic Romance

STEAM FACTOR: For your burning ears only

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