Only Her by Sandra Owens

Narrated by Amy McFadden & Sebastian York

I stumbled across Only Her in a coming soon list at Audible a little while ago and between a winning blurb, Sebastian York co-narrating and dogs (!) I was in. I’ve never read or listened to Sandra Owens’ books before but now I want to gobble all previous four K2 books right up. The short version of this review: I really liked it.

Now for the long version.

Cody Roberts is a former SEAL suffering from PTSD. He has recently moved to Pensacola, Florida and taken a job with K2, a specialised security company run by his former SEAL commander, Logan Kincaid. K2 is similar to Troubleshooters Inc (Suzanne Brockmann) – I’d describe both series as being in the same family, but the K2 stories are more tightly focused on one couple at a time and a little different in tone to the Troubleshooters books.

Cody’s nickname in the teams is “dog” – not because he is a dawg with women, but because he has a reputation as something of a dog whisperer. While deployed in Afghanistan he adopted three dogs – Pretty Girl, Sally and Layla (all his dogs are named after Eric Clapton songs – Sally is a boy) but only two made it home with him. Layla is missing somewhere in Afghanistan and he’s still holding out faint hope that she will be located and they can all be reunited.

Across the road from his new rental house lives Dr. Riley Austin, a veterinarian dealing with a rash of animal poisonings.

Cody is immediately attracted to Riley (and the feeling is entirely mutual) but he doesn’t think he is fit for a relationship with the constant recurring nightmares he is having. His head is just not in the right place.

However, when someone tries to run Riley down right in front of Cody’s eyes, his protective instincts kick in. After an impressive rescue, he and Riley start to become friends, and more.

Cody rightly believes the animal poisonings and the near hit-and-run are related and before long, the entire K2 team are involved in solving who is behind it. In the meantime, Cody has to face his demons and begin to deal with them and so does Riley.

Riley has three cats (one’s a kitten) and Cody has two dogs (and still pines for Layla) so there are plenty of animals in the story. The animals each have a distinct personality and I just adored how Arthur the cat and the dogs interacted.

I love dogs and cats and I admit to getting teary when one of Riley’s patients early on dies as a result of poisoning. If animal cruelty is a hot button, listeners might want to avoid this book. However, there are generally more happy moments than tragic ones so I think it’s worth it.

Right near the end there were some things which made me roll my eyes a little bit – some super-fast-acting sleeping tablets for example, but overall, I thought the suspense plot made sense (notwithstanding a remarkable FBI criminal profile) and there was a nice mix of romance as well, with plenty of time to develop the relationship and no silly things like having sex when bullets are flying.

Amy McFadden tends to be a narrator who draws a strong reaction. She has a rather distinctive voice and not all of the AudioGals enjoy listening to her narrations. It sounds to me like her back teeth are somewhat clenched and she has a bit of the “valley girl” to her style but I didn’t mind her performance. I was quickly caught up in the story and any misgivings I had early in the piece disappeared as the book progressed. Ms. McFadden has a good range of male and female character voices (although I did not like her southern accent used for “Sugar” – who was fortunately not in this book much) and her tone and pacing were good.

Sebastian York does his usual great job and I liked that he made an effort to give each of the main K2 guys a different sound. York convincingly delivered Cody’s struggles with PTSD, his fears about not being good enough for Riley and his growing love for her in spite of it. While I generally preferred York’s narration of the two, both were solid performances and both narrators delivered on all the essential elements I look for in a good listen.

Plus: dogs! And cats! And kittens! Even more, Only Her has led me to a new author to glom and that’s never bad.

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Kaetrin

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AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION

TITLE: Only Her

AUTHOR: Sandra Owens

NARRATED BY: Amy McFadden and Sebastian York

GENRE: Romantic Suspense

STEAM FACTOR: Glad I had my earbuds in

REVIEWER: Kaetrin [button type=’link’ link=’http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01INN2KVM/?tag=audiogalsnet-20′ size=’btn-lg’ variation=’btn-default’ target=’blank’]Buy Only Her by Sandra Owens on Amazon[/button] [section label=’Excerpt’ anchor=’Excerpt’]EXCERPT:

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