Narrated by Piper Goodeve
Riptide has a somewhat different take on the secret baby trope. Four years before the book begins, pro-surfer Zach Ellis had a one-night stand with a woman, Corinne, who became pregnant. That woman, as it happened, also had ovarian cancer and subsequently died. Her best friend, Tessa Drake, helped Corinne through her treatment and also with the new baby – Sophia – and has raised Sophia as her own since Corinne passed away. (In fact, Tessa was basically a mother to Sophia from birth, given the vicissitudes of Corinne’s cancer treatments.) Tessa is Sophia’s legal guardian but wants to proceed to formally adopt the now three-year-old little girl who calls her “mommy”.
Tessa tracks down Zach on the set of a Hawaii-based cop show where he acts as the surfing stunt double for the show’s star, Ian Bellamy. Naturally, Ian and Zach look something alike and events transpire in a way that Tessa believes Zach is Ian and that her chances of getting Zach to sign away his parental rights have flown the coop. Letting her hair down, she flirts with Zach (who she believes is Ian) and they have a scorching hot one-night stand. The next day she realises her mistake. When the man she was with last night referred to “his twin” having left Hawaii, he meant Ian. And the man she was with was actually the man she came to Hawaii to see.
Zach had previously been unaware of Sophia’s existence (Corinne reasonably believed he knew but it turns out he didn’t) and he has a steep learning curve as he comes to grips with fatherhood.
He’s also wildly attracted to Tessa and as they begin to navigate what their lives might look like going forward, they continue their fling. Zach’s life is based in Hawaii or LA and lawyer Tessa is firmly ensconced in Washington DC where she drafts federal legislation for a living, working closely with interest groups, congressional and senatorial staff and lobbyists to negotiate law which will pass. She works for a private firm and is up for junior partner if she can get her latest health care reform bill passed. (I’m not entirely sure that is how it works – certainly, it’s not how it works in Australia where we have ‘parliamentary draftspersons’ – but I don’t know for sure and in any event, for the purposes of the story I could go with it.)
Zach is a good guy, a little immature at first with no plans to settle down and raise a child. But it all changes when he meets Sophia and falls deeply and irrevocably in love with her. He cannot imagine a life without her in it. He’s definitely not going to sign away his parental rights. He also appreciates how much Tessa loves Sophia and the bond that exists between them. Exactly how they can work out their living and custody arrangements, let alone have a HEA is not at all apparent. Frankly, I was still wondering almost up until the end of the book. At the least, one of the pair was going to have to make a massive compromise and a huge change in their lives.
I liked the story and was very curious to know exactly how things were going to work out. I got to the point where some of the sex scenes lost interest for me because they weren’t really moving the story along and I really wanted to know how the HEA was going to happen in a satisfying way – if it could even be done. Zach and Tessa have inventive and lusty sex but I could have used a little less of it, to be honest.
The narration was a little inconsistent. Piper Goodeve did a good job of Tessa’s characterisation and Sophia’s too, but when it came to Zach, and the nanny, Abby, there were some issues. Zach’s voice was only a little deeper but it was nevertheless easy to tell when he was speaking. There was one section when he was comforting a crying Tessa when he did not sound remotely soothing however. And later in that same scene when they were having sex, he didn’t sound very sexy or demanding or even very into it. The text and the narration didn’t match here. In fact, the tone used for Zach right through this section was basically the same and that felt wrong.
As for Abby, she is described as a 21-year-old English girl and mid-way through the book there is a reference to her having grown up in Liverpool. Her accent was very upper crust and not at all John Lennon however. Worse, she sounded closer to 35 than 21. I just didn’t believe the voice I was hearing was that of a young woman.
Abby doesn’t have a major part in the story fortunately and there were times when Zach’s characterisation and tone were well done – but it was not consistent.
Overall, the narration worked more for me than it didn’t. I was particularly impressed by the way Ms. Goodeve performed Sophia’s dialogue. (Sophia had a remarkably good grasp of language for a three-year-old but that’s not any fault in the narration.)
I’m curious to try some of the earlier books in the Renegades series now – the Renegades are the stunt company for which Zach works – as various of the earlier couples had cameos in the series and I liked the way this book was executed. I’m just not sure if I will continue on audio.
Kaetrin
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