Damaged Hearts

Book 1 in The Boys of Venice Beach Series

By: Jan St. Marcus

Narrated by: Toby James

Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

A chance encounter connects them.

Their tragic pasts bond them.

An unexpected love surprises them.

An unseen danger stalks them.

Love doesn't have a chance...or does it?

When 19-year-old military veteran Brandon Hawkins is attacked on Venice Beach by a gang of frat boys, he is saved by Michelangelo Curtis, a passerby. Michelangelo was roaming the boardwalk grieving the death of his twin brother six months earlier. The two men’s unexpected encounter forges a strong bond between the damaged and lonely men.

Inviting the homeless Bran to his place for some food and a shower, 25-year-old Michelangelo finds himself drawn to the younger man. Neither of the men is gay. But before long, their friendship morphs into something like love and takes them both by surprise. And they have something else in common: The frat boys are out for revenge!

Damaged Hearts is an M/M romance with a "gay for you" plot, HEA ending, and thriller elements that will keep you glued until the very end.

©2019 Blue Ascot Media (P)2021 Blue Ascot Media

reality realism raw rude

I enjoyed every minute of this one. I loved meeting Brandon and following him on his journey and self-discovery. Now, Michelangelo was just the topping on it all. His life was so much more than I would have imagined it to be from the synopsis. Grant Briggs was a character that was a bully, but one that had things to figure out for himself. I can see him being in more of the Boys of Venice Beach series.

I pegged this story as being more realistic that some because of the use of some of the language. It was real, raw, degrading, hurtful and what is said to people in the real world. I found it informative about somethings that had me wanting to know a little more. I was waiting for what as going to happen next. I was not expecting some things and other were just a course of life.

Toby James gave me a full narration with pitch, tone, and variation. My introduction to him was enjoyed. Thank you Jan for inviting me into your head, memories, and plot for a different kind of journey for new full characters.

Reasons I enjoyed this book:
Unpredictable Entertaining Realistic Easy-to-read Informative Relatable characters Straight-forward language (raw and real)

Nice story, good narration

It's a good, slow burner story with a of hurt/comfort, suspense (provided by the awful frat guys). The relationship between Bran and Michaelangelo developed slowly but sweetly with no second guessing their feelings.
The narration was good. Toby James, new to me, has a good range of voices for the characters and a good cadence. Though long, I really enjoyed the story through the narration.

AWESOME! One of my all time Top 10 Audiobooks!

This was a riveting listen. Simply AWESOME on so many levels! But before I get into specifics, I want to provide some context:

1. I am a HUGE audiobook fan. So far this year (2021) I have listened to over 40 titles and more than 80 last year.
2. My favorite genre is Mystery/Thriller and my favorite authors are Tom Clancy (and his successors), Bradley Wright, Harlan Coben and similar. My all time favorite narrator is Scott Brick followed closely by Michael Crouch.
3. I listen to one romance title (all sub-genres--including LGBTQ+ and M/M) for every 10 Mystery/Thrillers.
4. I read the original printed version of DAMAGED HEARTS a little over a year ago.
5. In the 15 years I've been an Audible subscriber, I've only left one or two other reviews.

So why did I like this audiobook so much? There are numerous reasons. I guess first and foremost is the unique structure of this book. This story is told from the 1st Person POV of 6 of the characters in the book. I do not consider myself a literary expert by any measure, but I have never read a book that used this device. That being said, it is a brilliant way to tell this particular story. I have heard several romance titles that use 1st Person POV for the main character (MC) or the two MCs and it's usually adequate--to a point. The limitation of this approach is that the conflicts and dramas are (necessarily) limited to the interaction between those two characters. This makes the stories much smaller in scope and lately, the conflicts have struck me as repetitive and contrived (thus the 10-1 ratio in my listening to Mystery/Thrillers vs. Romance). But DAMAGED HEARTS tells a much broader, much more interesting and much more exciting overall story.

And this also feeds into why I thought the audiobook was so frigging great--Toby James, the voice artist, was magnificent! The biggest challenge with this 1st Person POV structure is that it *should* be difficult to tell the characters apart and keep track of who is talking. But what I noticed in the printed version I read, and which Toby did such a magnificent job of managing in his performance is that you could instantly tell who was talking by their language, diction, accents and overall voicing. And while I think that Scott Brick may be the best voice artist of all time, Toby is going to be in that conversation. Even in dialogue, I could tell who was talking. After reading the book, it was the one area I thought would be lacking in an audiobook.

About the story:

The core of DAMAGED HEARTS is an unexpected romance between two men, neither of whom identifies as gay and who are thrown together by a bullying incident on the Venice Beach boardwalk. That inciting incident leads to complications for Michelangelo, one of the MCs who works secretly for NSA (National Security Agency). When he intervenes to save Bran (the other MC) to save him from a potential beating, he breaks the arm of one of the bullies, setting off a chain of events that encompasses the rest of the characters and drives several subplots throughout the story. And while all of this is happening, they two MCs are falling in like and then in love with one another. The love story is a slow-burn with lots of uncertainty, insecurity and a bit of immaturity. At first, it's a bit unbelievable, but as you learn more about the MCs and their backgrounds, it makes sense. There is some heat, but not a lot of heat. Hardcore fans of M/M would probably be disappointed if they are looking for lots of heat and erotica. It's not that kind of book.

But what I found most fascinating (again, due to the 1st Person POV structure) was getting into the heads of the characters, and hearing, in their own voice, what they were thinking and why. In most books, this is all told to us by the narrator (3rd Person Omniscient) and it usually just scratches the surface. But to be able to get into the head of the antagonist and listen to his thoughts as he makes his plans and listening to the flawed logic, selfish motivations and messed up morals was something new to me. And again it was Toby's performance that made me hate the antagonist so much--even his voice was disgusting.

And as I mentioned, the romance was a slow-burn, but there was still lots of tension because the pacing was brilliantly controlled by the author--just as things would heat up between the two MCs, we are ripped away to listen to other characters in a sub-plot. But here's the thing--the sub-plots were so compelling that I almost forgot that I was kind of mad about being left hanging with the MCs. And then, when we are brought back, we forgot that we ever left. And, of course, as things heated up and were coming to a climax, the last 4 hours were as binge-worthy as any other audiobook I've ever listened to.

Oh, and even though I had read the book over a year ago, there were a couple of parts that surprisingly, brought me to tears--again. Powerful stuff. AS well written as I thought the book was, this audiobook was performed to the same level of greatness.

And that's why this audiobook is in my Top 10 of All Time!

**Technical Note: My OCD flares up when I listen to an audiobook that has errors and mispronunciations. It drives me CRA-CRA. In one series I've been listening to, for example, the author uses the word "demeanor" a whole lot in each of his books. Every single time, the narrator pronounces it, "De-mean-YER." And in an even bigger series, there is a lot of action that takes place in Alaska, where there is a city named "Barrow, Alaska." It should be pronounced "BA-row" like a "wheel barrow." And every time, the narrator pronounced it "Borrow" like "Can I borrow some money." My head exploded about 15 times. Every time this happens, I am taken out of the story while my head comes back together and I am relaxed enough to continue.

I bring this up because I cannot recall another audiobook where I didn't notice ANY mispronunciations. None. I don't know how this can happen when even much more famous authors and much more famous voice artists still have errors. I'm not necessarily saying that there aren't ANY mistakes--just that I didn't catch a single one.