Chase in Shadow

By: Amy Lane

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Chase Summers: Golden boy. Beautiful girlfriend, good friends, and a promising future.

Nobody knows the real Chase. Chase Summers has a razor blade to his wrist and the smell of his lover's goodbye clinging to his skin. He has a door in his heart so frightening he'd rather die than open it, and the lies he's used to block it shut are thinning with every forbidden touch. Chase has spent his entire life unraveling, and his decision to set his sexuality free in secret has only torn his mind apart faster.

Chase has one chance for true love and salvation. He may have met Tommy Halloran in the world of gay-for-pay-where the number of lovers doesn't matter as long as the come-shot's good-but if he wants the healing that Tommy's love has to offer, he'll need the courage to leave the shadows for the sunlight. That may be too much to ask from a man who's spent his entire life hiding his true self. Chase knows all too well that the only things thriving in a heart's darkness are the bitter personal demons that love to watch us bleed.

©2012 Amy Lane (P)2014 Dreamspinner Press

The Red Door

Should we forget how scary the world can be, we can always rely on Amy Lane's stories to remind us that there is plenty of pain, heartache and misery in people's lives, even for those who look like they have it all....the looks, money... the fame. The best thing about Amy's stories are that even though she may introduce us to the worst life has to offer, she also makes sure to also fill us with hope, happiness and love, which is always the best life has to offer.

Coming Out

Chase is filled to the brim with sorrow, guilt, grief, self-denial, and self-destruction. Conflicted over being gay, traumatized by his mother’s suicide and father’s abuse, Chase has no coping mechanisms at all. When he starts doing gay porn under the thin veneer of being a gay-for-pay actor (which no one truly believes), he meets the love of his life: Tommy. And thus starts one of the most angsty love stories I’ve read in a long while. The love story was difficult to read, but the sex scenes and porn scenes were amazing and hot. I felt like I earned the happy ending once the book was over.

A Haunting Tale

If you could sum up Chase in Shadow in three words, what would they be?

Dark, Emotional and Beautiful

What other book might you compare Chase in Shadow to and why?

A Solid Core of Alpha. The main characters and storylines are quite similar.

What about Sean Crisden’s performance did you like?

Loved it, he's one of the best in the business!

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When Chase finally opens up about the red door and his mom.

Any additional comments?

At first glance one would think Chase Summers life is perfect. He has a devoted fiancé, a home, friends and good paying job. Dig down deep though and you’ll find the stuff of nightmares. Chase buries his sexuality behind a blood red door that binds his soul. His father is a homophobe of the highest order, and his mother killed herself when he was just a boy, only adding to the emotional scars that make up Chase’s tattered soul. The little piece of heaven in Chase’s otherwise psychotic existence is his job for a ‘gay for pay’site, Johnnies.

Tommy Halloran has his own personal demons to deal with. He’s bulimic, brought on by a need to look as fit and trim as possible in front of the cameras. His Johnnies persona, Tango, is a sexy little minx with his dark hair and piercing eyes and absolutely zero inhibitions where sex is concerned. Tommy and the other guys at Johnnies quickly befriend Chase, but somewhere along the way the relationship between Tommy and Chase becomes something more.

After Tommy’s mom dies and Chase is a shoulder to cry on, the two begin a passionate affair. Yes, Chase is still closeted and lying to his fiancé, but he doesn’t lie to Tommy about the important things, or so he thinks. Keeping his sexuality and his past bottled up behind that red door that is starting to buckle under the pressure, turn out to be more than anyone could bare. When the bough breaks, and Chase takes a razor to his wrist, he finally opens up about his sexuality. Turns out, that was just the tip of the iceburg.

First, I’m going to tell you this was one of the best books I’ve ever listened to. Then I have to warn you that if you have triggers... severe depression, attempted suicide, abuse, neglect... be warned all of these situations are depicted in this story. While this was a very heavy story to listen to it was told in such a way that I was engaged and intrigued throughout. I found myself silently weeping at one point, when Chase finally opens up about the red door and his mom, it was devastating. But the way he gets through everything, surrounded by nothing but love and support, because Tommy and the rest of his friends NEVER leave his side, was beautiful.

Either Amy Lane works with people with depression and anxiety, has a family member or close friend that suffers or she does some of the best research in the business. I know someone whose situation is quite similar to Chase’s and the way Lane describe things were so eerily true, it was almost haunting.

Now the narration, wow! It’s no secret Sean Crisden is one of my favourite narrators, his voice is mesmerizing. The way he can change his tone with just the barest of pitch or breathe adds so much more to the story. And then when you couple his expertise with a fantastically written story, it’s a masterpiece. Throughout the story Chase has this inner monologue going, the demon that is his depression speaks and Crisden had a specific voice, monotone almost, that he used for these parts in the story. It allowed me as a listener to feel the gravity of Chase’s situation. He’s all sunshine and smiles on the outside, but inside he’s being torn apart, and all the while this demon of depression is so matter of fact about everything, it really shows the truth of what goes on inside the minds of people that suffer this debilitating disease.

This story is dark, dramatic and emotionally draining. But there is such a beauty to the bond between Chase and Tommy and the way they literally drag each other out of hell, that I can’t not recommend it.

One of the best

I’ve listened to hundreds of mm audiobooks, this is one of the top three series out there! Get it, and enjoy!

decent book

I enjoyed the book but a times felt like the story was all over the place and from one minute to the next she did know if he was in the past, future or present

The only negative

I think this story was excellent and I love Sean Crisden as a narrator but for this book I feel that his voice sounded older than the young college age Chase.

So, so, angsty - so good!

Wow. Okay. First, if you haven’t read an Amy Lane book and you are starting with this series – take heed and have plenty of tissues on hand!

Amy can write fantastical fantasy with crazy and sometimes funny figures, she can write humorous contemporary romance with quirky and quant characters, and she can write heart-wrenching, gut-twisting, hanky-shredding, angst-filled stories that rip your heart out and make it bleed.

This is that last kind.

But – and this is HUGE – she gives you a tremendous pay out. This is important. In her stories she will absolutely drag your heart out through your nostrils but then she mends it, patches it up, and fluffs it with so much caring and tenderness and purely sweet and luscious goodness that when it goes back into your chest (usually at the end) it feels so much better than when you started.

In this series we have Johnnie (who we hear from in his own story Black John) a director of gay pornography. He runs a respectable shop, no taking advantage of the models, clean, safe, etcetera – but it’s porn. Now it’s often called gay for pay, but the so-called straight guys… not always so straight.

That’s where Chase comes in. Chase is gay but he “can’t be”. He has had a horrible childhood – one where he sees his own mother’s suicide and lives with a father who somehow blames Chase for her death.

He turns to porn to make money, though he has a girlfriend he “loves” and wants to be with. He takes on the name Chance and finds his true home with Johnnies.

There Chance meets Tango. Tango is really Tommy, and Tango/Tommy has no problem being gay. They hook up and find an immediate love connection. But Tommy can’t take it that Chase continues to stay with the girlfriend and internalizes his own pain with a horrible eating disorder.

(I warned you – Angst. City.)

We know from early on in the story that Chase attempts suicide. The story explains the whys and the hows and then the what happens next.

Mercy, Chase’s girlfriend is not particularly vilified – although her decision at the end strikes me as not necessarily in line with the rest of her persona and is particularly harsh given the circumstances.

Chase and Tommy are a match made in heaven – both kinda screwed up but oh so passionate. It’s wonderful to watch them fall in love and it was absolutely horrible to watch each of them fall apart as a result of this love.

We also get to meet the cast of characters that fill the coming books and that, too, is fascinating.

I really loved how Amy was able to really get into Chase’s head and show us that in his mind he had NO CHOICE but to do what he did but then – at the last frickin’ moment – it all got so clear for him.

The time spent in the psych ward was hard to read and maybe drug a bit, but I think it helped to really cement the huge change in direction that occurred in Chase’s thinking.

Like I said at the beginning – Amy knows how to bring on the Angst (with a capital A) – but she also brings you back down with an incredible happy ending – one that we get to see develop in the next books even more.

I absolutely love this book, this series and the author. (FWIW this is my second favorite book in the series – Dex is my favorite – but they are all so dang good!)

Audio:

Sean Crisden is a master! I love all his narrations and this was one of the first I’d listened to. He makes a point of keeping all the various characters separate which is a huge undertaking in this series. We end up with a total of 4 couples and lots of side characters and they all are voiced somewhat differently. So giant Kudos there! He also has a way of making the emotion feel so authentic. He does “perform” the stories – not merely read them.

6 of 5 stars

Heartbreak

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely, heartbreaking story by Amy Lane and best narration

What did you like best about this story?

It is hard to say,

Which scene was your favorite?

This beginning, not favorite, just stunned!

If you could take any character from Chase in Shadow out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Chase and hug him and love him

Any additional comments?

Great, but heartbreaking story or not being able to live your life due to fear!

This book packed a punch!!!

Where does Chase in Shadow rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 5, I think.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Chase in Shadow?

The prologue was a punch to the gut, for sure.

Which scene was your favorite?

The scene where Mercy hands it to Chase, towards the end. Although, it wasn't between the two main romance characters, I felt it was so realistic to how someone in her situation felt, it was heart wrenching

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Both reactions. It was hard to see Chase do all the things he did, merely to hide his past, from everyone, including himself.

Any additional comments?

The narrator did great! He had varying voices for all the characters, and really used his voice to convey meaning.

Superb

I think of Amy Lane as a romantic comedy author, so I was unprepared for the shattering beauty of this book. Chase's deep pain came through with heart-stopping clarity, yet the story was never maudlin. Sean Crisden's narration set the perfect tone for the book. It was clear from the narration when Chase was speaking out loud and when the words were in his head—no small feat without the help of quotation marks, when what Chase was thinking and what he was saying were so often at odds. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.