Kindred Hearts

In genre it reminds me a lot of the late Barbara Cartland books, though that should not be set as a guideline for the story.

Gibson, I loved his accent. In general Paul Morey was excellent at performing voices, as they only changed slightly in tone, instead dialect and accent were used to describe the individual characters.

The story had a great diversity among the characters, Charlotte and Tristan were probably those with the best descriptions. The initial description of Tristan's life, not only as a child but also leading up to his marriage quickly stirred my sympathy. The changes that transpire for him through his life are well described and I love the initially slow moving romance.

Charlotte was a delight to listen to, though I often disagreed with her decisions she has a calm way of looking at things. During the first quarter of the book I often found myself smiling at her odd inputs. I might have continued to do that through the rest of the book, but when you do it all the time you stop noticing.

All the main characters had pretty well-developed backgrounds as you moved on through the story.

The stigma of sodomy at the time is handled very well in the book, both how society views it and how the protagonist deals with it.

The language is also generally kept in the right language, very few times is new slang used instead of the more proper form of speaking. It does not make the book hard to understand in any way, but it creates the atmosphere of that time. Only slips I noticed was during the sex scenes, which there weren't too many of. There was more focus on the romance and what it meant to their lives than the sexual part, which I found very refreshing from a lot of gay romance audiobooks.

First of all let me say I loved Rowan Speedwell's other audiobook Finding Zach it was such a refreshing change from most of the other male/male fiction out there. So it was with high hopes I started Kindred Harts. the good thing is Speedwell still manages to draw a complex main person who is dealing with real issues. the bad news is I just could not find myself sympathizing or even empathizing with anyone in this book. I mean don't we all wish we had Tristan's issues he is smart good looking seems to have a matural ability in almost every field he enters and oh yes he is rich too. The idea that the love of his life just falls into his lap was just too much. By all accounts Tristan is a likeable guy who is just very lonely. I found myself asking if he is liked by almost everyone why is Charles the first person to show him kindness. it was this theme along with a contrived plot that made me almost stop listening several times.

I will give Speedwell's work another try because of her first triuph but this book was a great let down for me.

Let me begin my review by saying that I had actually read this book when it first came out on my kindle and had given it 4 stars so I thought it would actually be fun to listen to it since I was waiting for the next installment in a couple different series and just needed a filler. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement. First of all, the narrator REALLY got under my skin. The characters in this book were mostly English but not one of them had an English accent although a very poor Scottish brogue was thrown in there every once in a while. Second, there were a few times that as the narrator changed characters he never changed voices or if he went from a male character to a female, his voice actually became deeper. Also, I'm not really sure if I just didn't remember the story as being so trite or if it was just hearing it instead of reading it and kind of narrating in my head but I really just wanted to tell Tristan to stop being such a whiner and grow up. Not to mention Charlotte was the most out of touch person on the planet. So I am sorry to say that I actually had to force myself to finish this book and was really sorry to have wasted a credit on it especially since it went on sale for $6 after I purchased it.

I have no idea what would have made it better. It just didn't hit me.

not something that kept me listening.

Not sure

I don't really know

No. Just rated