Voices

M/M College Hockey, Hurt/Comfort Romance (Irish Knights Hockey, Book 1)

De: Joey Parker

Narrado por: Michael Norman Johnson, Avery Wilde

Charlie
I’m tired.
My life has been filled with disappointments, sadness, and pain.
I’m hated by everyone besides my best friend. Until the captain of the hockey team falls on top of me. His eyes are as blue as the ice he plays on, and his smile fills me with warmth I’ve never felt before.
Shane Hawkins.
The man everyone’s friends with, now has me in his sights and he’s not showing any signs of letting me go. Even through my anxiety and messed up mind, he’s still there.
And I don’t understand why.
But it doesn’t matter. Everyone leaves me when the monsters in my head become too loud.

Shane
When I started at Gannon University, my main goal was to focus on hockey and be drafted into the NHL.
But that all changed the day I collided with the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. His golden-brown eyes held such sadness and pain that I couldn’t rest until I saw him again.
Charlie Alexander.
The gifted artist with a mind full of demons and a secret I want to uncover.
He tries to hide them from me, but I see him. His struggle ignites my instinct to protect him.
When he returns from a trip home, broken and bloody, I do everything I can to show him the goodness in life.
But sometimes that’s not enough.

©2025 Joey Parker (P)2025 Pink Flamingo Productions

Pretty traumatic MM love story…

This book hit a lot of tough areas that could be triggering to people. It had a lot of drugs, drinking, self harming, suicide, rape, assault, both physical and emotional abuse, and I’m sure I’m missing something else. Only thing it really didn’t have was murder.
Besides all the traumatic stuff, the story between Shane and Charlie was a sweet love story. You have the artist and the hockey player who somehow find eachother at a school they both attended for years. Charlie comes from a disgusting rich family with bad intentions and is the black sheep of the family, and then you have Shane who comes from the perfect sunshine family who takes in anyone! I must say I really liked how Shane’s friends played such a big role in the book with stepping in as Charlie’s protectors! Would have liked to see a little more of that dynamic.
I do feel like there should have been more of a shocking ending with Charlie’s twin… would have been nice if he was like hit by a car and his hockey career was over or was kicked out of school and lost his trust!
I think there will be a book 2, which I will be looking forward to! This book was worth the credit!

Voices

Voices is the first book in the Irish Knights Hockey series. This book is about Charlie and Shane and is told from both of their points of view.

Charlie and Shane meet when they bump into each other. Charlie stays out of the spotlight and Shane is the captain of the hockey team. It turns out Shane and Charlie's twin brother are on the same team, but Charlie doesn't see eye to eye with his brother.

Shane has an instant attraction to Charlie, but Charlie has been through some hard things in his past, and is still trying to deal with it. Shane tries to help Charlie, but there are some things he's not sure how to help with.

Can Charlie get through everything that he has been dealing with since childhood? Can he learn to trust Shane? Can Charlie and Shane get their happy ending? I enjoyed this book, and am excited to continue on in the series. I'm hoping we can get Charlie's twin brother's redemption story.

Outstanding

I don’t even know where to begin. This one had my emotions all over the place, from smiling so big, angry, and in tears. What a phenomenal book, and the narrators did an incredible job! Charlie’s story absolutely broke my heart, but Shane loving him unconditionally and always being there showing Charlie that love does exist was so beautiful.

Amazing!

The narrator for Charlie was exactly how I imagined it to be. Shane’s narrator was good too. They both did a phenomenal job and this book is still a top read of the year for me!!

Great listen!

This was an emotional roller-coaster. These were not my favorite narrators but once you get into the story they did an excellent job of portraying the deep emotions.

Good book

This was admittedly a little slow for me. But it was interesting enough for me to keep going, and I’m SO glad I did! The last couple of chapters were hard, because they were emotionally intense. It’s a good book, good characters, and narration was good!

Heartbreaking beautiful

It takes a lot for me to go outside of my comfort zone. This book had a lot of triggers for me, but it was quite well written and worth it. The narrators aren't any I'd heard before, but they we still good. I noticed that the book is part of a series and I'm interested to see what other stories I'll get to hear. Nice job!

The story progression was superb.

This one was a tear jerker for me. I loved the character progression and how the back story unfolded

This book broke me

This book completely broke my heart in the most powerful way. The story and narration gripped me — not just telling a tale, but making me feel every emotion as if I were living it myself.

The narration was flawless, carrying raw emotion in every line. It captured the pain, the silence, the struggle, and the resilience in a way that felt achingly real. There were moments I found myself pausing just to process what I was feeling — grief, empathy, hope, and admiration all woven together.

What makes this book stand out is how authentically it represents mental health and PTSD. It doesn’t shy away from the hard truths, yet it offers understanding and humanity to those experiences. The characters are not just written — they are lived, breathing reflections of people fighting battles we often don’t see.

This is more than a story; it’s an emotional journey and a reminder of the importance of compassion, awareness, and breaking the stigma around mental health.

A truly heartbreaking story with the best outcome…

I had a hard time listening to this book. The physical, emotional, and sexual abuse made me feel a duality of emotions. I felt so angry listening to the abuse and torture that Charlie was forced to endure, and a sense of immense sadness for Charlie AND for Shane. Also, a sense of shame that this exact situation happens more often than not in real life.

The author did a fantastic job tying the plot, characters, and outcomes together. The plot never felt rushed, a natural flow. Looking forward to more books added to this.