Wesley

Loving a Young, Book 1

De: Stacy Eaton

Narrado por: Jan McNamara

Charlotte Bennett is not a fan of strangers. When she sees a man touching her daughter at the park, she reacts without listening. It’s only later when her daughter is rushed to the hospital that Charlotte realizes how wrong she had been to accuse the stranger of inappropriate behavior.

Doctor Wesley Young only wanted to help the tender-aged girl he witnessed fall, but when her mother attacks him at the park, he’s left stunned. When little Marisol arrives in the emergency department, the mother makes more of an impression on him than the cut she left on his face.

Things heat up quickly when Marisol is no longer Wes’s patient, but when traumatic things from Charlotte’s past are revealed, Wes isn’t sure that Charlotte is the woman for him. Can Charlotte find a way to explain it all so that Wes will accept both her and her daughter?

©2022 Stacy Eaton (P)2023 Stacy Eaton, Nitewolf Novels, LLC

Narration left a lot to be desired

Wesley and Charlotte meet under extreme circumstances. Charlotte was the mother of a young girl that had a mishap on the playground. Wesley was the doctor the saw the mishap and offered care. This results in a misunderstanding a trip to the hospital and a few other events along the way. I held on to hear the complete story. It was almost painful the story was interesting but listening to the narrator hurt a bit. The little to no distinctions between characters including sexes. This could have been just someone reading a story out loud.

Charlotte & Wesley

A cute, fast paced story. Charlotte is a single mother of an adorable girl. Wesley is a caring pediatrician looking for the right woman to start a family with. Wesley's reactions to her "secrets" are over-the-top for the single date they've been on. The attraction is there, but they barely know each other, and he is immediately hyper-critical of her supposed behaviors. She has given him no reason to react as he does.
I was not a fan of the narrator, very monotone and unemotional.

Not For Me

I'm a fan of Stacy Eaton's work and have enjoyed several series that she has written. I was looking forward to another series starter from her, but I found early on that this story was not going to be one I enjoyed. Within the first couple of chapters, I found myself disliking the main female of the story, Charlotte.

[Spoilers] Charlotte has gone through some traumatic things in her past (kidnapping and rape), which has made it so she does not trust men. When she first meets Wesley, he is caring for her daughter on the playground where she has fallen. Charlotte didn't see the fall and thinks that he is trying to kidnap her daughter. So she runs over, pushes him so hard that he hits his face and starts bleeding, and runs off with her child. If she ever apologized for this at some point in the story, I completely missed it. Between this opening and the skittish nature she has when Wesley asks her out, I was done hoping they would get together.

Hard hitting issues and sweet but also unrelatable

The plot of this story is definitely interesting. As a parent myself, I can relate to Charlotte's strong need to protect her child, especially given her backstory. I liked Wesley's empathy for Charlotte and his dedication to his job. The story is quite complex with some hard hitting issues, including sexual exploitation and kidnapping. Stacy Eaton has balanced these issues with the Young family which is large, very loving and supportive of each other and very welcoming to new additions.

Despite that, I struggled with this story. I don't want to spoil it but what Wesley did to Charlotte, despite the stresses of work, I found difficult to forgive so easily. He does redeem himself to some extent but I still struggled with this part of the story.

This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I voluntarily provided this review.

Great Story! Riveting & Heartfelt!

Stacy Eaton became one of my favorite authors, she has a unique writing style and her stories are original with interesting storylines that are captivating from start to end. This book Charlotte Bennett and Doctor Wesley Young’s story, Charlotte is a single mom of a five-year-old daughter, Marisol, and Wesley is a doctor in the local hospital. Charlotte misinterprets a scene and jumps to conclusions about Wesley. She later learns of her mistake and gets the chance to apologize when she sees Wesley in the hospital. Wesley is looking for a special someone to settle down and have a family with. He feels an instant connection to Charlotte and appreciates her fierce protectiveness of her daughter. Charlotte has her reasons for being overly protective, she has been through a lot and wishes she could forget the terrible things she endured, but she learned to get past them, she still deals with her own inner demons and is raising her daughter the best way possible. Wesley recognizes some of her triggers and is understanding at first but when her past comes back to haunt her he is the one who jumps to the wrong conclusion and makes the biggest mistake of his life. I adored the Logan family, Marisol was adorable too, I was a fan of Wesley, but his jumping to that conclusion annoyed me, thankfully he redeems himself in the end. The story is is told is alternating point of view and is nicely plotted with plenty of drama, angst, heartfelt emotions and romance. Stacy Eaton, thank you for another great story and emotional rollercoaster ride.

🎧📚🎧 I listened to the audiobook edition, this is my first time listening to Jan McNamara and I see she is a fairly new narrator, she did a nice job bringing these characters to life, humanizing them with their emotions. I was not a fan of the way she performed the character voices, I am not sure if it was artist choice or not, but she did not give each character their own distinct voice, so it was hard to tell who was who. A saving grace with this book is the chapters are told in alternating point of views, but her voice for the two lead characters were basically the same, so unless you hear a pronoun you need to figure out whose chapter it is, and having to think about it takes your head out of the story. She is easy to listen to and sets the perfect tone for the story, hopefully in time, she will improve on her character voices, especially when covering the male roles. I am looking forward to hear he grow as a narrator.

good

Loved it !! this story. the narrator is so fantastic it's like your really there!! After listening to this story,. I totally enjoyed reading this book. It’s well written and the characters were uniquely fantastic. I would suggest this book to my friends that like this sort of genera. this was a good book. The narration was great.

My favorite Series from this Author

I've listed to/read several books by this author and this is my favorite series and genre so far. I like this author's character development and the world of the Young family. The relationship between the H and h was well written my only complaint (about all this author's books) is that you have to remember that when the chapters change viewpoint to timeliness is also reset back as well. Sometimes I feel like the story is twice as long as it needs to be because you repeat the same scene from two views and nothing is really added.

Not what I expected

Small Spoilers included:

Charlotte and her daughter were in the park playing one afternoon, when she saw a stranger too close to Marisol and she took off at a dead run. She is overly vigilant since she, herself, had a number of traumatic experiences as a child and young adult. What Charlotte hadn't seen was that her daughter fell off the monkey bars and fell to the ground. The man "too close" to her daughter was checking her to see if she was badly hurt, and she had to feel a little guilty, thinking he was being inappropriate. When Marisol feels worse after her nap, she's rushed to the hospital with brain damage. Dr. Wesley Young, the doctor who treats her, is the man who was "too close" in the park and she admits that it was a misunderstanding. Long story short, Wesley and Charlotte have an immediate connection and Wesley can't help but adore Marisol. As they grow closer, the three of them start acting as if they were a family. (Spoiler) In college, Charlotte had been roofied and raped, and Marisol is a result of that rape. Charlotte has no idea who did it since she was drugged with Rohypnol and can't remember anything about that night. In a twist of fate, the father turns out to be a fellow doctor and he remembers Charlotte immediately. In front of Wesley he verbally accosts her and Wesley "knows" immediately that Charlotte isn't who he thinks she is. He jumps to the worst conclusion and pushes her away, not giving her an opportunity to explain. This is where the story goes off the rails...Wesley doesn't call, text or get in touch in any way. Charlotte doesn't think she should reach out because he's told her what he thinks of women who don't tell the truth. Gah! His brother, Brad, shows up at Charlotte's to ask her what happened and, when she tells him the ugly story, he asks her if she can give Wesley another chance. She tells Wesley everything about being drugged, raped, pregnant but so thrilled at the child that was a result and, instead of feeling contrite and horrible for jumping to conclusions, he has the gall to ask if "Are you sure you don't have any more secrets?" I really disliked Wesley, with his cold response, lack of empathy, lack of remorse for his accusations and he didn't deserve her. The ending was very rushed and it left me unsatisfied.
This is the second book narrated by Jan McNamara and it was difficult to follow. The voices were all the same in modulation, intonation and pitch. I had to concentrate too hard to figure out who was who and I often had to back up and re-listen to a section. I'm sure with time and practice, she can fix this.