Between Loathing and Love

By: Andrew Grey

Narrated by: Tristan James

Theatrical agent Payton Gowan meets with former classmate - and prospective client - Beckett Huntington, with every intention of brushing him off. Beckett not only made high school a living hell for Payton, but he was also responsible for dashing Payton's dreams of becoming a Broadway star.

Aspiring actor Beckett Huntington arrives in New York City on a wing and a prayer, struggling to land his first gig. He knows scoring Payton Gowan as an agent would be a great way to get his foot in the door, but with their history, getting the chance is going to be a tough sell.

Against Payton's better judgment, he agrees to give Beckett a chance, only to discover - to his amazement - that Beckett actually does have talent.

Payton signs Beckett but can't trust him - until Payton's best friend, Val, is attacked. When Beckett is there for him, Payton begins to see another side to his former bully. Amidst attempts by a jealous agent to sabotage Beckett's career and tear apart their blossoming love, Payton and Beckett must learn to let go of the past if they have any chance at playing out a future together.

©2015 Andrew Grey (P)2016 Dreamspinner Press

Theater Drama and past wounds

Tristan James brings to life this story featuring high school rivals. He always manages to differentiate the character’s voices so I am never confused as to what’s going on.

Talent scout Payton Gowan is hoping to rising to prominence at his job but to gain favor he has to cultivate a new talent, Beckett Huntington. The problem is that Payton went to school with Beckett and has only memories of Beckett the star athlete tormenting him. But Payton’s fortunes are tethered to Beckett’s.

It’s through spending time with Beckett that Payton gains a new perspective on his high school times. In addition, Payton learns that Beckett isn’t the monster that he remembers. Is that enough to move forward?

A cute story of enemies to lovers which saw Payton finally make peace with his high school bully. One of the things that stood out to me was Beckett’s confidence and Payton’s lack of it even after all this time. This book was a treat with the theater drama as well as Payton’s best friend Val. While it wasn’t a deep story, it did pull on my heart strings and I am glad that Payton and Beckett got it right.

Tristan James

Tristan James is an auto-buy for me regardless of who the author is. Andrew Grey's enemies to lovers story was cute.

Fun story!

This was a fun story with lots of humor. A romance story that makes you laugh.

I really enjoyed listening to this one.

I know Andrew Grey's books usually have a random old flame or some new guy sweeping in and out of the main characters' lives just to build drama, but there's none of that here. Beckett does bring a friend onto the scene out of nowhere but there was no time between Pay seeing him and meeting him for there to be any kind of angst over it. Since I'm tired of that kind of misunderstanding pushing the characters into an epiphany I appreciated that.

I've listened to a couple other books narrated by Tristan James and I think he does a great job and has a voice I could listen to for hours (funny that). The one gripe I have with his narration (and many others, like Wil Wheaton reading 'Ready Player One') is that the main characters sound the same. There were times Beckett did sound different, a bit deeper, than Payton but then drifted back to sounding the same, or close enough to not tell the difference. Val did have a different lilt to his voice, which was a plus.

As for the book's summary...you're going to have to read that elsewhere. All I'll say is that I really liked the main character, his best friend, and the guy he hated in high school. I wouldn't mind listening to this one again down the road.

Cute story story

I love the storyline , Andrew Gray is one of my favorite authors, Tristan James is one of my favorite narrators.