Freeing

By: E.K. Blair

Narrated by: Renard Pasquale, Angelo Carrillo

Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

**This is a companion novel to the USA Today best seller, FADING.**

Knowing who you are and accepting who you are come at different prices.

Jase Kinrick grew up in your typical, all-American household. But after the death of his sister, his parents shut down, forcing him to deal with everything life throws his way alone. Terrified of the person he’s discovering himself to be, Jase has his way with every willing girl to try and rid himself of what he fears he is - gay.

Escaping California and moving to Seattle to attend the University of Washington, Jase frees himself to the reality that he likes men. Never staying with any guy long enough to get to know them, he doesn’t realize that he’s still hiding from who he is until he meets Mark. Scared of having real feelings for another guy stirs up the questions and fears he’s fought hard to bury.

To strip away the barriers to the heart of what is real, and to be okay with what lies underneath, will be Jase’s moment of truth. But he’ll need Mark to lead him there.

©2013 E.K. Blair (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Nothing new

This is Jase's story. The only new things were that you find out what he did to Mark. You also get some insight to his inner turmoil. The only other new thing was his visit to Mark's mom's house. All this could of happened faster and not dragged on so long. The book was not bad but boring as all the scenes and dialogue were mostly the same. I also did not like the narrator's female voices.

Romance

I fell in love with mark he was so understanding and patient with his boyfriend. I like that he made him realize that he shouldnt be afraid about who he is and just except it.

Great side to the first story

I loved how you got to view his side to Candace's story. This would be a good stand alone novel as well. It was a great love story and I have to say, mark is my favorite character. It was an easy book to listen to and not too cheesy.

M/M college romance

Freeing is about finding acceptance as a gay guy and sharing your heart with friends and family. Jase is dreading telling his parents that he’s gay because they are religious. He has difficulty defining himself in public. He fears what other people think about him as a gay person. When he meets a musician who is gay he helps Jase takes the necessary steps to free himself of the guilt he lives with about his sexuality.
…
As Jase and Mark form more than friendship they learn to trust each other while leaning on each other for support.
…
EK Blair’s writing style thrives off of damaged characters. Complicated characters is her forte. Jase has insecurities that EK Blair has readers compelled to read. This is a college romance between two guys. I read these books out of order, but it looks as if they can be read as standalones. From what I’ve read this series seems to have has a formulaic style to the way these characters start and end their journey. The characters start off with feelings of guilt then slowly work there way to feelings of unworthiness and then moving in the stage of wanting to destroy the relationship until the final step is to overcome the fear and find acceptable. It was an okay read.
…
Narrator:
Renard Pasquale is one of the male performers. Angelo Carrillo is the other performer. I have no idea who either of these narrators are so 8m unable to distinguish which performed which character. I must admit I wasn’t expecting the voice of Jase to sound so emasculating. For a gay romance I was expecting a little more spice. There were sex scenes, but they weren’t dripping with unforbidden sexiness. This is by no means a dark romance, but I was hoping for some better sex scenes. I hoped for Mark’s voice to be more sexy. For hot guys I didn’t get the impression they were as hot as EK Blair intended them to be. The performances were not a suitable match in my opinion. Don’t get me started on the voice of Candace. Male narrators rarely impress me with there skills to sound like a female.

Fading from Jase's POV

Narration - Renard Pasquale (The notes for the book say it's also narrated by an Angelo Carrillo but the audio credits only list Renard)
He's a really good narrator and has a nice smooth voice and his females are good too. I could kinda listen to him all day.

The story is Fading from Jase's point of view, but also gives the story of he and Mark. Love them both BTW. Jase comes out to his parents and they throw him out, so there is a lot of his coming to terms with being an openly gay man who was raised believing it's a sin. Thank goodness he meets Mark!

What I loved the most about this book is the development of he and Marks relationship. It was slow and sweet and they didn't just hop into bed with each other. Well, they did, but they shared other intimacies, and weren't fornicating freely!

Enjoyed it!

The Story for Jase & Mark was beautiful!

Any additional comments?

When the author actually decides to write Jase and Mark into the story, it was a really beautiful and inspiring MM romance.

Un fortunately , it felt as though the author tried and succeeded in compensating a MM romance for her hetero fans by adding a heterosexual relationship between Cadence and Jase with the illusion of them just being friends and since he's gay, sleeping almost naked with him, all the kissing and hugging, and her wearing his boxers was acceptable. -shakes head with disappointment- Just no. Those scenes with them were so uncomfortable.

But it gets worse.

The entire story is taken almost completely over by Cadence's drama. Jase and Mark's story is just a tease for you true fans of MM romances.

And what's even worse is every decision Cadence makes is considered her being strong when in actuality she barely shows any strength to what happened to her.

I've seen girls and women go through what Cadence went through and they stepped up to the plate and beg the cops, beg family, beg anyone who'll listen to not let it happen to someone else and to punish the person who did it only to have it thrown back in their faces because no one wants to believe them or there is no proof!!!!!

Cadence not only has proof but a witness and cops that want to help. Yet, she cries about how scared she is (understandable) but still does nothing to stop the a-hole! What a horrible message to send young girls and women!

And so much effort is put into Cadence's issues only to have a 2 second conclusion to her problems at the end. WTF! Hours have been spent on this girl's problem in a supposedly MM romance and all you get is a 2 second conclusion to her issues and no mention of what happens to the a-hole that caused the issues. SERIOUSLY?!?!?! -ugh-

So, a 2 star is all I can manage for this story. And honestly had the author put forth more effort towards the romance for Jase and Mark, it would have been a 5 star because she's an excellent writer but more so for FM romances.

****************************************************
Both narrators were excellent although I honestly couldn't tell them apart, but Renard Pasquale has done a few MM romance narrations and he is AMAZING! I definitely want to hear more narrations for both though.
****************************************************

Depressing, Angst-Fest.

It is rare for me to say this, but I hate this book. Hate it! I suppose it is my fault for not researching the series but I had no idea that 50%, or more, of this book is about Candace's rape and the aftermath. Depressed doesn't even begin to describe how I felt listening to this. On a positive note, the narration of this story is superb.