His Cocky Valet

Undue Arrogance Series, Book 1

By: Cole McCade

Narrated by: Joel Leslie

Ash Harrington's life is out of control. At 23 years old, he's suddenly the head of a multibillion dollar global corporation he is in no way equipped to run. His father is dying. His mother's run away. He's spent his entire adult life playing fast and loose with his life and his loves, but when he's dragged into a position of responsibility with the fate of the company on his shoulders, he goes spinning into freefall. And Brand Forsythe is the only man to catch him.

Icy, detached, nearly twice Ash's age, the massive monolith of a British valet is impossible to deal with and like no servant Ash has ever met. Domineering and controlling, Brand quickly puts Ash's life in order. And quickly takes Ash in hand.

Even if by day Ash has to project authority, leadership, and calm...by night he's discovering the breathless pleasure of giving up control. The shivering thrill of surrendering to Brand. The sweet taboo of being submissive to the man in even the smallest things. Ash can't quite understand why it feels so good to put himself in Brand Forsythe's capable, commanding hands. He only knows, as he faces the hardest decisions of his life...the only thing that can save him is the love of his cocky valet.

Contains mature themes.

©2018 Cole McCade (P)2018 Tantor

One hell of a valet

This book reminded me of Black Butler and I loved it. And the sex scenes were damn well written.

I’m Hooked

This book is beautifully written. I’m so glad I listened to it instead of reading it. Cole McCade wrote the emotions in this book in a way that made me feel as if I was experiencing them myself. And Joel Leslie did a wonderful job of bringing those emotions to life. I think we all have those moments in life when we’re drowning and would love nothing more than to just let someone else take over for us and make everything okay. Brand does that for Ash. Their story is a poignant story of codependency that acknowledged the unhealthiness of codependency, but made you root for Ash and Brand’s relationship anyway because they were beautiful together. Brand doesn’t stamp out Ash’s individuality, he gives Ash wings to fly and strength to deal with the chaos his life has become. In all honesty, I feel like Brand gave me strength too, he was written so well. Ash and Brand made me FEEL. Their story will be one I listen to again and again. I’m looking forward to listening to the other two books in this series.

Thanks Cole

To be completely honest, I was ending this story feeling kind of “meh” about it. It wasn’t bad. Not at all. But it wasn’t great, either. It felt kind of flowery and a bit forced. BUT the Author’s notes helped me understand where this book came from. And the second Author’s note made me appreciate that flowery feeling more. Thank you, Cole, for sharing a bit of your story with us.

Entertaining

I had a few issues with this story until I listened to the author’s notes at the end and discovered how and why this book was written. I would desperately prefer fewer (or no) uses of “the other man”, and the Full Devotion/Limitless Love kink could have stood a bit more fleshing out to make it less dubious, but overall it was a good story and I will listen to the second book.

Joel Leslie, as usual, is outstanding and continues to set the bar for me for how other narrators stack up.

Beautiful. Wow

It was as Cole said. I could almost see it.
I honestly would prefer to avoid hospitals unless injured or in pain, not to... let's just say I've had my fill. And I'd rather remember that person before they were destroyed by whatever felled them.

Does that make me heartless? Maybe...
But I don't want my last memory, my last sight of a loved one, to be them in a strange bed with machines recording their last.

Anyway, I loved the book. I loved the performance and Joel did a wonderful job.

Can't wait for the Cellist.

Don't skip the afterword!

Joel Leslie with all his many accents has done it again! The book was great. The majority of bdsm related elements(control, inflicting non-typical pain) only came in at the last couple hours and were mild, but the story was interesting and endearing.

What mostly stood out to me was the afterword to be honest. This is my first review and was entirely motivated by the last ten minutes of audio 😆
Apparently this story was composed out of pure spite. This author has spunk and Joel Leslie reading their note full of sass and passive aggression was way more satisfying than it should have been.. I would pay good money just to hear more of simply the attitude in the authors note LOL.

What a fantastic book

Joel has written an outstanding piece of poetry, yes this book is pure poetry…. What a beautiful love story between a beautiful younger man and his older stranger man who will be his wall. This book should become a TV series. It would be a 10 yr run

So much more than expected.

Joel Leslie - WOW. You killed this. There was no point when I didn't entirely believe that there were multiple people talking in this story! If it wasn't edgy enough, you added so much tantalizing emotion that it became impossible to listen while driving or doing anything other than listen. Well done. This is a performance that was much more than narration! Bravo

Composer Cole McCade - Although I heard good things about this story at the time it was published in spring of 2018, I also knew that this was a quick 'action/reaction' to the behavior of a self-described 'best-selling' author previously unknown to me.

I dare say that I've read enough that I don't imagine there are too many best-selling authors who are unknown to me, at least with name recognition.

There were a few medical details that weren't quite right but as the author proclaimed, this was intended to be satire. I won't provide specifics as not everyone would be pulled out of the story by unlikely events.

I've seen the word gobsmacked in stories and have never used or heard the word used in real life. I was gobsmacked. This story was emotion-packed and provocative. I wouldn't have expected this to have so much of an own-voices flavor but this only adds to the performance art presented by this extremely talented duo, wordsmith McCabe and actor Leslie.

I listened to this on audible and now I will buy the book. It's that good.

Fluffy but not. Huggable characters.

Got this book because of a personal rec & the cocky kerfuffle sent me on a shopping trip for spite 😘. The narrator and author’s notes might be the best parts, though. For a book intended to be a bit fluffy, there is heavy emotion (parent in hospice). And it was pretty good but.

I kinda want to give a pass on business details because specificity wasn’t the point. But I was distracted by every work scene. When Ash googled info instead of asking an in-house VP or lawyer to provide a summary? Ugh. I am also personally irritated by boys inheriting controlling interests in corporations even when they are not groomed to run them. Especially publicly traded companies who should have better org charts with realistic lines of succession in place. So while the “I’m in over my head & I need help” meet cute worked to get him hooked up with Brand, Ash was SO FAR underwater already that he was staying underwater. Everything about him flailing at work then hiring a total stranger to help him at home but who then shows up in his office every day without a peep from HR or the BoD or even his admin? Just every possible no. This interfered with my ability to enjoy the story. BUT if one can set their “suspension of disbelief” to the job, it could work. I tried but couldn’t.

This romance almost worked for me. I could believe in Brand’s caretaking. I could see Ash wanting/needing caretaking. I could even see Brand’s particular desires working out, mostly. But. The trust needed to get from ‘intro’ to ‘all in’ felt a little too rushed. Even with the rush, I didn’t see enough the ‘boss by day, sub by night’ dynamic I came for. I wanted to see more expression of the kink in daily life and the boudoir, not just a description of it and the first tentative forays into it. Plot happened and the dynamic went wonky. It wasn’t wrong for the characters, it just wasn’t enough for me. I felt like I was set up to anticipate some scenes. I only got one that was almost there. Actually, one bit was wrong and that was when Brand made a decision without discussing it first with Ash. (Getting info on the sly wasn’t wrong. Moving forward with the info on the sly was wrong.) That’s infantilizing, not caretaking. There was explicit sex on the page but the sec arc was slightly out of synch with the narrative/kink arc.

Then the familial relationship. Ash & his dad existed in different orbits that occasionally crossed. They started to attempt to get to know each other more but then his mom swooped in and derailed that and it never (explicitly) came back. I think he only talked with his dad on page once after that, and the discussion was started by Brand. It was weird - there were <i>all the things</i> they could talk about! They just didn’t. Again, the set up felt mismatched to how it played out.

The narrator didn’t do a british accent and I was fine with that. The Japanese-ish accent was a maybe. Even so, it was easy to listen to and the audio quality was good.

Why am I even saying anything? Even with all the problems, I felt the characters come to life. I wanted to hang out with them. I wanted them to have fun, be healthy, and be happy. I listened all the way to the end. Some authors can get all kinds of environmental detail right and fail to draw me in to their characters. This author elided many details yet got me right in the feels. I sometimes wish I could send back a request for modifications to make the story work better for me because there’s something in it to love. This is one of those.

Loved this story

OMG this was a very good story. Loved it. Loved Joel narration. Perfect. Need to find more by Cole if they are like this story. The way these two meet. The feelings between them that are there and the needing of each other. Love the Dom/sub and the age gap.