I Need You

Riverside Town, Book 1

By: Darla O'Malley

Narrated by: Wyatt Baker

Losing a loved one can change a person, their outlook on life, and their reason for being...

Dane and Noah go through those changes together. Neither of them encouraged or expected what their future would bring, but they don’t regret their new normal.

When Dane’s girlfriend, Maranda, became pregnant during their summer break before starting college, Dane did what he felt any man should do in that situation, he gained a respectable job as a firefighter to provide for his girlfriend and their daughter, Sydney; he became dependable, not needing to rely on his parents or anyone else for help. After disowning his parents for their choice of disowning his gay, older brother, Noah’s life was blissfully simple. He was the manager of a hotel, and engaged to his best friend, Sydney, Dane’s daughter. As long as he had a good book to read, he was happy.

Life for Dane and Noah was set in stone; they knew who they were, who they loved, and where their lives were going. However, when tragedy strikes, their lives are upended and they have no one left...except each other.

Author note: Male/male romance, gay for you, can be listened to as a stand-alone. Contains sexual acts between consenting adults, strong language, light daddy kink, light dubious consent.

©2020 Carla Hamilton (P)2022 Carla Hamilton

Two men suffer devastating losses,

Two men each grieving the loss of family members, one a husband and father, the other a family friend about to become his son-in-law find their relationship of father and son in-law become even stronger with the survivor's guilt and the empathy they each feel for the loss of each other's life long partner and the secret each has kept from the other. The innocentbut unexpectedly strong and deep affections between the two straight men evolve into a heated m/m passionate may-december romance.

i really enjoyed Wyatt's narration of the book aside from hearing paper page turning numerous times in the narration, i look forward to listening to other books narrated by Wyatt. The sound of the page turning got annoying and is why I gave a 4 on performance.

Great premise for a story!!!

This audio book was by a 'new to me' author, Darla O'Malley and a 'new to me' narrator, Wyatt Baker. This book is the start to a new series called Riverside Town.

Dane, fire chief, father of Noah's fiancee, straight.

Noah, hotel manager, engaged to Dane's daughter, straight.

There is a 15 year age gap between these characters, which is one of my personal favorite tropes.

The relationship between these two started out slow and sweet and then bam zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds! Gay to bi in the wink of an eye. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I liked how quickly things progressed. I know that time was passing because there are mentions of 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, and months ago, but we don't see what was happening during that passage of time between the two characters.

Why the page turning sound, I didn't get that??? I've been a member of Audible since 2007 and this is the first time I've ever heard the page turning.

Hot sexy times, exploration into kink, including some humiliation, d/s, daddy/boy.

Entertaining listen

I Need You deals with 2 MCs finding love after loss. While it could lean heavily into the grief they share it moves past quickly without being flippant. Between the grief and a character who refuses to hear the word no it still manages to be a relatively low angst story. Both men are hiding secrets about their relationships and while we have an on page confession by one of them we don’t have the other and then it’s not mentioned which I found disappointing. Mild daddy/boy dynamic and s3x scenes that begin while one MC is sleeping at first. The narrator performs well and makes the steamy scenes even steamier. I found this audiobook very enjoyable. I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this audiobook.

Worth the effort!

So I have to say that my first reaction when I realised what the original relationship was between these to MC-s was a big, fat Whuut?
But after I got past that I enjoyed myself a lot. Dane and Noah are both lovable and likeable, and their growing emotions and absolute obliviousness are touching and hillarious. The bad guy was a bit one dimensional, but the way Noah bumbles around him made me guffaw several times. A fun ride, looking forward to the next book from Darla O'Malley!

Great story

I really enjoyed this story so much how they helped and leaned on each other through their grief and their slowly developing relationship and respect for each other I really enjoyed them exploring their selves and each other and the work drama was also very interesting