Pine Cove: The Complete Series

By: HJ Welch

Narrated by: Nick J. Russo

Length: 59 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to Pine Cove, where true love lives happily ever after! This box set contains all six novels as well as all five companion short stories.

Safe Harbor

Robin Coal needs a fake boyfriend for his high school reunion. He asks his housemate: A gorgeous, totally straight ex-Marine. What could go wrong? There’s only one bed, and Dair might not be so straight after all...When Robin’s past threatens their future, only Dair can save him.

Sweet Spot

It’s Halloween and Robin has prepared a sexy little surprise for his boyfriend Dair when he gets home from work. Hold on to your horses, Marine!

Troubled Waters

Bodyguard Scout Duffy doesn’t know what’s worse: The fact that his scorching one-night-stand, Emery Klein, is his bratty new client, or the fact that he doesn’t even remember Scout. But Emery’s life is in danger thanks to his out and proud charity work, and once he finally recognizes Scout, their chemistry in undeniable.

Homeward Bound

Swift Coal just found out he’s a father, and his daughter (and her cranky cat) are coming to stay. His best friend’s younger brother, Micha Perkins, has nowhere to go and a wrongfully tattered reputation. He’s relieved when Swift asks him to be a live-in babysitter. He just has to hide his lifelong crush. Easy, because Swift is straight - right?

Bright Horizon

With 16 years between them, baker Ben Turner and lawyer Elias Solomon have no idea their crush is mutual. But when Ben inherits his long-lost family’s estate and becomes an overnight millionaire, Elias swears to protect the innocent younger man from the vultures circling him. To unravel the mystery of the inheritance, they must go to England to confront Ben’s estranged relatives...and their feelings for each other.

Crossed Paths

Raj Bhat is done living in the shadows. It’s time for him to take charge of his own destiny and tell the man he’s fallen for how he really feels.

 Midnight Sky

It’s the night before New Year’s Eve. Taylan Demir is all alone, and he’s just lost his dog. Except when his handsome customer, Hudson Perkins, comes to his rescue, Taylan doesn’t just get his dog back. He’s suddenly got a hot date, and maybe someone to kiss when the clock strikes midnight.

Memory Lane

Angel Shields saved Jay Coal’s life in high school, and Jay has secretly loved his straight best friend ever since. Now Angel’s back in town with amnesia after a suspicious work accident and it’s Jay's turn to rescue him. He pretends to be Angel’s fiancé to see him in the hospital, but with his scrambled-up memory, Angel’s not sure it's fictional after all. He just knows he loves Jay more than ever.

Thin Ice

Kamran’s ex broke his heart, tricked him into aiding a bank robbery, and now he wants him to do one last job. There’s only one way to say no: Seek the protective custody of the biggest, grumpiest FBI agent ever, Lee Marshall. And pretend to be his boyfriend for a week-long family reunion in their giant mansion. Wait, what?

Calm Shores

Gorgeous, sophisticated Dante walks into Oliver’s bar and orders...a boyfriend?! Dante needs a man to keep his mother from setting him back up with his awful, cheating ex, and Oliver is up for the challenge.

©2022 HJ Welch (P)2022 HJ Welch

Great characters, but can't finish

I loved the characters and writing and settings, which made me want to keep going. The relationships were fun and interesting and often tackled important issues I don't generally see in romantic fics. The narration was decent, especially with the dialogue.

Tat being said, I could not fully finish any of the stories. I found myself skimming through the constant misunderstandings building to the climax with each one. It's not my personal preference to offer misunderstands and self-confidence issues as a plot conflict, but I can overlook it with a single story. Unfortunately, it was the relationship conflict for the first four books! There are only so many times I can read, "I'm not good enough, so I'm going to believe the lie the villain told me instead of just taking to the guy I supposedly care for."

So here I am, abandoning the anthology I desperately wanted to love, midway through book 4. I give up. The misunderstandings are just too monotonous and frustrating.

Sweetest and Dirtiest!

Cute, funny, witty, kinky and HOT HOT HOT! 🔥🔥🔥 This is one you don't wanna miss!

Of the 8 books only the last 4

I almost turned off the series half way into book one. Books 1 to 4 is everything I have fought in my life as a gay man in America. Gay men have to be better than the regular guy . No fear of nothing especially of another man , gay or not! Yet the first four books had a week soft man and then the male man. The sex was great in all 8 and it was almost equal for both. I could only hear 1/2 of books 2 to 4. Had it not been for book 5. I was going to return the series

Quantity over Quality! Beware!!!

I was too far in to return this for my credit back so attempted to get thru but literally couldn’t. My fault for trying to maximize bang for my buck with the box set.

If you like whinny, self loathing characters, who constantly do the opposite of the thing they just spent 20 minutes saying they were gonna do and with dumb, hard for the narrator to pronounce names then these crap-tastic stories might be for you.

I literally didn’t get 100% thru a single book and frustratedly haven’t even attempted to start the last 3.

Narrator wasn’t terrible but some of his choices of voices for the characters and some very noticeable pronunciation stubbles on top of the already bad writing and characters and I just couldn’t get thru these.

Good reading of a poor quality series of books

While Mr. Russo does a pretty good job of bringing the characters to life the one dimensional characters and predictable storylines are trite and overworked

LOVE LOVE LOVE

I enjoyed each and every story! The performance was one of the best and the stories well written!

A mixture of really good and not so hot.

The story is themselves were different enough to be interesting and highlighted many LGBTQ dynamics and difficulties. however, as a boxed set, they became just formulaic enough to become tedious. the characters were enjoyable and the social dynamics supported their development. The short stories were easier to engage and remain connected with without overly entwined subplots. Nick J Russo generally nailed the voices and the emotional tones for the characters, especially the bad guys. The boxed set and the story lines may have none him a disservice. by the 48th hour, when the details began to be distracting, focus on his vocals and the details of his speech became distracting at time. Having speech and enunciation became a distraction, especially his tendency to add "L's" to words that end in "-aw" detracted from the story for me. I think it would have gone unnoticed in the individual books.

Is Pine Cove a real place?

Mika, Emory (I probably spelled that wrong), Lee, and Oliver were my favorites. I loved every story. And the performance was perfection!

Loved it

Amazing well received kept my attention throughout the entire audio delivery of the story, will listen to again.

This collection is amazing!

What a fantastic value! Every story was 5/5! I really detested Emory…. which means he was wonderfully written. Micah and Swifts story was probably my fave! Thank you!

Enjoyed

Really enjoyed this series and it's characters. would love violin know more. any plans for more?

Ups and Downs.

I liked the stories, I liked most of the characters, I felt pretty immersed by the series and enjoyed the narration.

However, Giving characters strange names is very unhelpful when you're trying to follow an audiobook, I mean who's ever met a man called Angel? everyone called Robin I've ever known has been a girl, Dair seems completely made up as does Emery, honestly no need of it.

Whilst on the subject of Emery, this is the book I skipped, the constant whining and mentions of gender indentities and toxic masculinity really ruined it for me, I would have preferred to listen to a book following the lives of the lesbian couple than listen about this noisey flamboyant muppet.

6 full length novels for 1 credit

What is not to like? Even if you skip several endings out of boredom, you still have hours and hours of entertainment. I liked the first one and thought the second one had a memorable main character. Listening to six in a row should be avoided, I think. Problem is, the writing is mediocre at best. Only plain tropes and no surprises. Shallow characters without growth. Way too much inner monolog for every point of view always about tiresome insecurety, combined with much crying. Never a hurdle in the relationship but always a secondary character being an over the top villain or rude bigot with vague motivation.
The narration is great and I finished 2 novels.