Squared Away

By: Annabeth Albert

Narrated by: Greg Boudreaux

“Whether making my heart melt or my head burst into flames, Annabeth Albert draws the reader in and keeps them captivated.” —Gay Book Reviews

In the wake of tragedy, SEAL Mark Whitley rushed stateside to act as guardian to his sister’s three young children. But a conflicting will could give custody to someone else—someone Mark remembers as a too young, too hot, wild party boy. Even after six years, Mark can’t shake the memory of his close encounter with Isaiah James, or face up to what it says about his own sexuality.

Isaiah’s totally over the crush that made him proposition Mark all those years ago. In fact, he’s done with crushing on the wrong men altogether. For now, he’s throwing himself into proving he’s the best person to care for his cousin’s kids. But there’s no denying there’s something sexy about a big, tough military man with a baby in his arms.

As the legal details get sorted out, their long-buried attraction resurfaces, leading to intimate evenings after the kids are tucked in. A forever future is within reach for all of them, if only Mark can find the courage he needs to trust Isaiah with his secrets—and his heart.

Out of Uniform
Book 1: Off Base
Book 2: At Attention
Book 3: On Point
Book 4: Wheels Up
Book 5: Squared Away
Book 6: Tight Quarters
Book 7: Rough Terrain

Also by Annabeth Albert:

Shore Leave
Book 1: Sailor Proof
Book 2: Sink or Swim

Hotshots
Book 1: Burn Zone
Book 2: High Heat
Book 3: Feel the Fire
Book 4: Up in Smoke

Fantastic narration!

I loved this story of grief and second chances and opening up to trusting others and falling in love and found family. Mark and Isaiah are so good together and I loved how Annabeth handled Mark’s s*xuality. Loved the ace rep! This can be read as a stand-alone from the series, but I recommend all of them. It’s one of my favorite series ever!

It took some time but loved this

I must admit that I love this series. There is just something about mm and uniforms that make me happy. We first meet Isaiah way back in At Attention as Dylan's roommate and a friend of Ben's we did not know a lot about his aside from the fact that he had a thing for military guys. In this book we get to know more about him and why he is the way he is.

I loved that fact that Isaiah is the type of person who knows what he wants and does not waver. When we meet him in this book, he is ready to step up and to take care of his nieces and nephews single handedly. He understands that up until this point he just worked but was not stable until he realized that there would be little humans depending on him. I fell in love with him and was routing for him since the start.

I enjoyed Mark at times. He was the type of character that you did not know if you would like him or not. The story had to progress so that I could decide on how I felt about him. I did not figure out if I liked his character or not until the last 3 chapters. The entire time he was selfish, and self-involved. I do understand that he lost his sister and his family is not the best, but he kept treating Isaiah as though he was just there and not someone that knows the kids better than he did.

The ending was cute and when Mark got it together the story was great. I loved the fact that kids played equal parts within this story. They were not in the background minding their business but in there playing a part.

Good but no my favorite Out of Uniform

In general I like the series. However this one wasn't my favorite. it seemed to drag in parts and generally be complicated in ways that I didn't really care to follow.

Beautiful story

Another great book from this author. Narration is perfection. Life has a way of changing, taking everyday in a whole new direction. Facing adversity, and grieving loss, and yikes (!) 3 kids to care for. The emotion evoked from this story is deep and compassion is what the listener feels.

Great characters but unnecessarily dramatic

I liked this book and enjoyed the cast of characters, I like the way the stories in the series are linked but are good standalone books. My problem was that the story was dramatic for the sake of drama. There could have been a great emotional journey for the main characters without having to resort to the appearance of such black and white thinking from social services and the court about the suitability of guardianship. Both characters had extreme reactions to each other over miscommunications after both seeming to be rational people and it felt out of place. It probably would’ve been better just setting the uncle up as the big bad and have the relationship develop in a more natural way.
On a whole I did enjoy the story and the narration was good but I just found some of the drama unnecessary.