St. Nacho's

St. Nacho's, Book 1

By: Z. A. Maxfield

Narrated by: Thomas Fawley

Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Cooper has spent the last three years running from a painful past. He's currently moving from town to town, working in restaurant kitchens, and playing his violin for tips. As soon as he starts to feel comfortable anywhere - with anyone - he moves on. He's aware that music may be the only human language he still knows. Ironically, the one man he's wanted to communicate with in all that time is deaf.

Shawn is part of a deaf theater group at the nearby college. Shawn wants Cooper as soon as they meet and he begins a determined flirtation. Cooper is comfortable with down and dirty sex, just not people. As far as Shawn is concerned, dirty sex is win-win, but he wants Cooper to let him into the rest of his life as well. Cooper needs time to heal and put his past away for good. Shawn needs to help Cooper forgive himself and accept that he can be loved. Both men find out that when it comes to the kind of healing love can bring, the sleepy beachside town of Santo Ignacio, "St. Nacho's" as the locals call it, may just be the very best place to start.

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some listeners may find objectionable: Anal play/intercourse, male/male sexual practices.

©2008 Z. A. Maxfield (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Audist and Offensive

I looked forward to this book as it had a Deaf character. This book was full of offensive, audist language. It was never read by a Deaf sensitivity reader, that’s for sure. Why do you speak better? I don’t know how I would continue if I lost my hearing. These questions and content and actually having the narrator take on the speech tone and pattern of a Deaf person were so outrageously offensive. So much of the portrayal were just wrong.

✫✫ 3.5 Stars ✫✫

This was a good MM Romance with a lot of hard situations that the author handled very well in my opinion. I loved the characters and the story line but I will say I would have loved it more with a different narrator. Sadly he just sounded to robotic for my taste.

I liked the 1st half, but struggled w/the 2nd half

What was most disappointing about Z. A. Maxfield’s story?

I really liked the development of the relationship between Shawn and Cooper, it was sweet and the interplay of Coooper's music and Shawn being deaf led to some very touching and memorable moments. But the story lost momentum for me after Cooper's past pulls him away from Shawn and St. Nachos. I couldn't find Jordan sympathetic, and I found Stan and the whole religious subplot highly annoying and overly dramatic.

Have you listened to any of Thomas Fawley’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've listened to only 1 other performance by him, Touch the Sky by Nyrae Dawn and Christina Lee (which was a dual narration with Brandon Bujnowski), which was also a $1.99 audible add-on to the Kindle Unlimited book. Since I'm not a big fan of dual narration, I liked St. Nacho's narration better ... but I think both of these stories weren't the strongest and the narration helped bolster both books.

Any additional comments?

The Kindle book is offered free (purchase for $0, not Kindle Unlimited) and I added the narration for $1.99 (although it is now included in the Audible Romance Package). I know there are 3 more books in the St. Nacho's series (also included in the Romance Package), but I don't think St. Nacho's and Z.A. Maxfield is a good fit for my tastes!

uses Deaf people as a gimmick

One of the most irritating listens I've had in a LONG time. I wanted to listen because the story features a Deaf character, and I was looking forward to seeing Deaf culture in a romance and having the leads overcome their differences and learn about each other. Hoo boy. I did not get what I want.

The author should have researched Deaf culture a lot more when writing this. Or at least run it by a few Deaf readers before publishing! The portrayal of Shawn, the Deaf character, is shockingly ignorant. The writer makes a point to REPEATEDLY describe Shawn's voice as having "no musicality at all." This is supposed to be intriguing because Cooper, the hearing character, loves music. Deaf speech is mocked so often that I just can't fathom thinking it makes sense to romanticize such insulting language. Shawn also speaks and reads lips perfectly without Cooper ever having to make a real effort (how convenient for both Cooper and the writer!), and Cooper wonders why other Deaf people don't speak like Shawn. Ugh. I anticipated Cooper as a character being ignorant but learning from Shawn; that doesn't happen. His ignorant thoughts (like being shocked Deaf people feel music) go unchallenged. He does not grow, and the offensive, audist narratives are never corrected. There's also this weird fetishistic tone in a lot of the ways Shawn is described, like how his hands look like fluttering birds when signing ASL. If it were only a few isolated comments, I wouldn't have noticed, but it's ongoing and persistent. Paired with the inaccurate and audist portrayal of Deaf people, it creates the feeling that Deafness is being used as a quirky gimmick to add "flavor" to the story. Sensitive topics like this don't work as fast and easy gimmicks for romance, though; they require some effort and care.

For Christ's sake, the term "differently abled" is used! This term is widely discouraged and NOT in use by Deaf people or people with disabilities. Well-meaning people use this term innocently sometimes, and a simple correction is all that's needed, no harm, no foul. But that's not an acceptable excuse for a published book with a Deaf lead. Language guides from major organizations for people with disabilities are ONE Google search away! That's what's offensive about this, not so much the term itself. The author couldn't bother with ONE Google search?

If you ignore the disappointing portrayal of Deaf people, there's not much leftover worth listening to. Despite being named after the city St Nacho's, there's no sense of place. Supporting characters are mostly vacant shells. Cooper is meant to be a hardened, rough type with tattoos and nowhere to call home. The longest he stays anywhere is 3 days (ha! sure!). But instead of coming across as the big bad wolf, he feels like a bad boy knockoff. His repetitive "dark" thoughts take up most of the story, and they're corny and trite more often than not. He describes Shawn as the first person he's seen in color in years, for example. Cringe. Cooper even breaks the 4th wall and addresses the reader at one point! Not consistently enough to be a fun creative decision for the book, just an isolated, awkward moment that pulls the reader out of the story for no reason.

We are told repeatedly that Cooper and Shawn are into each other (or that Shawn is into Cooper, I guess), but we don't actually see scenes that establish this in the beginning. We are simply told it in a few summary sentences. No early interactions related to that are portrayed. The most we get is Cooper seeing Shawn around and having some irrelevant small talk. Why were such useless scenes not edited to add meaning? Ah, and their steamy scenes are awkwardly written, quick, and a bit cringe. And spit? Really? Ouch. After one encounter, Shawn says to Cooper, "Save it. If I can't see your lips, you're an inflatable doll." Huh? Is this supposed to be sexy or cheeky or something? It's just strange and not really believable speech. A lot of the dialogue is like that, just strangely worded and out of place in the scene.

The narration performance is OK. The narrator sounds bored most of the time and places emphasis on strange parts of sentences. Dialogue lacks believable or effective emotional delivery most of the time, but I've heard worse. He does a great job with Spanish pronunciation and Deaf speech, though, which I appreciate. Too bad the effort to respectfully portray Deaf speech was applied to a book with such offensive Deaf representation.

Nope

I started this book and can not continue because of the narrator. There is no emotion and he just sounds bored to even be reading this book. I could not get past 30 minutes..

Started off great but......

I greatly enjoyed the first half of this story, we're immediately informed that Cooper is suffering from a traumatic experience and has been on the run from his past. In comes shawn, a deaf but very communicative man, to give Cooper a reason to settle after 3 years of running.

While i enjoyed their romance, in the second half of the book our two main protagonists take an almost complete backseat to Jordan's story of recovery which was uncomfortable with a capital U. During Jordan's siege of the story we are also introduced to pastor Stan who is the embodiment of every pushy, cringy and overzealous religious representative you've ever had the displeasure of meeting or reading about.

my point is that i found this deep dive into religious propaganda and small town mentality 2/3 of the way into a very sweet romance off putting and an otherwise lovely story was ruined for me.

kudos to Thomas Fawley for perfectly recreating the voice of someone who is hearing impaired.

Not for me

I found the main character to be completely unlikable and unbelievable. The amount of self guilt and angst he starts with about something out of his control is just dumb.
I work in the industry of auto accident fatalities and can tell you that In 6 years I have never had customer that reacts this way about it. Maybe because of my work I just couldnt buy the driving force to the main character's hang up. I couldn't finish at 50% and I don't want to finish it, I read enough to know I don't like it.

leave your baggage at the door

This was a solid story. The characters were rich and the story told was moving. The narration was amazing. Thomas Fawley admirably individualized each character and their emotions through voice, accent and inflection.

I can’t even with this thing

The first time we meet Shawn, we meet his hands first. A tired trope about Deaf people and sign language and crap writing, to boot.
And then it just slides downhill fast.
Did the author talk w any Deaf people? Deaf readers to proof it? or better yet - provide guidance for this book?
Audist….look it up. And then knock it off. Stop ripping off Deaf people as some opportunistic device.

Great story!!

I’m kinda embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t read too much of the storyline and didn’t realize that this was a love story between two men. However I loved their story and how they overcame so much, also guy on guy action is hot! I look forward to listening to the next book!

Good story, awful reader

story was ok performance was dull and monotone. struggled to continue to listen til the end

Good story, mediocre performance

The story is good, but as mentioned before, the narrator is kinda robotic and slightly boring. I did, as also mentioned in another comment, sped up the whole thing to 1.20 and it was so much better! So that was a great tip!

A new author for me and I love the story

I have this book on my kindle from 2019 and I just decide to read it in July of this year and I am so happy I did as I enjoyed it very much. Now it's available on audible plus I enjoyed listening to it again. I will definitely listen to the others in the series as i fine this first book interesting.

robotic narrator good story

really liked the story and although the narrator sounded robotic at times I listened to the whole book. I ended up speeding up the narration and it worked out better.
I'll be listening to the next in the series