Surviving Raine

Surviving Raine Series, Book 1

By: Shay Savage

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

As the captain of a schooner catering to the elite on the Caribbean Seas, Sebastian Stark does his best to avoid any human encounters. Interacting with people isn't his thing, and he prefers the company of a bottle of vodka, a shot glass, and maybe a whore. There's no doubt he's hiding from a checkered past, but he does well keeping everything to himself...until the night his schooner capsizes, and he's stuck on a life raft with one of the passengers.

Raine's young, she's cute, and Bastian would probably be into her if he wasn't suffering from alcohol withdrawal. As the days pass, DTs, starvation, and dehydration become the norm. Even the most closed person starts to open up when he thinks he's going to die, but when she realizes their traumatic pasts are connected, it's no longer the elements that have Bastian concerned.

He has no idea how he's going to survive Raine.

Contains mature themes.

©2013 Shay Savage (P)2019 Tantor

Ummmm… interesting?

Setup: mmc (Bastian) lives on his boat, whores around constantly, and drinks copious amounts of alcohol. He has a small crew and makes money by captaining bespoke cruises for the wealthy. On one such cruise the ship goes down. He’s drunk at the time and misses all the lifeboats. He manages to rescue one other passenger from the water, the mfc (Raine). This is a survivalist love story. Half spent on a life raft, half on a desert island.

I’ve only read one other female romance author who attempted to tell her story from a 1st person male perspective (The Wild Side Trilogy by RK Lilley). Both that one and ‘Surviving Raine’ fell a little flat for me. If these examples are anything to go by, women: 1) don’t believe men have any romantic thoughts 2) don’t believe men have any deep thoughts and 3) believe that men conflate sex and love

Bastian was exactly what you’d expect of a psychopathic, alcoholic, who lived through horrific formative years and a horrific adulthood. Basically, before buying his boat he made a living as a contestant in the hunger games 😂. This guy was rude, crude, violent, self destructive, and dismissive.

The narrator’s voice was perfect for Bastian. It had this loose, gruff, idgaf quality. Unfortunately the narrator’s voice for Raine was so awful it made me wonder if it was a strategy rather than a shortcoming. Like, maybe we were supposed to think that when women speak, men hear a kind of nails-on-a-chalkboard-falsetto. Also, maybe the author wants us to believe that all men think women have the intellectual capacity of a small child. Because that was Raine in a nutshell. She spends most of the book either crying (which was justified, but c’mon...) or making wide-eyed, wondrous, open-ended inquiries.

More than 5 stars.

This author can write. I’m only giving five stars out this year to stories I’ll never forget and this is one I won’t forget.

Depressing

I really enjoyed the narrator when he performed the male character but the female character voice was cringeworthy. The story was a bit depressing for me as the MC struggled with his past demons and the female came across as just whiny and irritating. It may have just been the narrator but I found it off putting. Not sure if I want to continue onto the next book.

Love this story!

I've loved this story for a while now but I have just one word for this performance... OUTSTANDING! Sean Crisden has just joined my list of favorite narrators.

Transcendence was a lot better

I loved Transendence so I gave this a try. Overall it's alright, but the female voice the narrator does can be a little much. The male voice acting is pretty good though.