The Road Home

By: L.A. Witt

Narrated by: Greg Boudreaux, Michael Ferraiuolo

Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

David Coleman has made some mistakes, and he’ll be living with the consequences for the rest of his life. He’s made decisions that have left him estranged from his once tight-knit family. Even now, when David is clean and sober, working his way through medical school with a promising future ahead, his parents refuse to forgive or forget.

When he gets some grim news about his father, David realizes he’s running out of time to make amends. As he comes home for the holidays and his sister’s wedding, he knows it’s going to be tense, but he’s desperate to prove they’re wrong about him. And since they won’t take his word for it, he’s bringing reinforcements.

Hunter Scott will do anything for his childhood best friend, but he never thought that would include posing as his boyfriend. Except David’s family has always respected Hunter. Maybe if they see that David is good enough for Hunter to love, they’ll realize he’s good enough for them, too.

But as Hunter and David lean on each other through snowstorms, family drama, and visits from personal demons, maybe this relationship isn’t as much of a performance as it was meant to be.

The Road Home is approximately 82,000 words long.

CW: Recovering addict struggling, references to meth use, combat PTSD, discussions of suicide

©2020 L.A. Witt (P)2020 L.A. Witt

enjoyed it

📖 Story comment: easy pace, likeable main characters, interesting story.
I enjoyed the concept behind this story - trying to reconnect with family because the father is dying is something that tugs at my emotions. I liked the strength of the friendship between David and Hunter and thought it admirable. I thought the issues of addiction, PTSD and toxic family were well handled, i'm on the fence about the HIV issue (I know it's not necessarily a death sentence anymore but it was all a little to casual for my liking).
This book won't be for everyone, and I recommend checking the trigger warnings before diving in, but I enjoyed it.

🎧 Narrator comment: Greg Boudreaux narrates Hunters' chapters | Michael Ferraiuolo narrates David's chapters.
Ferraiuolo and Boudreaux are two master performers. They pull every heart felt emotion from this story and put its characters through the wringer. Written/Narrated in alternating POV's the "feel" of the characters remains the same with each narrator so the change in narration/pov didn't feel disjointed or jarring from the story.

Honestly i'm not a fan of multi narration in M/M - I feel it's unnecessary when there are so many talented performers now and either of these narrators would have done a stellar performance on their own.

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📌 Where does it fall on my personal scale? 7
• 1 not my thing • 2 didn't like the narration • 3 didn't keep my attention • 4 was good, but once was enough • 5 enjoyed it • 6 will listen again if i'm in the mood for the narrator [4⭐] • 7 goes on the "re-listen" list [4⭐] • 8 kept me up past bed-time [4.5⭐] • 9 recommended to family/friends [4.75⭐] • 10 own it in all formats [5⭐] • 11 keep a copy with me at all times [5⭐]

Best of all the books

This book is such a wonderful balance of story romance and sex. Some of L A Witts books are repetitive sex stories with different characters. But I always love the story lines. This is one of the best.

Minor criticism. The reader that played David has an odd Irish Welsh or maybe even New Zeeland accent. Certainly not American.

Great story made better with amazing narration

Loved these characters, I guess I just wish I got more time flash back and epilogue forward. The focus on Christmas at home was good to really get a picture of their lives but but I was hoping for more happy times shared between them and their friends and family. The narration really brought every characters personality out and enhanced the writing to make it impossible for me not to be sucked into just one more chapter... And now sad the story is over

Love

I love this book. So glad I decided to buy it so I can listen to it again and again. I cried I laughed and I cussed out some family on David's behalf. LOL I love David and Hunter and their love and friendship. I worms my hart....

All the feels

Love the narrator's, the story had all the feels. Love love love but wished we would have heard them tell "mom"

Highly recommend this one

Loved this book SO much. Yeah, I could think of a couple small things I would've been interested in knowing more about, especially even more detail about how David & Hunter's high school years together led to later events, but it's not as if anything was outright missing - I'm just willing to be greedy about it. Some readers might think that maybe there's a bit too much repetitive internal monologue here and there in the book, but I've seen SO much worse that this didn't ding my annoyance bell; it was more something I thought about in retrospective critical analysis. All in all, I enjoyed it as a book with a great mix of sweetness, bitterness, sadness, comedy, serious issues, and romantic moments. I also found David & Hunter perfectly likeable.

The audio was good in that both narrators were excellent, (unsurprising considering who they are), but it didn't need two narrators - one or the other would've been fine. The fact that they were each good made me less bothered by the difference in voices for the same characters depending on which person narrated - that's something that has bothered me so much in other dual narrated books that I've switched to a print/e-book version. I never felt tempted to switch with this book.

An exceptional performance for an exceptional book

I was originally drawn to this book because Greg Boudreaux and Michael Ferraiuolo Are two of my favorite narrators, but I am so glad that I bought it. I was originally nervous to buy it because The summary sounded very intense, but it was never overbearing. This book deals with a lot of really though situations, but the characters adress them in such a way that never diminishes the struggle but also never leaves you feeling helpless. The only part I struggled with was when one of the characters has a near panic attack. Dealing those myself, the representation was incredibly realistic and nearly triggered one for myself.
That being said, the characters were extremely well done, and the storyline was never too dark as to leave you feeling poorly when you put the book down to go back to real life. And the ending was of course sweet and realistic. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and will definitely listen to it again!
I really hope for more audio books narrated jointly by Greg boudreaux and Michael Ferraiuolo because they work so incredibly well together. Oftentimes when two narrators perform the same book from different perspectives I have found it jarring and wish for one or the other but not both. But these two narrators have a cohesive vision on the voices for the characters and so I never felt pulled out of the story when the narrators switch off perspectives!
Overall, This book was incredibly well done I love the story and I love the narration! I would highly recommend this book! however; if you do buy this book please do read trigger warnings because it does deal with sensitive issues with PTSD, addiction, and toxic family and that could cause problems. Other than that caveat, this is fantastic book so I recommend you read it!

Slow start

It was a very slow start, but I’m glad I kept listening. It turned out to be a very good book. I wish the author would have talked about PREP. The narrators were great like always.

Fantastic book

I started this book the same day they started there road trip north 12/22 going up the same road I5 to see my family for the holidays. This is one of those most touching books I have ever listen too. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry and at the end leaves you with a sense of piece. Everything comes together so magically. I can’t recommend this book enough. A wonderful journey.

PRETTY GOOD

•Good narration, Michael F. does a great snooty person voice.

•David's family were so whack and ignorant.

•I felt for these MC's more than I thought I would.

•Not a big fan of fake bf storyline but how could I pass on 2 of my favorite narrators 🤤

•All in all sweet love story about healing.