Trusting the Elements

Never Too Late, Book 1

By: Elle Keaton

Narrated by: Steve Balderson

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

If love at first sight is a fantasy, why does what they have feel so right?

For the past few years Otto Proulx has been hiding in the shadows, living vicariously through others. Maybe it’s time for a change?

Greg Trainor runs a kite shop and helps his friends out when they need it; that’s the kind of guy he is. When he sees a car stuck on the side of the road he stops to help, never expecting to see the stranger again.

One night of passion leads to...several more, and suddenly both men are searching around to define what they have together. Neither wants to scare the other off and neither wants to ask for more.

Otto's out of his comfort zone and Greg has family issues; but love has its own rules and sometimes you just have to trust it will find a way.

Trusting the Elements is a dual POV about a light-hearted man who’s lost his bounce, and a caring, sexy, big-hearted man who doesn’t know his own worth. Trusting the Elements is the first in the Never Too Late series. It's never too late to find love.

©2019 Elle Keaton (P)2019 Elle Keaton

Cute love story

I thought that this was a really cute insta-love story. I think Otto is the cutest thing ever and so funny. I really recommend this book. Cannot wait for more in the series. Very hot sexy times and no angst.

A solid story.

Otto first meets Greg when he runs into some car trouble on the road. They have a chance meeting again, and the attraction blooms. Soon what starts as a casual relationship becomes much more serious than either had anticipated... especially for Otto, who was burned by his last relationship. And that ex isn't exactly out of the picture.

The story was well written and I had some concerns about the direction of the story and some of the side characters, but the story of Greg and Otto wraps up nicely, as do the side characters.

This was a new to me narrator and I thought he did a great job,

All-in-all, a solid 4 stars.

Good

The story was really good and I loved the characters. I enjoyed it and I can’t wait to read the next one in the series. I say read because I’m not sure if I’ll wait for the audio or not. The narrator started off very wooden and monotone and while he did get better as the book went it wasn’t enough of an improvement for me to give that part of the review more than 3 stars.

Nice story, nicely narrated.

Two men - their families, neighbors, friends, two kittens, and, of course hand-made kites.

What more could anyone ask?

A great start to a new series.

I read and reviewed Trusting the Elements when it was first released as an ebook. I'm happy to report that I really enjoyed the story again listening to it in audio format.

This was the first audiobook I've listened to narrated by Steve Balderson and he was pretty good. His voice was easy to listen to after I got used to it. I did find that the narration was somewhat slow. I listened to this one at 1.25 speed and enjoyed it much more. It's rare that I listen to a book at anything other than normal speed, but even my favorite narrator has done a couple where I've felt that I needed to increase the playback speed, so I don't think this is a negative comment.

Below is a copy of my original review for the ebook when it was released in July 2019.

I loved Elle Keaton's Accidental Roots series so I was really excited to read Trusting the Elements, her first book in the new Never Too Late series; I wasn't disappointed!

This story is seriously hot! Our two MCs have what they both think will be a one-night-stand but it turns out to be much more. I really loved these characters; they are both a bit broken. Otto has a stalker ex-husband and Greg was left with no family after he came out.

Trusting the Elements doesn't have the same level of suspense that her Accidental Roots books have but the tension created by Otto's ex-husband gets pretty heavy. I loved the connection between Otto and Greg. While both of them felt something for each other after their first weekend, neither of them wanted to say it out loud. Otto doesn't trust his feelings after the disaster of his relationship with his ex. Greg feels like he's not smart enough for Otto and has a hard time believing that Otto really likes him.

I loved the secondary characters in this story, too, especially Blaine. I really hope he gets a book of his own. I almost forgot to mention that there are cute kitties and a lonely little girl that will steal your heart. 😊

Note: If you are a subscriber to Elle's newsletter be sure to read the free short story she wrote for Greg's friend Dante who appears in Trusting the Elements; it's hot! I hope we get to read more about Dante.

A copy of this audio book was provided to me but my review was voluntary and not influenced by the author.

***Reviewed for Xtreme-Delusions dot com*** (posting on October 3, 2019)

3.5 Stars

It was a pretty good book. At times I felt there were too many different side characters being developed for there own stories, and were distracting from the main characters.
Steve Balderson- as far as your Narration... I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this. I personally have never heard your narrative before, but you have an AMAZING Voice. The reason I didn’t do more stars was because, you would go very monotone at times. Almost like a robotic version was switched on. Then you would switch back to more feeling, although even then I wished you gave in a little deeper to the emotional side of your tone. If your able to tweak those things, I totally would have given you five stars and became a book stalker of yours. 😃

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review

#AudiobookObsessionReviewer

A great start to a new series

An accidental meeting turns into a one night stand that becomes more. Great stories with 2 MCs that grow as the story progresses. Good supporting characters that I hope we see more of!

Enjoyable

It took a while for me to warm up to the narrator's style of reading. The narration didn't detract from the story, which was throughly enjoyable. Can't wait to see how this series continues.

Nope

First time with this narrator … and the last. There was a droning quality to his voice that I found off putting. The book was written by one of my favorite authors, but I doubt that I’ll ever give it a re-listen.

Robotic-like narration

Story overall was pretty cute, it was kind of all over the place but I honestly thought it was kind of sugary sweet and cute with some drama thrown in. So 4 stars. I really want to see what happens to the other characters in their own books. So I will definitely be looking for the second one in this series.

I'm not going to lie. The narrator was pretty horrible for me. I just got an overall feeling of a robotic-like tone through the whole thing. Like the voices he had for each character themselves were purely fine and there was a lot of potential there for him to tell this book in amazing way but the narrator just kinda droned on and had no enthusiasm in the whole story just ruining the narration. Just robotic like talking. I honestly really hated it and almost DNFed it but went ahead and went through with it simply because I wanted to see what would go on in the storyline, like I said it was cute and kind of sugary and I like those kinda stories. However I will be looking to see if the same narrator voices the next book and if so I think I'll just stick to the ebook.