Reviewed by Alexander
TITLE: The Right Words
SERIES: Right and Wrong
AUTHOR: Lanes Hayes
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 7 hours, 25 minutes
NARRATOR: Michael Ferraiuolo
BLURB: Escaping an abusive relationship left Luke Preston anxious and spouting panic-induced poetry. Desperate for a fresh start, Luke accepts a job remodeling a tired old beach house for a professional soccer player and his model girlfriend. While his passion is literature, not sports, focusing on the renovations eases his anxiety. Until the job he signed up for turns out to be more complicated than advertised.
Sidelined with a serious injury, soccer star Michael Martinez decides his beach house is the perfect place to recuperate. Remodeling might be the diversion he needs to keep his mind off his busted knee. Falling for the pretty designer with some quirky habits wasn’t on the drawing board. Unfortunately, Luke didn’t build a big enough closet for Michael to hide in. Having a star-powered sports career used to be all Michael lived for, but he’ll have to reevaluate his plans and find the right words if he wants to build more than a beach house with Luke.
REVIEW:
This is my first story by Hayes and it certainly has left me with a desire to scope out more books by her. I have always enjoyed an opposites attracts scenario, and add in the fact that Michael was a closeted pro athlete, and I was hooked. The premise of a designer showing up for a job only to be trued away due to a breakup, only to be called back was really well addressed, and Hayes did a good job of describing the various settings without crossing the line into “too much”.
So even though a closet case character has the potential to be irritating, or perceived as irredeemable, Michael did not fit that mold. He was honest about himself with himself, just hidden from a world that he perceived would not understand or accept him. His behavior related to Jamie, the “crazy ex” did confuse me, simply because the Michael I got to know did not suit Jamie, but what we are not privy to is how Jamie acted when he and Michael were still together.
Luke was a great guy, strong, honest, hard-working, and incredibly understanding. So many good characteristics that made his and Michael’s falling for each other make sense. And speaking of the growth of their relationship from employer / employee to casual sex, to a deeper connection, Hayes took time to get them to that point which suited not only the story, but also Luke and Michael’s personalities to a “t”.
In regards to the audio, I had no idea that Ferraiuolo was narrator for this story and honestly, that in itself would have been reason enough to buy the audiobook. The voice that he uses for Michael just makes me melt, I just love it so much! But don’t get me wrong, his performance was more than just one voice, though. He has what I would consider to be the perfect pace, clear diction, nice intonation, and maintains consistent voices for his characters, even to the point that I could recognize secondary characters by voice alone.
Like athletes? Like opposites attracts? Like great audio narration? Then you will definitely want to grab The Right Words.
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