Reviewed by Alexander
TITLE: Any Closer
AUTHOR: Mary Calmes
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 1 hour, 51 minutes
NARRATOR: Greg Tremblay
BLURB:
Charlie Ryder has a colorful past, painful memories, and an embarrassing secret. After three years working for Leo Foster’s construction company, Charlie’s worst fears are realized, and Leo finds out what Charlie has worked so hard to hide. When Leo meets the revelation with absolute love and acceptance, Leo has to trust that Charlie’s love isn’t just gratitude, and Charlie has to learn to trust again, period. It’s going to take a lot of work for these two men to get any closer.
REVIEW:
As in most of Calmes’ works, there is an element of exaggeration to her characters, and Any Closer is no exception. Former porn actor Charlie (Chaz) Ryder and his now boss at Foster West construction are endearing and entertaining, because of their slightly exaggerated behavior.
Charlie, once the confident in control guy, lost the very things that made him who he was when betrayed by his producer and then boyfriend. How he ever managed to survive working for brash, gruff, and dare I say, cranky as f@#k Leo is a mystery, but as bad as Leo behaves, he does not mean any harm, and I think that Charlie knew this, even if it terrified him.
We the reader could see what was coming, how the two of them would end up together, but not necessarily how and who would be the instigator. Leo didn’t exhibit very much growth during the course of the story, which was okay because he was already pretty much confident in himself, whereas Charlie grew by leaps and bounds. The thing with Charlie’s growth is that there was enough back story provided, in addition to their “present day” interactions that we could see his progress and the end result made sense.
For a short read, Any Closer complex and had enough depth to satisfy without being too busy, and certainly not lacking as far as I am concerned.
The narration was good, although I didn’t find the characterizations to be that distinct. The production quality was excellent and Tremblay can always be relied upon to produce quality audio, with good pace, clear diction, and just the right amount of emotion, thus taking something good and kicking it up a notch.
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