Reviewed by Alexander
TITLE: In Too Deep
AUTHOR: Kate Sherwood
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 8 hours, 29 minutes
NARRATOR: K.C. Kelly
BLURB:
At first glance, Cade and Aiden hardly seem like a match made in heaven. Their worlds couldn’t be further apart. Cade is quiet, serious, and determined to succeed; Aiden’s a party-loving frat boy. Cade comes from a rough home and worked hard to get the scholarships that make it possible for him to attend college; Aiden’s had it all thrown in his lap by supportive, kind, and wealthy parents. Cade wants nothing to do with Aiden, but from the moment they meet, Aiden is determined to find a way to bring their different worlds together.
Aiden manages to persuade Cade he’s a decent guy, and a tentative friendship becomes much more. But a trip to Aiden’s family cottage puts Cade in the path of a ghost from his past and a dark secret he never expected to face again. Cade did what he had to do to escape his dead-end life, but now he sees he didn’t leave it as far behind him as he thought.
REVIEW:
It has been a few years since I have read a book by Sherwood and thought that revisiting one of the first authors that I encountered in the M/M genre would be fun.
Sometimes, often, if I am being honest, I find myself empathizing for one main character more than the other, but in this case, I truly liked both Aiden and Cade (almost) equally. Each of them demonstrated uniqueness, depth and detail that at first implied, then confirmed their individual back stories. Now that is not to say that Aiden and Cade are at all alike, having come from drastically different backgrounds, their interactions and dare I say learning curve was quite steep.
What I had trouble with at the beginning was why Aiden was so enamored with Cade, I mean with Cade’s dismissive behavior, coupled with Aiden’s constant attention just didn’t make sense to me. Add to that what felt like a lack of chemistry, and the two guys that I liked on their own became a confusing mess for a good part of the book. Now thankfully Aiden ended up showing so much more of the man he was beyond the party-boy persona, and Cade gradually loosened up, which allowed their relationship to gel and make more sense.
Something that Sherwood did well in terms of storyline development was to incorporate meeting Cade’s family, which reinforced what we knew of him based on the memories we were made privy to during the early part of the story. These secondary characters are critical to who Cade is, what motivates him, and why he spends his every waking moment waiting for the proverbial rug to be pulled out from under him. Aiden’s family does make an appearance, but considering his past is much, much more pleasant, those secondary characters, have less of a burden to shoulder in the grand scheme of things. Now that being said, some of the secondary characters were a bit two-dimensional, good and bad, which was not terrible, but still noticeable, and took away from the depth that we see with Aiden and Cade.
I have listened to many audiobooks narrated by Kelly and had no issue with his style, in fact I enjoyed his narration in those other books. What didn’t work for me this time was the appropriateness of his voice to the age of the characters, he just sounded too old to be a college student. Now this does not change the fact that he did a solid job with the narration, with consistent characterizations, a nice pace, good intonation and some emotion when appropriate to the story. Lots of good things, indeed, but from beginning to end, I could not draw a connection between his voice and the characters which sadly detracted from my enjoyment of the story.
STORY RATING: 
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