Reviewed by Alexander
TITLE: Candy Man
SERIES: Bitter Taffy is the sequel but there is no series name
AUTHOR: Amy Lane
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 4 hours, 6 minutes
NARRATOR: Philip Alces
BLURB: Adam Macias has been thrown a few curve balls in his life, but losing his VA grant because his car broke down and missing a class was the one that struck him out. One relative away from homelessness, he has taking the bus to Sacramento, where his cousin has offered a house-sitting job and a new start. He has one goal, and that’s to get his life back on track. Friends, pets, lovers need not apply.
Finn Stewart takes one look at Adam as he’s applying to Candy Heaven and decides he’s much too fascinating to leave alone. Finn is bright and shiny – and has never been hurt. Adam is wary of his attention from the very beginning – Finn is dangerous to every sort of peace Adam is forging, and Adam may just be too damaged to let him in at all.
But Finn is tenacious, and Adam’s new boss, Darrin, doesn’t take bullshit for an answer. Adam is going to have to ask himself which is harder – letting Finn in or living without him? With the holidays approaching, it seems like an easy question, but Adam knows from experience that life is seldom simple. And the world seldom cooperates with hope, faith, or the plans of cats and men.
REVIEW:
Adam Macias is way beyond having a bad day, bad week, month, well, you get the picture. Now even with all of his troubles, Adam, ever the military man, set his sights on a solution, which begins with a job. Here is where Candy Man goes from potentially sad and angsty, to super sweet (no pun intended, oh who am I kidding, pun totally intended!). It seemed like such an unlikely pairing, Former military man Adam selling candy, but as the layers of his character melt away, we become privy to what Candy Heaven owner Darrin could see in the Pixy Stix powder, that Adam is a man in need of safety and security in order to heal.
And then along comes Finn, young, happy, irrepressible Finn who sees Adam and as the saying goes, “that’s all she wrote”. I really liked how it was Finn who was the aggressor, and how Adam never quite felt worthy of his attention. I also liked how Lane took some time for Adam to figure things out, and the accidental-on-purpose visit to Finn’s (parent’s) place was a riot, full of personal details that would send a lesser man running, but by this point, Adam was hooked.
I have listened to quite a few audiobooks narrated by Alces and if there is one thing I can say is that he provides a solid performance every time. Now Lane has used Alces for this, and the Granby Knitting books which is fair, I suppose, but something that I am not fond of. As an audiobook fanatic, I like to see a different narrator for different series by the same author, otherwise I find that the stories all meld together. Don’t get me wrong, though, Alces is an excellent narrator who maintains distinct character voices, and is, as far as I am concerned, as close to technically perfect as you can get.
I have the eBook, the Candy Man / Bitter Taffee paperback combo, and the audiobook, and don’t regret a single purchase, as I have either read or listened to this story too many times to count and highly recommend it in any of its incarnations.
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