Reviewed by Tori (Vicki)
TITLE: Bankers’ Hours 
AUTHOR: Wade Kelly
NARRATOR: Derrick McClain
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 12 hours & 23 minutes
RELEASE DATE: November 22nd, 2017
BLURB:
Even though bankers’ hours leave long weekends for romance, cosmic intervention is Grant’s only option when money doesn’t buy happiness and he’s got virginity in spades.
Grant Adams is a twenty-six-year-old bank teller who’s unlucky at love, yet hopelessly hopeful. After years of horrific first dates, he’s convinced he’s saving himself for true love. Surely he has bad taste in men because it couldn’t possibly be his persnickety nature that’s sent them packing.
Tristan Carr has been in a holding pattern since his daughter was born fifteen years ago, which suits his workaholic lifestyle just fine. This ex-Navy turned auto mechanic never wanted anyone interfering with being a weekend dad. For Tristan to rearrange his perfectly orchestrated life, a guy will need to be special. Or in the case of the newest employee at his bank, the guy will need to be adorable, shy, and open to the prospect of forever when it shows up at his window.
STORY REVIEW:
Grant Adams is a mess. He’s in his mid twenties and a virgin. He’s annoying, whiny, and has OCD about a LOT of things. He works in a small bank in a small town. He’s overly attached to his mother. He has only one real friend, who is he very close to. He’s TERRIFIED of bugs. He has a habit of smelling his fingers. I have to say I had a really hard time with Grant. He drove me insane. Everything about his character annoyed me. Which made this a very long and difficult book to listen too…
Tristan on the other hand, had the potential to be a likable man. He is former military, has a teenage daughter from a one night stand, and owns a successful auto repair shop. He inherited his business and home from his parents and has kept the business up, and let the house deteriorate. He uses a local bank for his banking, and is immediately attracted to the new teller. He flirts with Grant in his own way, messing with his obvious OCD issues, but Grant totally misses his flirting. So he gets more obvious and the two finally meet for a beer…
The two go out for a beer, which Grant doesn’t realize is a date. Then once he does realize, they go on another date to Tristan’s dirty house, where Grant is forced to spend the night. In the morning he witnesses Tristan’s baby mama confronting him over his sexuality, and spewing homophobic bile. Grant decides to interfere and announces that Tristan is not a man-slut, since they are getting married. Screeeeech…. what? After one non-date and one date-date?
The story goes on to tell us about the two shopping for rings, and attempting to plan a wedding in a week. Tristan spends time dealing with Grant’s body image issues, Grant’s cleanliness issues, Grant’s bug issues, Grant’s lack of confidence about everything, the teenage daughter’s issues, the baby mama’s issues… Grant whines and complains, cries and overreacts repeatedly. There are a couple of arguments over stupid shit. We hear all about Grant’s best friends issues, and watch Grant awkwardly try to make a new friend. The baby mama causes all sorts of issues, none of which is solved by Tristan and Grant getting married.
This was apparently not the book for me. Personal taste is subjective, what one person likes, another may dislike, obviously. Unfortunately that was the case for me with this book. I did not like Grant as a character. I tried so hard to let go of my issues with Grant, but it just kept going. I can not like a character and still like a book if the plot works for me. But this plot was just too unrealistic for me to accept. Too much goes on involving too many characters, and not enough time was spent on Tristan and Grant working their shit out. Parts were rushed, like the insta-proposal and marriage, but then at other times it dragged… There were times that they appeared to get their shit together and act like a couple, I could see the potential between them, but there wasn’t enough of those times for my taste. There are a couple of nice sex scenes, and I did like how Tristan was so careful with Grant’s body image issues. There is a sweet happy ending, which always makes me happy. It just took too much effort and time to get there.
I have not read many books by Wade Kelly so this may be a style thing that I just don’t care for. The writing wasn’t bad, as far as dialogue, descriptions, things like that, so it’s not that I didn’t like the writing. It was just one of the main characters and the plot that I didn’t get…
So I can’t say if I recommend this book or not. If you are like me and don’t like characters like Grant, then you should probably avoid this one. But if you like quirky, prickly characters with massive issues, then maybe you should try this one.
NARRATION REVIEW:
What saved this a bit was the narration. The narrator got the voices just right for Tristan and Grant. Grant’s voice was just whiny enough, and Tristan’s was just casual enough to work really well for me. Derrick also didn’t try to girl up his voice for the female characters, so those worked as well. The emotions of the characters came through, and the passionate times (as few as they were) worked as well. Even though I didn’t like Grant at all, the narration for the character was good. I’ve listened to a few books narrated by Derrick McClain, and I’d certainly grab more in the future.
RATING: 
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