Reviewed by Annika

TITLE: Exhale

SERIES: Flesh and Bone #1

AUTHOR: Joel Abernathy

NARRATOR: Kirt Graves

PUBLISHER: Self-Published

RELEASE DATE: September 12, 2018

LENGTH: 9 hours, 10 minutes

BLURB:

Two men haunted by the same ghost…

Falling for “the other man” in my marriage was never part of the plan. Then again, according to Nicolae Ursache, I am the other man, and human wedding vows don’t apply. Not to werewolves.

Nicolae is a smug, arrogant alpha male stereotype–and I do mean alpha in the literal sense–but when the same people who killed my wife kidnap my teenage daughter, he’s my only chance at getting her back. The fact that Nicolae was my wife’s rightful mate means that we share a mutual interest in bringing Ellie home, but I never could’ve imagined how he planned to do it.

I will do anything to protect my daughter. Even if it means becoming the plaything, or worse, of the man I loathe most.

REVIEW:

They say you should never judge a book by its cover. Yet time and again I find myself guilty of doing just that. I did that with this book. When it was released I looked at the cover and thought that it just wasn’t for me, it seemed too dark, possibly twisted, too out there. So I wrote it off and put it out of my mind. As time passed this book kept coming up, I kept seeing these raving reviews of the story and the narration, and I just had to know for myself what the hype was about. So for better of worse I started listening…

So from my preconceived notions, I expected this book to be dark and different and possibly a bit twisted. That wasn’t really the case. It was in no way a fluffy or sweet read but it wasn’t overly angsty or dark either. It begins with a murder, an unresolved one at that. In order to start over Jack and his daughter Ellie moves to a new town in the hopes to start over. Only tragedy strikes again. Hours after arriving to their new home Ellie is kidnapped. With no leads to go on Jack is getting more and more desperate to find her. When his late wife’s lover enters the picture with information of not only Elle’s whereabouts but also information on who killed his wife, Jack has no other option than to follow the man he’s despised for so long. Only the secrets that he reveals change his world forever. Not only does werewolves exists, but his daughter and late wife belongs to that world.

It came as no surprise that there was no love lost between Jack and Nicolae in the beginning. I mean how could there be? Both betrayed by the woman that they thought belonged to them. That being said and knowing that werewolf societies are different from humans ones. I still couldn’t stand Nicolae. His condescending nature really got on my nerve. I know that werewolves have their own hierarchy and live by their own rules and customs, but he got on my nerves just too much. Sure, Jack wasn’t flawless either, but he didn’t put the blame where it didn’t belong or tried to belittle others to make himself feel better.

So from that you might think that I totally hated this book, but that’s not true. That’s not true at all. Sure, the beginning of the book didn’t wow me, that’s true. But around the halfway mark, something happened and got really sucked in. The intrigues, the plotting, the deals made. I needed to know more. Sure the transition from mortal enemies to being in love was too quick for my tastes and I just couldn’t believe in Jack and Nicolae that quickly – but hey, that might be just me. There was a lot of twists and turns, especially in the end that really kept things interesting and the listener on their toes, so you might want to pay attention.

Kirt Graves is a very talented narrator no question about it. He brings the story to another level. The voices he has for the different characters makes it easy for the listener to follow along the story. Add in the accents and emotions and he’s a winner. I only have one small issue, and that’s the pace. Gravess narration is much to slow for my preferences, but you know what? Speeding up the narration easily remedies that and then you can just happily focusing on the story.

This book was a gamble, and one that really paid off. It wasn’t what I expected, in the very best ways. It will be interesting to know what else Abernathy has up his sleeve.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

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