Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Where Death Meets the Devil 
SERIES: Death and the Devil #1
AUTHOR: L.J. Hayward
NARRATOR: Rowan Scott
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2019
LENGTH: 10 hours, 31 minutes
BLURB:
Jack Reardon, former SAS soldier and current Australian Meta-State asset, has seen some messy battles. But “messy” takes on a whole new meaning when he finds himself tied to a chair in a torture shack, his cover blown wide open, all thanks to notorious killer-for-hire Ethan Blade.
Blade is everything Jack doesn’t believe in: remorseless, detached, lawless. Yet, Jack’s only chance to survive is to strike a bargain with the devil and join forces with Blade. As they trek across a hostile desert, Jack learns that Blade is much more than a dead-eyed killer—and harder to resist than he should be.
A year later, Jack is home and finally getting his life on track. Then Ethan Blade reappears and throws it all into chaos once more. It’s impossible to trust the assassin, especially when his presence casts doubts on Jack’s loyalty to his country, but Jack cannot ignore what Blade’s return means: the mess that brought them together is far from over, and Ethan might just bring back the piece of Jack’s soul he thought he’d lost forever.
REVIEW:
Phew… that was some ride!
I haven’t decided if it was a good ride, a bad one, both or somewhere in-between. I just know that it was an intense one! I also know that I should have absolutely loved this story, I mean it had everything that I love. It was packed with mystery, suspense, small and big threads to tug on and unravel, undercover work, bad cops/good cops and the hunt to figure it all out. I love trying to figure out how it all comes together. Add in some great characters, enemies to lovers trope and it should have been a no brainer for me.
Sadly it wasn’t. The writing was (mostly) there, there’s no doubt that Hayward is amazingly talented, but I just wished she’d told this story a bit differently, maybe in two parts, the then and now instead of constantly jumping back and forth between the two. Generally I’m not a fan of dual timelines in my books, at least not when the reader experiences them at the same time. More often and not it adds confusion of when and where things happened, the occasional flashback I have no problem with, but in this book it was more or less every other chapter. Both the past and the present events need to be in this book, so I’m not suggesting removing it. However, I would have liked to have listened to the past all (or most of it) in one go, then jump to a year later and then continue with the present. This however is my own personal preference and might not even be a blip on your radar.
Okay, so moving on from the time line to the actual content and narration of the book; I think I mentioned that this story was definitely something I really enjoyed. I won’t go into any details, as I don’t want to spoil the fun if you haven’t already read or listened to it yet. Let’s just say there are books that are so utterly predicable that you know every move of the main characters before even finishing chapter one. That’s not the case here. A few things (with emphasis on few) were predicable, but a lot of the times I found myself wondering what the hell was going to happen the next minute – let alone the rest of the book. I mean the twists and turns on this book definitely needs a better navigator than me to keep track of. And I enjoyed the heck out of my confusion, tension and battle. A small disclaimer though. Don’t go into this book expecting something close to reality or a procedural, because then you’ll be disappointed. Go into it expecting to be highly entertained, you’ll have a winner for sure.
I think Rowan Scott is a new narrator for me, and after a quick check I noticed that not only is Scott new to me, it also seems like Where Death Meets the Devil is his first audio. Hat off for that, because I did not notice that while listening. I have to start with mentioning his accent, I loved it. As usual I can’t speak to its authenticity, but to a non Aussie / English native it was great. Scott aimed for different voices for his characters, with varying success. One (minor) character sounded like he had a perpetual cold, it didn’t quite fit the story or the situation, but it made me smile. Mostly, what made his narration a hit for me was that he varied his tone, intensity to the story, feeling the words and the story he’s telling. I’m looking forward to listening to more books of his in the future.
RATING: 
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