Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Dedicated
SERIES: Rhythm of Love #1
AUTHOR: Neve Wilder
NARRATOR: Greg Boudreaux
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
RELEASE DATE: July 3, 2019
LENGTH: 8 hours, 59 minutes
BLURB:
“Our greatest hit is a love song I wrote for my bandmate. And he has no idea.”
Messy-haired, soulful-eyed, off-kilter lyricist Les Graves holds tight to the hedonist’s credo of consumption in every avenue of life. He has trouble staying still, trouble staying sober, trouble turning down a good time – but put a pen in his hand, and he’ll set a page on fire.
Music was Evan Porter’s ticket out of the backwater mud puddle he was born in, the passion keeping him warm as he busked on street corners. Every chord, every song, every ounce of sweat has been devoted to making Porter & Graves a success. He’s the level-head, the quiet maestro, the seatbelt that keeps Les from flying too far out of control. And he’s getting pretty tired of playing savior.
Their onstage chemistry is electric, offstage it’s… complicated.
After Porter & Graves’s third album bombs, the pressure is on for the duo to redeem themselves with their fourth. While sequestered in an East Tennessee cabin to compose, things take a turn for the worse when an event from their past comes back to haunt them in an embarrassingly public fashion and forces them into an unusual position that tests a partnership already hanging by its bloody roots.
Can Evan and Les find harmony or will they – and their music career – go down in flames?
REVIEW:
Friends-to-lovers, a fake relationship and hot musicians secretly in love with each other. This book has it all. Add in a threesome scandal and the picture is (almost) complete. On top of that (pun not intended) you have the marvellous Greg Boudreaux narrating and it’s pure magic. Before I knew it I’d listened to the whole book and that dreaded voice saying “Audible hope you’ve enjoyed this program” echoed in my ears. I mean is there something that’s more annoying – or intrusive to your ears? Okay, so there really is, but still, I hate that sentence at the end of every audio, especially when it’s one I’m enjoying the hell out of.
Anyway, so back to the actual book and everything that’s Les and Evans, bandmates and best of friends. Six months ago they shared a girl and it was the starting point for everything that happened next. The threesome was on page as a flashback so fair warning – there are naked girl parts in this story. But like one of our guys said, she was more of a conduit between them rather than a huge presence. Said encounter is later sold to the media causing a bit of a frenzy so the team behind the band decides that the guys should pretend to be in a relationship – to get the “right” kind of attention.
Things get murky when their mutual attraction rears its head and their fake relationship isn’t fake anymore. They both want more but aren’t sure how to go about it. Les has been longing for Evan since they first met but have been too afraid to do something about it, so he’s been sleeping around – a lot. For Evan it’s a bit newer, but he’s wary of going there with Les as he doesn’t trust that he will be enough for the guy who has a new body in his bed every night. Especially since his libido isn’t set to overdrive – well part for where Les was concerned.
Dedicated is mostly a feel good story. There’s a lot of tension, lust and longing – and sexy moments as well. There might not have been any surprises coming my way, but that didn’t matter. I fell for these guys and was rooting for them to find their happily ever after.
Greg Boudreaux is one of my favourite narrators for a reason. He delivers every time. His performance is always sharp and on point. He gets the characters and the situations they find themselves in. He lives the story with them and makes the listener do the same, by adding feelings to the words and changing the pace and tone to match the situation at hand, be it funny, angsty or sexy. Boudreaux delivers every time. And if I were prone to swooning, his voice alone would have me flat on my back at the first sentence.
This was my first book by Neve Wilder, but it won’t be my last. I’m looking forward to see what will happen next in this series.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
[…] Read More » […]