Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Test of Valor
SERIES: Valor #2
AUTHOR: Keira Andrews
NARRATOR: Iggy Toma
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
RELEASE DATE: August 13, 2019
LENGTH: 8 hours, 14 minutes
BLURB:
They’re free of the White House, but can their forbidden romance survive in the real world?
With his father no longer president, 22-year-old Rafa Castillo can finally be with ex-Secret Service agent Shane Kendrick. Shane’s given up his career for Rafa, a move his fellow agents question the sanity and morality of. Eager to get away from the questions and judgment, Rafa and Shane are building a new life together in Australia. Though Shane struggles with nightmares and his overprotective instincts while Rafa fights his own insecurity, they love each other more than ever.
Now they just have to get through a visit from the former president and first lady.
Rafa’s parents certainly don’t approve of his romance with 40-year-old Shane, and they’re determined to make him see reason. They don’t see how their son could possibly be happy settling down with an older man, and they question Shane’s motives. Shane and Rafa just want a normal life together – but when they must suddenly battle for survival, they fight to prove their fierce love can withstand any threat.
REVIEW:
I wanted to love this book, I really did. I hoped for a deeper connection between Rafa and Shane now that they were finally able to live and love in the open, but I can’t really say that I got that.
Rafa and his (former) Secret Service agent Shane are living life down under. With sun and love and lots and lots of sex. But all is not perfect in their world. Rafa’s kidnapping has left some scars that are still rearing its ugly head. Rafa’s parents are also coming down for an extended visit, which should prove interesting as they are still far from happy about their relationship, and might just try to add some friction between them.
Maybe I should have realised by the ending of the last book, but for some reason the amount of on page sex was unexpected and it was just too much and frequent for me. I know that most people won’t mind that, but it’s not my preference. I wanted to see Shane and Rafa happy and spending time outside of bed seeing that they share something deeper than insane lust.
What I did see of their relationship didn’t have me jumping or sighing of joy. Rafa felt so juvenile in his actions, the pouting over-reacting and almost petulance. On the other side of the scale was Shane, over-protective and stoic to a fault. They took the non-communication to a new level and not in a good way. It left me feeling frustrated for a good chunk of the book. I can’t say that I believe in their relationship on any deeper level. Added to that was the drama that followed each other, it was never ending and too much.
I had some issues with Iggy Toma’s narration of this book. Firstly for some reason he completely mangles the word MasterChef until something really unintelligible. I noticed it in the previous book too but thought it was a fluke, but nope. Then there was the Aussie accent. Now I’m not a native English speaker of any kind, but even to my ears that accent did not feel genuine, there were many words that were missed. And what’s more he couldn’t keep the accent up. And when both Aussie and American were spoken in a conversation, he definitely couldn’t keep them apart but it became a mixture of both – with some added Irish and Scottish mixed in for good measure. Honestly, I would have preferred him to narrate all of it in his American accent because this was distracting.
Sadly Test of Valor was a miss for me and I have to admit to being glad that this book marks the ending of the tale between these two men, because I’m more than ready to let them go.
RATING: 
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