Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Shattered Glass
SERIES: Shattered Glass #1
AUTHOR: Dani Alexander
NARRATOR: Joseph Northton
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2014
LENGTH: 11 hours, 16 minutes
BLURB:
A male prostitute, a mangy cat, a murder and a maniacal mix-up that threatens his career, his impending marriage and his life. Nothing is going as planned for Austin Glass.
Austin—seems to have it all. At least on the surface. A loving fiancee. A future with the FBI and a healthy sized trust fund. He also has a grin and a wisecrack for every situation. But the smile he presents to everyone hides a painful past he’s buried too deeply to remember. And his quips mask bitterness and insecurity. Austin has himself and most of the whole world fooled. Until he meets someone who immediately sees him better than he sees himself.
As events unfold and Austin’s world unravels, he finds himself pushed into making quick life-changing decisions. But can he trust Peter or what’s happening between them when each meeting seems to be just a series of volatile reactions?
REVIEW:
I read this book a few years ago. I remember loving it and finding the characters adorable and sweet, and something about bunny slippers. Part from that my memory of the book is hazy. So I decided to try the audio version and see if I still loved the story some three years later.
Back then I fell in love with the characters, Cai included. I think I can still count myself to one of his devoted followers, he seem to pick them up everywhere he go. I also remember loving Glass, but now for the life of me I can’t understand why.
The way he treated the people he supposedly love was awful and selfish and even cruel. To name one thing; almost in every conversation he had with Peter he called him a whore. Threw it at his face, in that demeaning way that so clearly stated that because of his past Peter was worth less, less than “regular” people (that is if such an animal exists). He was just less in Glass’ eyes. And that was when he in the next breath called Peter his boyfriend who he was also in love with. You could get whiplash for less…
Instead of looking at all the horrors Peter had overcome in his life, what he’d survived and accomplished. Glass labelled him a whore and called it done. If it was such a hardship to be with Peter, either look elsewhere for someone to love – or you know, try the mature thing and talk it out and move past it. Now Glass just came across like childish and immature, and I have to say I never warmed to him one bit this time around. Peter and Cai on the other hand I wish to see more of, know more about, both deserving of every happiness they can find. The general story and mystery was mostly interesting. It had some plot-holes and didn’t always make sense, but it kept my interest all the same.
Joseph Northton is a new voice to me. This book seems to be his first foray into audio narration and I have to say it doesn’t show. He has a wide range of voices and the way he handled the myriad of accents or foreign words was really great. Though, his Swedish does need some improvement, but I’m not holding that against him 😉 So I’d definitely recommend this book for the audio.
Shattered Glass is the first book in a supposed series – I say supposed as it’s been almost eight years since it was published and Cai’s book still hasn’t been published. If it ever is, I will most definitely pick up his book, because of Cai and three little words that I just need to know more about; Interpol and plausible deniability.
RATING: 
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