Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Signs of Life
SERIES: Resilient Love #2
AUTHOR: Melanie Hansen
NARRATOR: Robert Nieman
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 8 hours. 22 minutes
RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2017
BLURB:
Successful lawyer Jeremy Speer has it all—a loving husband, a beautiful home, and a cherished dream that’s about to become reality. He’s learned not to take happiness for granted, meeting the challenges of life and love head-on with unwavering commitment and fierce devotion. A series of tragic events leave Jeremy shattered, adrift on a sea of unimaginable pain. He’s able to piece his life back together, but instead of embracing it, he merely exists, using isolation and punishing physical exertion to keep the world at bay.
High school teacher Kai Daniels has a heart for at-risk kids—he was one himself, and a teenage brush with the law and some troubled years behind bars left him scarred inside and out. With courage, hard work, and the support of friends, he’s built a fulfilling life that leaves no time for a relationship.
An intense encounter with Kai at a gay club ignites a spark in Jeremy that he thought was extinguished forever, but he’s unwilling to destroy the fragile peace he’s managed to create, and he leaves Kai humiliated and disappointed. Things should have ended there, but a bizarre occurrence brings the two together in a way neither of them expected.
REVIEW:
I made a huge mistake picking up this book. I don’t’ regret listening to it – far from it, but the timing was not what I was planning for. Yesterday I sat down to write a review for another book but the words weren’t there. I had a million other things on my to do list so I decided to leave the review for now and pick up another book – preferably a mindless one where you could happily just bob along and one that didn’t make many waves. Something low-key, somethings happy. I’ve had my eyes on Signs of Life for a while and figured to go for it – and typical me I didn’t read the blurb all that carefully.
So 15 minutes later I find myself in the middle of the grocery store, trying my best not to cry or sniffle too loudly. Probably failed epically at that, and if I had to guess I probably had a splotchy face for most of my shopping that day. So yeah.. the timing wasn’t great 😉
Signs of Life was a beautiful and moving story. The beginning utterly gutted me, as you might have guessed already. There was so much pain there and, gah… Robert Nieman made you feel every single second of it. Just remembering it now has me tearing up. In just a few months Jeremy’s life was shattered into a million pieces and just when he had a moment to catch his breath the next debilitating blow was delivered with devastating accuracy. How he survived it I don’t know – but I admire him for it. For how he put his life back together.
Some two years later Jeremy has relocated and was working on starting over. Unsurprisingly he’s stand-offish and closed off. He doesn’t want or need people in his life, but a series of events brings a high school teacher, Kai into his life. The two are drawn to each other, but Jeremy is not willing to risk his heart again, he wouldn’t survive another loss.
Jeremy and Kai were wonderful together. Kai was the fresh air Jeremy needed, the spark that made him live again. And with Jeremy Kai was learning to navigate a relationship. They both stumble but they are there for each other to help. They had a connection from that first encounter in the bar and only grew stronger each time they met. There was a lot of angst here, both of them had issues and scars – visible and otherwise, but this book never ventured into the melodramatic or unnecessary angst or drama.
This was my first audiobook with Robert Nieman and I’m hoping it won’t be my last. He brought life to this story, brought so much emotions to it. He made you connect to both Jeremy and Kai and feel the love between them. He also made you invested in the kids, hoping that they’d make it, hoping that they’d take the chances they were offered. I loved how Nieman reflected the emotions of the story by varying the intensity and pacing of his narration, it sweeps the listener into the story and make you part of it. He makes you feel all of it – the good and the bad.
The story might not have been what I was looking for when starting out, but I’m so glad that I listened to it. It was a wonderful story and one that shouldn’t be missed out on.
RATING: 
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