Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Finding Shelter
SERIES: Rock Bay #3
AUTHOR: M.J. O’Shea
NARRATOR: Tom Vilot
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 6 hours, 15 minutes
RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2014
BLURB:
Justin Foster has 19 years of nothing but trouble behind him. After escaping his abusive father, he finds himself in Rock Bay, Washington, with his cousin Travis. Justin is bruised and has a hard time trusting, but with the help of his family and the small town, he might be able to heal.
Logan O’Brien is also new in town, hoping he can finally get away from his past and the memories of the girlfriend who shattered his heart. It doesn’t take him long to realize Rock Bay can be more than safe harbor: It can also be home. And for the first time in his life, he finds himself captivated by a man – by Justin.
Justin is attracted to Logan, too, but he’s also wary. Physically, Logan reminds him a bit too much of the closeted jerks who used to beat him up after school. But after one awkwardly amazing kiss, he’s smitten, despite how his past and insecurities continue to haunt him. Logan’s love, faith, and stubbornness are just what Justin needs to believe their love is worth fighting for.
REVIEW:
Finding Shelter is another book that I’ve recently re-visited. I read it years ago and remember liking it. So I decided to go back to it for this week’s Flashback Friday review and experience in in audio.
This is the third book in the Rock Bay series, but each book can be read as a standalone as it features a new couple in every book. This one features Justin and Logan. Justin had a rough start on life, living with an abusive father, and one day he’d just had enough and runs away. He finds himself in Rock Bay, being taken in by his cousin Travis who also offered him a job at his café helping out and earn some cash. It’s where he meets Logan and the two are off to a rocky start. Justin is skittish and wary of others, but little by little he comes out of his shell and starts to rely on and trust Logan.
Which is why his attraction to Logan scared him. For one Logan was straight, but he was also his safe place and he did not want to lose it. Logan for his part was drawn to Justin from the start. It was a bit of a surprise, but it never caused any drama. It was refreshing, but it would also have been nice to have some internal struggle at least. It can’t be that easy to change everything you thought you knew. I did like how their relationship was slow-growing and that Justin was given time to land and start feeling safe, to heal. But once they got together it was full throttle all the way.
This is my first experience with Tom Vilot and it will probably be my only one. There were a few too many things that’s not to my personal preference. My first being that he’s a reader rather than a performer. It’s not my preference as I have a harder time connecting to the story. However, a good reader can still do that, but Vilot couldn’t quite get there. There was no infliction to the words and he missed a lot of the punctuations making the sentence structure feel off. At the surface it might seem like small things, but they really affect how the book is perceived. When all you have is the narrator to tell the story those minor things become important.
The narration also shows his inexperience with narrating a book. It lacked consistency. At times he differentiated between dialogue and narrative with small changes in his voice. Other times it was all the same monotone voice. Characters also switched voices and blended together, in the same conversation and it made it hard to follow which character was speaking. I truly believe his intention with this was good, but he couldn’t follow through all the way.
Sadly Finding Shelter didn’t live up to my expectation and personally if I do revisit these guys again it will be by reading their story rather than listening to it.
RATING: 
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