Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Pieces of You
SERIES: Missing Pieces #1
AUTHOR: N.R. Walker
NARRATOR: Glen Lloyd
PUBLISHER: Bluehart Press
LENGTH: 4 hours, 49 minutes
RELEASE DATE: July 22, 2020
BLURB:
Dallas Muller has everything he never expected he’d have. He owns a successful motorbike mechanic shop in Newcastle, and he’s madly in love with his boyfriend of four years, Justin Keith.
Justin has always struggled to find where he fit in, never realising his true worth or what it means to be loved—until he met Dallas. Living and working together might be too much for some, but Dallas and Justin wouldn’t have it any other way.
When a terrible accident tears their world apart, Justin’s left with no memory of Dallas or their relationship. Trying to put the pieces back together is almost impossible when some pieces are blank and some are missing altogether. Dallas has to let Justin find his own way back to him and just hope that their love will light the way.
REVIEW:
For the past I don’t know how many hours, I’ve been listening to Glen Lloyd performing this haunting story about two men happily in love, but their happiness abruptly ends one rainy afternoon. A car accident lands one of them, Justin, in hospital in critical condition. He recovers somewhat, but it’s soon clear that the last five years was wiped from his memory, and Dallas with them.
I can’t imagine the pain both Dallas and Justin must have felt. Justin having forgotten so many vital parts of his life, not only did he live in another city in another part of the country, but he also lived with a long-time boyfriend – a boyfriend he had no memory of. To add it all up, he didn’t really have a support system – well he did have his sister but she was far away and couldn’t really be there for him as she had her small children to care for. So all he had was a life and people he didn’t remember. I can’t imagine how scary that must be.
And for Dallas, having Justin back, but only barely. I mean it was almost like this cruel joke where he got the love of his life back from the brink of death. But the man he got back had no memories of him or their life together. And since the majority of this book was told from his POV we got to experience this pain with him. And it was painful. But we also got to experience how much love he had for Justin and how grateful he was for him to be alive. However you look at it they were in a difficult situation with plenty of feelings.
I love Glen Lloyd’s accent. It adds so much to have a genuine accent to a story. There are extremely talented voice actors out there doing very credible accents, but there are these minute details that are just inherent to a native speaker that’s hard to replicate. I’m also really fond of his deep voice.
There was one thing that I wished Lloyd had made clearer – or maybe just the opposite, and that was Justin’s dialogue after the accident. A huge part of his speech had been impacted and it was emphasised many times how his speech was slow and sometimes hesitant. Sadly Lloyd never really showed us that. It’s something minor in the scheme of things, but at the same time it’s also something vital to the story and something that would really anchor the performance to the story.
One moment in particular really touched me, and that was at the end where Justin started to rant about the unfairness of it all. Lloyd got this just right. I could hear and feel Justin’s desperation to get any memory of Dallas back, to get the feelings for him back. That it was so unfair that the one thing he’d ever really wanted was something he had no memory of. That speech was heart-felt and so real. It brought tears to my eyes.
Pieces of You is the heart-breaking beginning of this series, it’s filled with angst, but also unwavering determination and hope. It’s a beautiful story of unconditional love.
RATING: 
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