Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Smash & Grab 
SERIES: Relic Book 1
AUTHOR: Maz Maddox
NARRATOR: Kirt Graves
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 5 hrs and 38 mins
RELEASE DATE: January 12, 2020
BLURB:
My standard issued lab badge reads “Simon”, but it really should say “unexciting nerd with no social life”. Don’t get me wrong – I love what I do with a passion, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else. Especially romance.
While chipping away at my work, I’m suddenly the person between hired cartel muscle and the fossil that will define my career. Which isn’t the most insane part of the story.
My savior is a chaotic, bat-wielding punk with a bubble-gum pink mohawk and a killer smile.
In a mad dash to escape the thieves, my knight in studded armor sweeps me across the country while hitting every tourist trap along the way. While smuggling a fossil, might I add.
Oh, and did I mention this pink punk can shift into a dinosaur?
REVIEW:
Having now read and listened to Smash & Grab, I understand the meaning of the title. This audiobook will smash your expectations and grab your heart. It features dinosaur shifter Dalton and paleontologist Simon Andrews in an altogether improbable, opposites attract romance. The first book in a new series, RELIC, named after Dalton’s fossil-rescuing organization, Smash & Grab promises fun, frolicking good times for books to come.
🦖 🦖 🦖
Maz Maddox has crafted an uber-original tale about dinosaur shifters. Dinosaur shifters trying to foil a hired cartel’s fossil heist and stop the attempted kidnapping of fossil expert Professor Simon from the Museum of Natural History where Simon has been holed up, diligently restoring a groundbreaking dinosaur fossil that he famously discovered. Yup, you read that right. Simon sums it up best:
“In what universe did a museum get robbed of a fossil? In what weird reality did they then kidnap a paleontologist to keep working on it?
In Maz Maddox’s mind, that’s where. Smash & Grab is crazy creative, if superficial at times. I’m happy to forgive the latter, though. This is a series, so I’m expecting much of what’s lacking here will get developed in later books.
Did I want to know more about RELIC? You bet. I want to know all about them: what they do, how they formed, and how do they have all this super-expensive, highly developed technology? This book isn’t going to give you those answers. We only get the broad outlines.
Do I need to understand why our evil villain, Hyena, and his crew are insanely obsessed with collecting dinosaur fossils? Are so extreme about it that they appear unhinged? I sure do. I mean who goes around maiming and killing people in order to collect a fossil … it’s nuts. Do they know that Dalton and his RELIC brothers are dinosaur shifters? There is so much more to this storyline. Again, this book won’t explain all of this to you. At least not to a level that you’ll find satisfying. We are given skeletal facts, hints and innuendos. I’m hoping/expecting the following books in this series will unravel the mysteries.
In the meantime, I’m happy to focus on Dalton and Simon’s relationship. These two are about as opposite as you can get (and I don’t just mean because of the dinosaur thing …) Dalton outfits himself with a spiky jacket, shredded jeans, bubble-gum pink Doc Martens, multiple piercings and tattoos. He pairs that with a cocky attitude, swagger and mischievous smile. Oh and don’t forget about the pink mohawk that just happens to resemble his dinosaur plume of feathers.
Simon, on the other hand, gives off “sophisticated teacher daddy vibes” with his nerdy, teacher appearance. He’s buttoned up and anti-social. He has a penchant for chipping away at fossils in a museum basement rather than socializing. Simon generally prefers dinosaurs to people. Up until Dalton, Simon also singularly preferred women to men.
But these two have hidden layers. (In Dalton’s case, that’s literal and figurative.) What isn’t immediately evident about Dalton is his enormous heart, his loyalty and his dedication to his “Pretty Simon”. Who knew those scaly, feathery, raptor dinosaurs could be all warm and fuzzy?
Simon, for his part, displays an unforeseen willingness to take risks and surprisingly strong backbone under pressure. Underneath all of their differences, though, both Simon and Dalton possess an openness to receiving love and generously give it in their own unique ways.
What results is a sweet, funny romance laced with adventure, a bit of suspense, and a whole lot of unexpected twists and turns. You just can’t help but fall for Dalton and Simon. They certainly can’t help falling for each other. Despite Dalton’s prior aversion to relationships, and even though, for Simon, falling in love and falling for a man are completely new, it doesn’t hold either of them back from going all in.
Simon’s bisexual awakening is really underplayed here. He notes that his attraction to Dalton is new and confusing, but he doesn’t act that confused about it. Typically, that would really bother me in a story. If the issue was underdeveloped, it didn’t feel authentic to me. Here, though, uncovering his attraction to men is perhaps one of the least surprising things Simon learns in this story. Let’s level set here: Simon realizes he is attracted to and in love with a man … and a dinosaur. Comparatively speaking, the attraction to men is not the shocking part of this discovery.
I enjoyed Smash & Grab through the audiobook narrated by Kirt Graves. I haven’t listened to a lot of his work to date but that will certainly be changing now. He brought this book to life. In addition to his undeniable vocal chops, he has an innate ability to tell a really good story. He infuses the words on the page with emotion, color and complexity, bringing you into the story rather than simply reading it to you.
He has a tenor voice, so it’s on the higher end of the male vocal range. Yet he is able to impart some grit into Dalton’s voice. He gives Simon a higher, smoother, more rounded voice, a perfect match to how I picture Simon. Mr. Graves is also able to distinctly characterize a number of other characters, including female voices, and accurately deliver multiple accents. I particularly enjoyed his spot-on narration of Dalton’s shifter brother Baha’s accented voice.
Mr. Graves’ storytelling hinges not just on the voices, but also how he spins out the story itself. In this respect, he shines. His cadence enthralls you. His pacing translates the dynamics of the events of the story. He uses his voice to build tension where needed and string out intimate moments like warm taffy. Smash & Grab contains a good amount of latent emotional content that he deftly conveys through his dulcet tones.
Overall, Smash & Grab is 5 star ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, feel good fun wrapped up in a wholly unexpected, unbelievable, unimaginably sweet romance. Buckle up for this beautifully bonkers, romantic adventure told through an altogether absorbing audiobook.
RATING: 
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