Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  His Horizon

SERIES:  His MM Romance Book 1

AUTHOR:  Con Riley

NARRATOR:  Cornell Collins

PUBLISHER:  Tantor Audio

LENGTH:  8 hours and 29 mins

RELEASE DATE:  January 12, 2021

BLURB:

Temperatures rise when there are two cooks in Jude’s kitchen….

Jude’s drowning when he can’t save his family business single-handed. The last person he expects to throw a lifeline is Rob, a rival chef who once beat him to first place in a cooking contest.

Two chefs working together won’t be easy. Not when Rob is everything Jude isn’t – popular, extroverted, and a one-time hookup. What’s worse is that Rob wears his heart on his sleeve while Jude’s still in the closet.

Jude’s dilemma doesn’t end there. Rob’s rescue package comes with conditions that mean sharing everything from the profits to Jude’s sleeping quarters. Sleeping with the enemy will either be a disaster or signal a much brighter future, but only if Jude can meet Rob’s final condition and love him in the open.

Featuring opposites who attract, rivals to lovers, and an out-for-you storyline dripping with hurt-comfort feelings, His Horizon is the first in a shared-world series of stand-alone MM romance novels from Con Riley.

REVIEW:

“They left the hotel behind, winding their way back to the main road.
Jude couldn’t help looking over his shoulder as the cove diminished.
He’d come back in a heartbeat.”

Substitute the book, His Horizon, for the referenced hotel, and the reader for His Horizon’s main character Jude, and you’ve just described the reader’s experience upon finishing Con Riley’s lyrical, lovely first entry in her His MM Romance series.  His Horizon expects and deserves a patient reader to fully absorb the intricate, exquisite world building and the emotional journey of Jude Anstley.  The story pulls you into the world of Porthperrin, the small village along the Cornish coastline that Jude calls home.  You’ll check into the New Anchor, Jude’s family’s pub style restaurant/hotel, where you’ll meet Jude’s sister Louise, and Rob, the budding love Jude abruptly left behind.  Once there, you’ll never want to leave.

Con Riley weaves an alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming tale that is deceptively simple in its premise.  Jude and Lou’s parents were lost at sea during a typhoon that hit while they were taking an extended sailing trip.  Jude dropped everything and everyone the minute he learned of the tragedy, so he could get on a boat to search far and wide for his parents.  That “everything” included a top chef type competition that he was on the cusp of winning.  That “everyone” included his fellow chef/competitor Rob, right as they began to embark on a new romance. 

Jude has now returned home to help his sister with the pub during the busy summer season.  However, he doesn’t have any news of his parents’ whereabouts (or demise) to show for all of his time away.  Instead, he brings with him a hefty dose of self-loathing and futility.  His already unstable world is rocked, anew, when he discovers nothing in Porthperrin is as he left it, things are much worse than he ever expected, and Rob has taken up residence with Lou as their apparent savior.  The captivating story unwinds from there.

Jude is the main protagonist of His Horizon and the story is told from his point of view.  However, Rob is His Horizon‘s titular character.  As he should be.  Rob is truly the heart of this story. 

Jude is drowning in so many respects. Rob is his steadfast, altruistic, magnanimous, loving partner, buoying Jude, Lou and the family business with his tenderness, thoughtfulness, rock solid presence and dependability.  Traumatized Jude, set adrift by the shock and horror of his parents’ presumed death at sea, has not been able to focus on anything but the horizon.  He’s been endlessly scanning that line where the sky meets the sea for some sighting or word of his parents, indefatigably hoping for the chance to see them again and say everything that was heretofore left unsaid between them.  But as the story progresses, we see that the horizon that gives this story its name isn’t that line in the distance.  It’s Rob, because through his character, devotion and love for Jude, he becomes Jude’s ever present horizon:

“I wouldn’t have wasted time looking out to sea … I told you that you’re my horizon, these days, didn’t I?”

Ms. Riley crafts complex layers of emotions and inner turmoil that these characters, in particular Jude and Rob, work through over the course of the book.  The writing here is exceptional:  vivid, allegorical, spinning out beautiful, poignant, apropos metaphors for her characters’ struggles.  It’s impossible to adequately describe it or summarize it.  You simply need to read it.  Remarkable is an understatement for what Ms. Riley has achieved here.

Finding a narrator to deliver this complex, emotional story cannot have been easy.  Someone simply reading lines would never do this story justice.  His Horizon requires a deeply connected, emotional vocal performance. Con Riley’s narrator of choice, Cornell Collins, delivered that in spades.  Mr. Collins (who also narrates under Matthew Lloyd Davies) gives a polished, thoughtful, impactful performance here.  His acting and character experience shine through and his skill, honed over the course of the 250+ audiobooks to his credit, make this a must-have audiobook.

Mr. Collins’ narration is clearly enunciated, expressive and emotionally nuanced.  He brings to life Jude and Rob in a way that makes them both real and relatable. There’s a strong connection between these two characters, layered with their own respective internal conflicts.  Mr. Collins is able to impactfully deliver all of that subtext.  He also clearly differentiates the characters, making them easy to tell apart, although his female voices were a bit weaker than the male ones.

His Horizon requires deft, careful translation in order to appropriately convey who Jude and Rob are within and without, and who they are to each other.  Mr. Collins rose to that challenge.  I particularly appreciated his use of pacing to communicate emotional turmoil.  For example, Jude’s voice would pitch higher and speak faster when he was particularly upset or frustrated.  Mr. Collins also imparts a cut-glass precision to his vocalization of Jude that strikes me as particularly apropos.  Jude is emotionally fragile, on the verge of breaking under the pressure, the guilt and the grief.  His narration of Jude is therefore spot-on.  

As wonderful as His Horizon is, it isn’t a quick read or listen.  Nor is it a light one.  The audio clocks in almost 9 hours long.  The book itself doesn’t have much action to speak of, and is packed with exceptional detail.  This results in an overall slow pace, but I believe that’s by design.  His Horizon intends for the reader to settle in and stay for a while.  You can’t rush this story, nor should you want to.  Its pacing perfectly matches the gravity of its contents.  It’s worth every minute you spend on it.

Overall, in His Horizon, Con Riley tells a poignant story of grief and acceptance, about finding yourself and where (and with whom) you belong.  But at heart, it’s a swoon-worthy love story that Cornell Collins delivers perfectly through his dulcet tones.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

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