Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Strays
SERIES: Urban Soul#2
AUTHOR: Garret Leigh
NARRATOR: Dan Calley
PUBLISHER: Fox Love Press
LENGTH: 4 hours and 59 minutes
RELEASE DATE: October 20, 2020
BLURB:
Work, sleep, work, repeat. Nero’s lonely life suits him just fine until his best friend Cass asks him to take on a new apprentice – a beautiful young man who’s never set foot in a professional kitchen. Despite his irritation and his lifelong ability to shut the world out, Nero is mesmerized by the vibrant stray, especially when he learns what drove him to seek sanctuary on Nero’s battered old couch.
Lenny Mitchell is living under a cloud of fear. Pursued by a stalker, he has nowhere left to run until Nero offers him a port in a storm – a job at the hottest restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. Kitchen life proves heady and addictive, and it’s not long before he finds himself falling hard and fast for the man who has taken him in.
Fast-forward a month, and a neither man can imagine life without the other, but one thing stands in their way: a lifetime of horrors Nero can’t bring himself to share with Lenny. Or can he? For the first time ever, happiness is there for the taking, and Nero must learn to embrace it before fate steps in and rips it away.
REVIEW:
In this aptly named Strays, we have the second book in the Urban Soul series. Nero seems to have been an earlier stray taken in by Cass. Now he’s being asked to return the favor by sheltering the waifish Lenny from a stalker. That means sharing the apartment above the Shepherd’s Bush restaurant that Nero runs. The second book can be enjoyed on it’s own. Nero has a haunted past that’s frequently referred to but not fully explained until late in the book. Having not read the first in the series, I found myself continually wondering about how much (if anything) I’d missed by not reading book 1. I’m now convinced that I hadn’t missed much. Nero is just so closed-off due to his life experiences that few ever learn his back-story. It’s really a satisfying relief when Lenny finally breaks through that hard shell.
However, this calls for a semi-spoilerish Trigger Warning: Nero is a ex-convict and a survivor of child abuse. These issues are recounted in some detail toward the end of this book and explains much of his behavior and attitudes. Despite the amount of time that has passed, some readers may still find this too intense.
Lenny on the other hand is much more open about his life, and brings a good deal of light into what would otherwise be a pretty gloomy tale. Together the two make an amazingly romantic pair and their tale is surely as sweet as anything in the artisanal bakery they’re working so hard to open in Vauxhall.
Dan Calley narrates this, the second book in the series after the first was narrated by Craig Beck. I love Calley’s narration style, and I’ve enjoyed other books he’s read but for this one I find myself listening at a slightly reduced speed in order to understand the words. I’m guessing it’s the East-end London accent. As usual Calley brings a good variety of local accents to the book which adds an element beyond what’s in the story itself. Professor Higgins wasn’t that far off when he lamented that “An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him. The moment he talks, he makes some other Englishman despise him.”
RATING: 
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