Reviewed by Anna Lynn
TITLE: Forsaken
SERIES: The Protectors #4
AUTHOR: Sloane Kennedy
NARRATOR: Michael Dean
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 8 hours and 33 minutes
RELEASE DATE: October 22, 2018
BLURB:
Eli: I didn’t know how to tell him how afraid I’d been that I’d never have this moment with him. This moment where it was just the two of us. This moment where he made me feel whole without even trying.
Abandoned. Abused. Betrayed.
Ex-cop Maverick “Mav” James needs only three things: his Harley, an open road, and his work in an underground organization that delivers justice when the law can’t.
Family? They left him long before he left them. Friends? A liability. A place to call home? Doesn’t exist.
Mav’s motto is simple: Get done and get out. Work, sex, doesn’t matter. No emotional connections. Simple. Until he meets him. Alone. Hiding. Broken.
At 15 years old, Eli Galvez had nothing. No family, no friends, and only his body as a means to make enough money to survive. But a chance meeting changed all that, and eight years later, he’s well on his way to having the life of which he could once only dream. He’s been accepted into medical school, and he’s finally returned home to Seattle to be closer to the men and women who don’t share his blood but are the only family he’s ever really known.
Only things aren’t what they seem, and the secrets Eli has been hiding are about to come to the surface with dangerous consequences.
One final chance at a real future.
Guys like Eli just aren’t Mav’s type, period. Yet he can’t deny his intense attraction to the younger man who only looks at him with fear in his eyes. Until the day there’s something else in those eyes, too. Something that draws Mav in and refuses to let go. Something that makes him want to forget his rules. But Mav’s learned the hard way what happens when you get too close to something. And while he vows to protect Eli after a violent attack leaves the younger man shaken, protection is all he’ll offer.
Because anything else would just cost too much.
REVIEW:
This is the fourth book in the series The Protectors written by Ms. Sloane Kennedy. This fourth book is voiced over by Mr. Michael Dean. This beloved series is about a group of men who have sworn to protect those who have been abused sexually, kidnapped and sold through human trafficking, sexually-slaved and other such heinous crimes. They are the ones who take care of those who have escaped the arms of the law. They take care of those who have repeatedly committed the crime even after being incarcerated for it and somehow released again. But these men have also been through so much in their personal lives. They have lived through horrors you and I could never imagine going through, least of all, surviving it and living on with their lives, no matter how hard things get.
Maverick “Mav” James has been alternately guarding Matty, Hawke and Tate’s son, while he is undergoing chemotherapy. Ever since his teammate Hawke got together with Tate after resolving the crime that got his wife killed, he and his other teammate, Dante, have been taking shifts guarding the young boy against any plots of revenge that might be coming. His boss, Ronan Grisham, also takes his turn watching the young boy. He and his partner, Seth, has been with Matty during the time Hawke and Tate left to find the killers of his wife, which happened to be Tate’s brother and father.
Eli Galvez has been volunteering at the pediatric section of the hospital, focusing on children with severe illnesses like cancer, in preparation for his degree in medicine. He is in awe of them, of their courage and ability to accept whatever is coming. One of his favorite children to visit is Matty Travers. He finds the kid’s courage admirable, and he is amazed of the family that surrounds the young man all the time. He is secretly envious of Matty’s parents, Hawke and Tate, for he can see how much they love each other. He can also see the other couple, Ronan and Seth, always with the child when his parents are not there, or even if they’re there. He knows that he can never have something like that. His past made sure of that.
One day when Eli was on his way home, he got assaulted in the underground parking of the hospital. It was a good thing that Mav was also on his way out and heard the commotion, so he loudly asked what was going on. When he found Eli on the floor and banged up, he tried to help. At first, the young man was reluctant to accept it, wary and scared. But in the end, he did accept Mav’s offer to help him.
Mav has always been alone. Even when he lived with his family, he wasn’t accepted because he was considered of “two spirits.” He is gay. His mother has always left him behind whenever she finds another man who takes her fancy. He left the reservation when he was still a young man and has never gone back. He surmised that nobody really wanted him. He was never enough, not even for his mother who leaves him behind time and time again.
Eli has been trying to forge a new life after what he has gone through in the past. He endured a life on the streets before he was rescued by Dominic Barretti. Dom helped his mom come back from Mexico and offered her a job in his organization. Secretly, Eli also endured the repeated assaults from his stepfather whom his mother met through Dom’s organization. He thought he was at fault for that, so he kept it a secret. But things were not as they seemed.
What these two men went through and endured, all the pain, self-loathing, insecurities and loneliness can be heard from the voice of Mr. Michael Dean. You can feel the emotion in every thought and in every word he utters. Ms. Sloane Kennedy’s The Protectors is one of the best, if not the best, series out there. It is high in angst, action, twists and turns that makes reading and listening to them all worth it. Being able to listen to each and every character through the talented Mr. Dean makes all these emotions seem all too real and it guts me to my core. I get very emotional while reading them, but listening to them as they are being read will rip your heart out in the best possible way. You cry, laugh and triumph with them as you listen. The feeling is amazing and I am in awe of the talent that Ms. Sloane Kennedy and Mr. Michael Dean possess! So totally worth it!
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