Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Invitation to the Blues
SERIES: Small Change #2
AUTHOR: Roan Parrish
NARRATOR: Greg Boudreaux
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 8 hours and 13 minutes
RELEASE DATE: June 11th 2019
BLURB:
Eight months ago Jude Lucen fled his partner, his career, and a hospital in Boston after a suicide attempt. Now back in Philadelphia, he feels like a complete failure. Piano has always been his passion and his only escape. Without it, he has nothing. Well, nothing except a pathetic crush on the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen.
Faron Locklear came to Philly looking for a fresh start and has thrown himself into tattooing at Small Change. He’s only met Jude a few times, but something about the red-haired man with the haunted eyes calls to him. Faron is blown away by Jude’s talent. What he isn’t expecting is the electricity he feels the first time they kiss – and the way Jude’s needs in bed speak directly to his own deepest desires.
Jude and Faron fall fast and hard, but Jude has spent a lifetime learning that he can’t be what the people he loves need. So when the opportunity arises to renew his career in Boston, he thinks he has to choose: music, or Faron? Only by taking a huge risk – and finally believing he’s worthy of love just as he is – can he have the chance for both.
REVIEW:
Wanting a change of pace, (and partly wanting an aural sorbet to stop Greg Boudreaux’s voice from “being” Merlin in my mind), I decided to listen to Invitation to the Blues. Although the print version of this was reviewed by Becca back when it was released in 2018, I thought I’d do a review of the Audio-book version as released by Tantor in 2019.
This is NOT your light and frothy M/M romance. In fact, some trigger warnings are in order… (Depression / suicide attempt / low-self-esteem / food issues)
This is told from the POV of a thirty-something guy with severe long-term depression and a love of the piano, who’s recovering from his latest failed relationship. The story opens after an unsuccessful suicide attempt and a retreat from Boston to his parent’s home in Philadelphia. In chapter one, he “fires himself” from a job his younger brother’s sandwich shop, since he can’t even pretend to be doing that well.
At one point Jude compares himself to a “black hole” and there is some truth there. He does have a strange attraction and if you’re strong enough in your own path, then this book may well give your empathy a “gravitational boost.” Those less secure in their own orbits might do well to steer clear.
This is not an easy book to listen to. While you realize that it’s beyond the main character’s control, he’s not an easy person to spend time with. You start by feeling a bit sorry for him but too much of that with no end in sight can just be exhausting. But if you really want to understand someone with these issues, this might be the best way to gain some understanding.
Greg Boudreaux’s calmly analytical tenor is perhaps the perfect choice for this book. I imagine this litany of fears and self-deprecating thinking could be insufferable if voiced by a more flamboyantly dramatic narrator. As it is, it’s an enlightening look into another perspective on the world; one no less valid than mine, and one that’s worth a bit of discomfort to see, but I’m glad I don’t have to spend more time there than I do.
RATING: 
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