Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  Hijacked

SERIES:  Licking Thicket: Horn of Glory Book 1

AUTHOR:  Lucy Lennox and May Archer

NARRATOR:  Michael Dean

PUBLISHER:  Thicket Productions LLC

LENGTH:  9 hours and 48 minutes

RELEASE DATE:  August 25, 2021

BLURB:

Renowned cardiologist Carter Rogers is used to having things under control. His life, his prestigious reputation, his career, his future.

Things he can’t control this time around:

• His meddling grandfather 
• His annoying gamer cousin
• Buggy South American jungles
• Being the meat in a feuding cartel sandwich
• Getting kidnapped by a monologuing drug lord
• Falling for his very hot, very mouthy ex-Special Forces bodyguard 

In short, Carter’s peaceful, well-planned life has been…hijacked.

REVIEW:

As the saying goes: The more things change, the more they stay the same.  With Hijacked, Lucy Lennox and May Archer’s latest joint venture, we see this power writing duo push the boundaries of their Licking Thicket brand of humor into new territory.  Hijacked definitely departs from the small town, found family grounded stories we experienced in the original Licking Thicket trilogy of Fakers, Liars, and Fools.  In fact, the Hijacked plot borders on the preposterous at times.  But even then, the writing remains consistently sharp and inspired.  We also still see the quintessential Lennox/Archer character development at work.  

In esteemed cardiologist Dr. Carter Rogers and Former Marine William Riggs, as well as the ancillary characters like Carter’s adorbs Cousin Kevin and his overprotective, intrusive but well-intentioned Grandfather, we get the multi-dimensional, completely endearing characters we’ve come to expect from this writing pair.  The characters are as endlessly fascinating and utterly engaging as their Licking Thicket predecessors, who we luckily get to see in the last third of the book.  That’s where we settle into the comfort of the prototypical Lennox/Archer rom-com, with plenty of witty banter, lovey-dovey couples, and found family to warm our hearts.  This is where Ms. Lennox and Ms. Archer’s strengths lie and they play to them well and effectively.

In Hijacked, Ms. Lennox and Ms. Archer bring us Carter and Riggs’ improbable, opposites-attract romance.  We first met Carter in the third Licking Thicket series book, Fools.  Carter is Dr. Tucker Wright’s best friend/ex-boyfriend who rather hysterically helped engineer the plan that got the stubborn, oblivious Tucker and Dunn together.  But now Carter realizes that not having a relationship like Tucker and Dunn’s leaves him quite lonely.  So he’s decided to run off again in an inherited, somewhat misguided, attempt to fill his deceased parents’ legacy of going out into the world and making a difference. Carter’s rich in money but depleted in spirit and feels his current life no longer maps to what he thinks he “should be” doing.  Maybe a trip to the jungles of Venezuela with Doctors Across Continents will help him get back on track.

In Ms. Lennox and Ms. Archer’s inimitable way, we see clearly what Carter is blind to:  He is loved and adored by the small-townsfolk of Licking Thicket and Great Nuthatch, Tennessee, where he is indeed making a difference and changing lives on a daily basis, albeit on a smaller, but no less impactful, scale. The same holds true for his family, including his brilliant if nerdy/socially challenged Cousin Kev and his brusque yet loving Grandfather (who notably fits right in with the all up in your business mentality of the Licking Thicket crowd).  His Grandfather is less than thrilled with Carter’s potentially dangerous ventures, and “tricks” Carter into bringing a bodyguard, Riggs, along.

Carter and Riggs’ opposites-attract romance requires a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief, primarily situational in nature.  The circumstances of their romantic forays don’t make a whole lot of sense IRL, but since Hijacked isn’t real life, I’m happy to go along for the ride.  As a couple, they have a bit of a Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner dynamic à la The Bodyguard, but with a level of attraction and frustrating inability to communicate that is all their own.

Cousin Kev absolutely steals the show in Hijacked.  You can’t help but love him and his geeky humor and complete dedication to his Carter.  He so earnestly adores Carter that he attends a huge gala, a type of event his painfully introverted self assiduously avoids, just so he can see and tightly hug Carter.  He even creates a custom Horn of Glory gaming console that allows Carter to keep in contact with Kev and continue their weekly joint gaming sessions even from the South American jungles.  I’m hoping/expecting Kev will get his own book and impatiently *taps foot* wait for it.

Despite the foray into new territory with Hijacked, the audiobook very much continues with Ms. Lennox and Ms. Archer’s tried and true formula:  narration from the highly skilled Michael Dean.  Personally, I don’t think this is his strongest vocal performance, even though he ably delivers, as always, the trademark Lennox/Archer quick wit and humor while also communicating the poignancy of Carter and Riggs’ pining, confusion, and heartache as they try to navigate their burgeoning relationship during extraordinary circumstances.  

So much of Mr. Dean’s typical excellent narration, he delivers here.  However, surprisingly, some things go awry.  First, the audiobook listener is wrongfooted from the get-go. This Licking Thicket spinoff series was initially dubbed Thicket Security.  The authors obviously changed course on that, renaming the series Licking Thicket: Horn of Glory.  Perhaps done in an effort to better capitalize on the Licking Thicket connection, it was also perhaps changed last minute because Mr. Dean disconcertingly calls the series Thicket Security in the audiobook. While I agree that is trivial, I mention it because it upsets the listener’s equilibrium within the first words of the audio.  It’s one of those “Huh?” moments that we need to quickly put aside. 

More concerning, though, is Mr. Dean’s inexplicable difficulty in consistently delivering Carter’s voice.  Mr. Dean gives Carter a mid-range voice which seems right.  Yet at times, he slips and lays into the deeper tone that he gives Riggs.  Oddly, though, in scenes where Carter and Riggs are interacting, Carter’s voice vacillates between his mid-range monologuing voice and an almost feminine voice with a rising intonation/upward lilt at the end.  This amplifies the other issue I noted:  Mr. Dean’s female voices here (for example, Candy Nutter) are atypically, inexplicably weak.  They tend towards the masculine and as such, to some degree even merge with Carter’s voice at times.

Mr. Dean gets Kev’s voice just right though.  It’s a higher-pitched tone, with a rapid delivery that captures his frenetic, overactive intellect and social anxiety.  He also gives him an upward intonation, but here it makes sense.  It reflects his excitement and enthusiasm over the Horn of Glory game, the mysterious, in-game “Magic Seed” back-door, and anything to do with his beloved Cousin Carter.  Kev is given some of the wittiest dialogue in this book and Mr. Dean nails it every time.  Definitely the high-point of the audiobook.

Overarchingly, the Hijacked audiobook is enjoyable and well-done.  If you are familiar with Mr. Dean’s vocal performances across numerous of Ms. Lennox and Ms. Archer’s titles, you’ll notice the narrative flaws here more.  But even a sub-optimal performance from Mr. Dean is above average compared to other narration, so I still wholeheartedly recommend this audiobook.  It provides greater immersion into an already engaging story.  I’m looking forward to what comes next from this trio in the next audiobook installment of the Licking Thicket: Horn of Glory series.

RATING:

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