Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  Fake Friends

SERIES:  Never Just Friends, Book 2

AUTHOR:  Saxon James

NARRATOR:  Alexander Cendese and Kirt Graves

PUBLISHER:  Tantor Audio

LENGTH:  6 hours and 21 minutes

RELEASE DATE:    October 12, 2021

BLURB:

Rowan

Five years ago, I ruined the best thing I had in my life and ran. Now, I’m finally back to make things right. I need Circus’s forgiveness, and then I can finally move on. I’ll leave Sunbury for good this time and never look back. Maybe then I can finally live life as an out gay man – without my family ever finding out. But earning his forgiveness isn’t as simple as I hoped it would be. He’s going to make me fight for it. And I don’t blame him at all.

Circus

I never wanted or expected to see Rowan Harvey again. When he shows up in Sunbury, begging for forgiveness, I’m tempted to give it to him just so he’ll disappear. Instead, we make a deal. I need an extra model for a swimwear shoot, and none of my friends are available or fit the brief. I’ll forgive him, if he helps me. Then he has to leave. For good. Because his request for anonymity during the shoot proves he’s still living in his dark closet. I’m not going to make the same mistakes I did when I was a teenager. I won’t let myself fall for him again. Because after how things ended between us, he doesn’t deserve a second chance.

Contains mature themes.

REVIEW:

Saxon James’ Fake Friends picks up after the second chance, best friends-to-lovers romance of Roo and Tanner in Just Friends. However, this story has an entirely different feel from Roo and Tanner’s romance.  Fake Friends is an enemies-to-lovers romance, and you feel the animosity between Circus and Rowan for a good long while into the story.  Despite the title, a fake relationship, which does become a plot driver, is not the main focus.  Instead, the story centers on Rowan and Circus trying to find their way back to each other and their true selves.  

A young closeted Rowan and Circus fell in love as teens but kept it secret.  Then Rowan betrays Circus in a despicable fashion, fleeing town.  Rowan’s homophobic parents, grandparents and the church psychologically scarred him, leaving Circus behind as a casualty. 

Five years later, Rowan comes back into town and wants to make amends, but Circus is having no part of it. Finally, through a confluence of somewhat implausible circumstances, Rowan and Circus strike a deal that Rowan will help Circus out professionally with a very up close and personal, sexy job.  As part of the deal, Rowan promises to leave town after the job is over and never return. 

Fake Friends provides a second chance for Rowan and Circus.  They work to rebuild their relationship and find forgiveness not just for each other but also for themselves.  Rowan has a personal journey toward self-acceptance, gathering the strength and self-esteem to stand up for himself and come out of the closet. But Circus has some accepting to do as well.  He needs to believe in his worth and ability to be loved and not base his identity on external, meaningless indicators like Instagram views.

I’m not normally a big fan of stories that heavily focus on the closeted gay romance, but Ms. James makes it work through her solid writing.  Know, though, that you are getting a deep, heavy romance that wades into the harsh realities and hard truths of guilt, anger, heartbreak, and self-hatred associated with childhood trauma and loss and a failed teenage love.   Those negative emotions bleed into their relationship and I feel they even impair the chemistry between Circus and Rowan.  The story just made me sad at times, and I missed that usually present thread of hopefulness running through the storyline, even though it ultimately ends in a HEA.  

Alexander Cendese and Kirt Graves return to narrate the audiobook of Fake Friends.  Like in Just Friends, both men provide invested vocal portrayals reflecting their evident skill.  These two experienced narrators deliver the fundamentals well, but the emotions felt flat to me.  This is due to the story, not the narrators, though.  I had difficulty getting their voices to merge with their characters because I struggled to connect with Circus and Rowan and their love story. That being said, Mr. Graves and Mr. Cendese deliver all the fundamentals of tone, pacing, and inflections in overarchingly enjoyable performances.  

The Fake Friends audiobook is well done, and the narrators help infuse it with more life and energy than it has on text alone.  Overall, I recommend it as an enjoyable listen, albeit very different from what came before in the series.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

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