Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: O Come, All Ye Kellys
SERIES: Love & Luck Book #7
AUTHOR: Isla Olsen
NARRATOR: Nick J. Russo
PUBLISHER: Moonwalker Press
LENGTH: 3 hours and 48 minutes
RELEASE DATE: December 15, 2021
BLURB:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year and the Kelly boys are all full up with Holiday spirit. Well, mostly….
Connor’s freaking out because Chase is terrified of Santa, Declan’s trying to stop Heath from doing something drastic in the weeks before their baby is due, Owen and Blake are considering a big life change of their own, Brendan and Wade are suffering from a severe case of child interruption every time they try to jingle some bells, Aidan is learning not all publicity is good publicity in the lead-up to the launch of his new show, and Shay’s not sure if he’ll ever get that glitter out of his hair….
What do you get when you combine six Kelly brothers, their six true loves, five adorable kiddies, the rest of the crazy Kelly family, even more meddlesome in-laws, and all the glitter Jamie could ask for?
Just a regular old Kelly Christmas….
Warning: This book is not appropriate for anyone who doesn’t like laughing, anyone who doesn’t like the holidays, or anyone who doesn’t like seeing gorgeous men in healthy, happy relationships that include lots of fun and steamy sexy times.
An actual listener note: While it’s not strictly necessary to have listened to every single previous book in the Love and Luck series, listeners will get the maximum enjoyment from O Come, All Ye Kellys if they are familiar with all of them.
REVIEW:
If you enjoy Isla Olsen’s Love & Luck series, you’ll love this Christmas story featuring the extensive Kelly clan and all of their significant others. It also gives us insight into Finn Kelly, who we haven’t seen much of so far but who is the star of the upcoming eighth Love & Luck book, Sex, Tries & Videotape. O Come, All Ye Kellys contains all of the Kelly family craziness we’ve come to know and love, and we get to visit with all of our couples from the first six books after their HEAs.
I do not recommend reading this as a standalone. Even having read the prior books, this story is a bit all over the place. There’s really no plot here. Just a lot of holiday activities and point of view shifts from couple to couple. I’m not sure how you could read it without having read the others especially because the interconnections between the family, friends, and partners are convoluted at best and likely impossible to navigate if you’ve not already read the prior stories (or at least some of them).
Some of the best parts of the Love & Luck stories are the Kelly clan texts, and O Come, All Ye Kellys is in some ways just an amped-up version of that. It’s very funny, sweet, and sexy, especially as we check in with all of our happy couples: Declan and Heath (Fake it ‘til you Make Out), Blake and Owen (Virtually Screwed), Shay and Jamie (Crazy Little Fling), Brendan and Wade (Hopeless Bromantics), Connor and Josh (Two Men and a Baby), and Aidan and Ben (Can’t Get You Out of My Bed).
In the audiobook of O Come, All Ye Kellys, we get an accomplished narrator in Nick J. Russo. However, he is the third narrator to voice this series and I found it a bit disconcerting. The Joel Leslie to Michael Dean narrator switch proved difficult because their styles and voices are so dissimilar, but their co-narration of Book 3, Crazy Little Fling, did help smooth the way. However, there’s no segue here to help the transition to Mr. Russo.
As such, I recognize the challenge presented to Mr. Russo when taking up the mic for O Come, All Ye Kellys. Despite the obtsacles, he rises to the occasion, delivering a solid performance. Mr. Russo captures the emotional content of the story, which admittedly is not too deep, and also the essence of each of the characters. That is no small feat given the sheer number of characters involved, many of whom have accents.
I’ve listened to Mr. Russo several times before and have always found his performances to be enjoyable. He’s consistent in his delivery and clearly differentiates his characters. His pacing is generally appropriate. However, here, I did feel at times the cadence was a bit slow in the context of the story, and in particular for the often rapid-fire banter between the Kelly clan. I also heard some mispronunciations (“Deaklan” instead of “Declan”; consistently saying “drawl” instead of “draw”), and found them distracting.
Overall, though, Mr. Russo’s performance does the job admirably. It’s not his best performance, but this also isn’t Ms. Olsen’s best work. O Come, All Ye Kellys is terrific taken for what it is and without expectation of it being something more: a fun, frisky, and funny story with heartwarming holiday happiness. Mr. Russo conveys that well enough that the audiobook rounds out a short, quick, light-hearted, festive listen.
RATING: 
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