Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Keeping Casey
SERIES: Keeping Him
AUTHOR: Amy Aislin
NARRATOR: Michael Franklin
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 7 hours and 27 minutes
RELEASE DATE: January 3, 2022
BLURB:
Casey Preston is the guy with the plan. The list-maker. The one who micromanages his own life.
Spontaneously offering to be his best friend’s fake boyfriend to get Ethan’s annoying team captain off his back?
That’s not thinking things through. It’s not even smart, given Casey’s been fighting his feelings for Ethan for years.
Ethan Rain just wants to play hockey and get his college degree. Adding a fake boyfriend to the mix? He doesn’t need that complication.
If Casey were his real boyfriend, though? If he got to keep Casey forever? Now we’re talking.
But what if Casey doesn’t want to be kept?
REVIEW:
I am a fan of this author, having read pretty much everything she’s written except her hockey romance books 🙂 so when I saw this newly available audio, I thought I’d give it a whirl. This is a New Adult type romance, with both MCs being college students. Since the blurb is fairly slim, I’m going to try to review without spoiling plot points/information that are not shared 😉
Casey and Ethan are best friends. They have been since they were kids. So they share a common past and also a common tragedy. Ethan has played hockey in the Juniors and now he’s playing for his college team and working on a science degree. Casey has joined him at the same college and is studying archeology. Ethan is living in a house with his team and Casey is living in the dorm. He’s got a nice roommate who is helpful and so no drama there. Unfortunately Ethan discovers that his team captain is a homophobe and that doesn’t go over well. Ethan isn’t out, but he isn’t in either. It turns out Ethan’s roommates and friends are not too happy either – one is also gay and has a boyfriend and one isn’t telling. He happens to be the captain’s stepbrother. Oh my!
When Casey gets wind of this situation with the captain and observes his lack of acceptance from Ethan that he is gay, he blurts out that he’s Ethan’s boyfriend. Oops! And of course he wishes it was true – but he’s never shared that with Ethan who has been out for some time. Little does Casey know that Ethan has had feelings for Casey that go beyond their friendship for some time. But Casey had a hard time when they were growing up with the family tragedy and so Ethan has always been his rock and he doesn’t want to ruin that by revealing his secret feelings. The plot thickens!
Along the way, Casey has some issues with his classmates and boy can I relate! I absolutely hated group projects. Always always always there is someone who doesn’t pull their weight and someone else ends up compensating. Casey also finds a part time job at an antiques story that he loves! Ethan is really happy that Casey seems to be adjusting well to school and his job – even if he doesn’t seem to make many friends on his own and becomes part of Ethan’s teammate group.
Parallel to all this, Ethan is not only dealing with a homophobic team captain, but he’s got a chronic condition that needs to be managed. The tress of his school work with many labs and hours in the classroom on top of practices and games begins to take its toll. It’s affecting both his classroom performance and his health negatively. Casey is always watching out for him and he notices when Ethan is in pain and he does his best to take care of him – with pain killers, good food, etc.
When Ethan decides to put it out there to Casey that they be boyfriends for real, Casey’s reaction is not at all what he expected. But Casey is stunned and his reaction wasn’t what Ethan assumed – and thus begins the miscommunication portion of the story. Ethan and Casey keep their distance for a while, but thankfully Ethan’s friends demand they both get it together and realize that they were already so much more than friends. As they begin to put things to rights and forge ahead with a real relationship, both Casey and Ethan are definitely happier. Although Casey – who in many ways is a glass half-empty guy – is waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’s sure something will got wrong. When it does, his reaction definitely points to a lot of unresolved issues. Luckily for him, he’s got family and friends and Ethan who help him see that there is indeed a way forward and that maybe he’s going to need some help to address the things in his past that keep tripping him up.
For Ethan, his struggle with his health and his schoolwork are causing him a lot of anxiety. He’s not even sure he wants to be at school or playing hockey anymore considering the way his captain is treating him. He’s always handled things himself – including a homophobic coach in the past. When he finally can’t take it any more, let’s just say the confrontation isn’t pretty. Despite repeated attempts from well meaning friends, mentors and others, Ethan has been trying to do it all himself. When push comes to shove though, he concedes that maybe he will have to accept help and make some changes if he really wants things to work out for him with school and hockey and of course Casey.
While I enjoyed this story, I will say that the pacing and many threads of the story slowed down the pacing for me. There is a lot going on with school, their relationship, Ethan’s health, the homophobic jerk of a captain and Casey’s issues in not dealing with the past in a productive way that puts him in a position to successfully move on with his life. It’s almost like a bridge too far. I would have liked perhaps less of any one of those things. There was just a lot of conflict. Not that I don’t think all of them were legit for a couple of young guys going off to school but it just slowed things down. I liked the way that Ethan’s health considerations were handled and that he did his best with it. Casey’s outlook on life was definitely colored by his past and anyone who has been alive for any length of time can confirm that trying to force anyone to deal with grief will never work. The person going through it has to determine what will work for them and when. One of my favorite themes of the book is really that no man is an island. While it’s admirable to handle one’s own problems, it’s also unwise to take on too much and especially when a person in a leadership position absolutely has to be taken to task for bigotry. The budding romance between Casey and Ethan is sweet and the physical side of their relationship is mostly off page. They care so much for each other and do thoughtful things for one another that convey their deep understanding, love and compassion for each other. It made me happy to see them get the support they needed to be able to move past the obstacles – both internal and external – to really be together. Recommended for fans of hockey and new adult romances.
This is the first audiobook of Amy Aislin’s books I’ve listened too and I had not read this particular book before. Michael Franklin is a new to me narrator and it appears like he might be new to audio book narration as this seems to be his only credit in Audible. Overall I thought his narration was fine, but one distracting mispronunciation kept coming up – wane for wan. I don’t know if this is a typo in the text or what, but I noticed it several times. There were a few times that I thought the narration didn’t flow and there were pauses that didn’t seem natural. There are a lot of characters in this story – teammates of Ethan’s, professional hockey players, coaches, other students, etc. I didn’t notice a lot of voice distinction in some of the more secondary characters. I’ll be interested to see how this narrator continues to grow if he indeed is going to be narrating the rest of this series.
RATING: 
BUY LINK: