Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Chrysalis
SERIES: Formicary, Book 1
AUTHOR: S.E. Harmon
NARRATOR: Kai Rubio
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 9 hours and 21 minutes
RELEASE DATE: April 26, 2022
BLURB:
Waking up in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head is bad. Finding out I have amnesia is far worse. My memory is practically wiped. I don’t know why someone wants me dead. Hell, I don’t even know my name. They say my name is Christian Cross. Too bad that name means nothing to me.
I haven’t forgotten everything, though. Grayson Laurie has always been my kryptonite, and it would take more than a bullet to the brain to forget him. He assures me that I’m imagining the distance between us, but I know better. I just don’t know how to fix it. I console myself that at least I’ve reached rock bottom and things can’t get worse…until they do.
My life is a tangled mess of lies and deceit. The more I learn about myself, the less I want to know. I want nothing more than an honest future with Gray, but the past isn’t about to let me go without a fight.
Fortunately, I’m starting to realize that fighting is my specialty.
REVIEW:
Your appreciation and enjoyment of S.E. Harmon’s Chrysalis, book one in The Formicary duo, will likely turn on whether you like the tension of a riveting suspense/thriller dissipated by moments of levity and romantic lightness. Harmon’s excellent story framework focuses on Christian (Chrysalis) Cross, a man nearly killed by a gunshot to the head, who wakes up in the hospital with no memory of anything, including his own identity. Amidst this pervasive amnesia, Chris only remembers one thing — the name of his boyfriend, Grayson Laurie, a doctor at the hospital. Gray becomes Chris’ tether as he tries to uncover who tried to kill him and, more fundamentally, his own identity. He’s not pleased with what he uncovers about himself, prompting him to think about whether he wants to become that old Chris or someone better.
Harmon weaves a complex, mesmerizing story that thrills us at every turn as Chris starts to piece together the mystery of himself and who and why someone wants to kill him. He discovers some disturbing things on both fronts along the way. The romance between Chris and Gray is equally mesmerizing, and the tension from the mystery as well as the chemistry between them is strong.
However, Harmon undoes some of her carefully crafted suspense framework and the taut emotional investment she creates in the reader by injecting moments of incongruous humor and domesticity into the plot. It lightens the mood, undercutting the thriller plot’s stress and anticipation. That works on the romance front, but it’s a strange disconnect with the mystery unfolding around Chris and Gray.
Overarchingly, it didn’t impact my enjoyment of this story because it balances the competing aspects of the romance with the mystery. Harmon’s crisp writing and excellent character development are the main drivers here. Everything depends on them, and Harmon develops deep, rich characters, especially in Chris. Chris and Gray are both fascinating, multi-layered characters that I couldn’t get enough of, and their dynamic resonates. The story arc keeps you invested, despite some facts and events that strain credulity and despite the mood shifting.
The audiobook, however, doesn’t do this story any favors. Kai Rubio, a new to me narrator, takes on the task of bringing a full, complicated story to life. Unfortunately, his performance is just a reading of the text. He accomplishes the fundamentals of distinction, enunciation, and even some emotional investment, but it feels shallow. I could tell the difference between the characters, but there wasn’t much texture in the voices. The pitch, timbre, and tones felt one note. The narration sounds bland when paired with a rich story with complex characters. The pacing is inconsistent with the action-filled plot as well. Rubio has a habit of elongating the pauses between sentences. It not only breaks the rhythm of the text, but I found myself getting frustrated with his inability to intuit the dynamics of the scenes. The humor in the text drops away as well.
So while I wholeheartedly recommend Chrysalis, I think you may enjoy it more on text alone. Note that this story ends on a cliffhanger, and the audio for book two, Cross, is not out yet, although the book is. You may want to try listening to this one and then reading Cross without audio and compare to see if the audio adds anything to the experience for you.
RATING: 
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