Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Denver’s Calling
SERIES: Cooper’s Ridge
AUTHOR: J.J. Harper
NARRATOR: Liam DiCosimo
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 9 hours and 10 minutes
RELEASE DATE: August 12, 2022
BLURB:
When Denver’s long-term partner breaks up with him, he flees his life, his career, and his bright future as one of the country’s leading trauma surgeons. Ditching everything but his dog, Denver returns to the quiet town of Cooper’s Ridge and his parents’ ranch.
Leaving 12 years earlier, Denver knew he would never be accepted as a gay man in an unaccepting town. So, when he meets Kes—an old school friend—in the bar he owns, he is shocked to find him in an openly gay relationship. Something he never thought would happen here.
What surprises him even more is the instant mutual attraction the three men have. Accepting a job in Kes’ bar, they dance around each other, wanting them but not believing he would ever fit in with a couple so obviously in love. But they want him. And they are not prepared to let him go.
Denver takes a risk and accepts their offer of a night out, finding a side of himself he never knew existed. Not trusting himself to be enough for the two men, the desire blooming in him is unprecedented and he can’t deny it: He wants them as much.
He finds his life falling into place, all because of two men. Is it possible he found his forever in a place he never expected it?
REVIEW:
Dr. Denver Sinclair has come home to discover his long term partner is moving out and engaged to someone else! WTH??? He knows that his job is demanding and that he is gone a lot, but his partner is a doctor too and should understand why. He’s devastated and returns home to his family’s place. He stays in his own cabin and needs the time to recover and regroup. He’s been humiliated in his workplace and cannot take being the subject of such perusal and gossip.
When he returns home to his loving family with his dog he’s on the road to recovery. After getting dragged out to a bar by his brother, he sees some old high school acquaintances, Kes and East. Who are obviously together. And out. He’s stunned. He’s even more stunned when they start making overtures to him. He does NOT want to be anybody’s plaything though. He’s attracted to both of them but he’s not sure what’s going on. They are an established couple. In fact East has a young daughter. Kes has the bar to run and East has his own contracting business and he’s crazy busy. Denver starts out helping out bartending at the bar while he’s figuring out his next move.
They move pretty fast and convince Denver to be with them. He’s not sure what they want from him since they seem pretty happy. But this goes from insta-lust to insta-love fairly quickly. The sex is hot and they seem to all fit together pretty well – although Denver still has a lot of issues from the breakup. In fact, it’s one step forward, two steps back frequently in this story. And nobody apparently has learned how to communicate as they keep having overheard conversations and miscommunications way too often.
Then Denver goes back to work – which seems like a good thing. But then there is workplace drama. And a patient that is the victim of severe abuse. And then there is some trauma and conflict for East’s daughter. Denver seems to just not believe that this is for real over and over. The other guys do what they can to keep trying to convince them that they are for real.
Where to start with this. Soooo many things. Toooo many things. The Coco Chanel rule really really applied to this one. This is my first book by this author and I’m not sure if I will continue this series. The story started off pretty well with the whole breakup of Denver’s long term relationship. It was heartbreaking but believable and it made sense that Denver would move on to regroup – although surgeons tend to be of a certain personality type and long breaks are unusual. I understood his attraction to Kes, a guy he knew from high school and East, another guy he knew and he was shocked at their open relationship. Also nitpicky personally for me, but in the US, it would take between 13-14 years of education/training just to be a board certified trauma surgeon. Newly minted trauma surgeons are not made department heads. Also, trauma surgeons normally would not operate on pediatric patients as that is a separate specialty and that is why children are treated at Children’s hospitals. It’s a much smaller pool of surgeons who are trained to treat pediatric patients.
The fact that these were three adults who acted a bit like teenagers bothered me quite a lot. The story is told in alternative first person POV. So there is a LOT of scene repetition from multiple POVs. There is waaaaay too much drama with the new job of Denver’s at the new trauma center. I did not find the whole scenario with East’s daughter believable except for the catfishing part. I did like the epilogue and the revisiting of Denver’s ex. Also, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there was just too much sex. And too much dialogue during the sex. I just found myself wishing it were over as the book went on. Clearly this was not the book for me, which is too bad because I love a well done MMM book and have several favorite series that are very well done. This just didn’t work for me. As usual, YMMV.
This really is a 2.5 star book, but the extra half star is for Liam DiCosimo who did his best with this material. It definitely had to be a real challenge for him. Multiple scenes are told several times from different POVs, so there is a lot of repetition for the narrator, but he did a good job trying to keep the momentum going. I found myself wanting to skip the sex scenes are the first few. The dialogue was too much for me even though I though the narrator gave the scenes plenty of energy and passion. I was just really tired of it after a while. Not my favorite audiobook and I really cannot recommend it despite the yeoman efforts of one of my favorite narrators.
RATING: 
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