Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Until I Saw You
AUTHOR: Dianna Roman
NARRATOR: Greg Boudreaux and Iggy Toma
PUBLISHER: Wild One Press LLC
LENGTH: 9 hours and 18 minutes
RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2023
BLURB:
An MM romance story of survival, healing, and finding the courage to love.
Harper Reid has no money and nowhere to go, but he can’t spend one more day under the same roof as his abusive boyfriend. Desperate to start fresh, he takes on a special case through the caregiver agency that contracts him. The client has fired everyone else, but this job includes lodging, so Harper will find a way to make it work until he’s back on his feet.
High-flying, eccentric Riley Davenport has lost his sight, effectively clipping the vivacious man’s wings. Learning to navigate in darkness is difficult enough without being treated like a house plant by his girlfriend, parents, and friends. The last thing he needs is another pushy caregiver, hovering over him curtailing the last of his freedom.
But Harper Reid is different…very different. Nervous, quiet, reserved. It’s almost like Harper has secrets and is the one who needs to be taught how to live again. And why does he smell like sugar cookies? Men aren’t supposed to smell delicious.
Trigger warnings: off-screen domestic abuse, adult language, explicit consensual sexual content.
REVIEW:
You haven’t seen what Dianna Roman can do until you’ve read Until I Saw You. This is her best work to date. It will hold your heart hostage from the first page as you white-knuckle your way through Harper Reid’s painful, emotional journey of healing and love. This unputdownable story features the indefatigable spirit of Riley Davenport – a man who has lived life to the fullest, never shying away from a challenge or adventure. Even a devastating accident that has rendered him virtually blind can’t break his spirit. He is a resilient role model for Harper.
Harper and Riley are broken, alone and unexpectedly find they need each other and can rely on each other with trust in a safe space where they can just be themselves. It’s a breathtaking dynamic that I couldn’t look away from.
Roman gets everything right here, balancing horror (off-page and not too much) and humor in an impactful way that respects the sensitive, serious topics the book depicts – heed the trigger warnings – without making the story too heavy. You’ll be hanging on every word and every precious moment between these two mesmerizing men.
If you are listening, spellbound, to this captivating story, it’s because of the inimitable Greg Boudreaux and unmistakable Iggy Toma narrating Harper and Riley, respectively, on the audiobook.
Toma is the perfect Riley. His smoky, gravelly tone with a sardonic edge delivered with unflinching honesty matches Riley’s personality to a tee. Toma captures Riley’s energy and wry humor, his zany antics, and his eccentric, unpredictable behavior. Roman’s humorous lines become laugh-out-loud funny. Conversely, painful realizations become heart-wrenching. He conveys Riley’s acute pain and sadness over Harper, and his heartbreak but refusal to give up, delivering all of this in an impactful way that resonates.
Greg Boudreaux is his usual superlative self, giving a barnstormer of a performance of Harper. Boudreaux’s narration is the apotheosis of what a vocal performance should not only sound like, but feel like. He effortlessly imparts the intent and subtext of Roman’s skilled written words with an exquisite attention to detail that excavates all of the nuances of the text. For example, when Roman describes Harper breathlessly speaking in a way that comes out “choppy”, that’s exactly how Boudreaux delivers the lines. He’s the king of “talking with your mouth full” narration, and the way he voices texts is spot on – he says it like he’s typing the words into the phone as he’s speaking. I could go on ad nauseum about all the very special things that Boudreaux does that make his vocal performances stand out. His overarching performance here is authentic, real, and completely immersive as he transforms Harper and Riley’s love story of hope, healing, and happily ever after into a play taking place around us.
Until I Saw You is told in dual narration, so Boudreaux also demonstrates his finesse at delivering vocal portrayals of two very different characters concurrently. Boudreaux’s Riley rivals Toma’s, even though it’s Boudreaux’s secondary character in this story. His performance is as nuanced as that of his main character, Harper, and he consistently captures all of the elements of Riley’s personality that are so unique.
Toma doesn’t fare quite as well with his narration of Harper, his secondary character. In his effort to capture Harper’s brokenness, he comes across as flat, almost exhausted. At times when Harper has a more positive attitude or is somewhat playful in his interactions with Riley, Toma’s Harper sounds sultry and seductive. Boudreaux gives a sublime interpretation and delivery of Harper, so juxtaposing it with Toma’s low-energy, deep-toned Harper just accentuates the difference. Harper sounds like two different characters with different tones and attitudes. If only the narration had been in duet format with Toma as Riley throughout and Boudreaux as Harper throughout … *wistful sigh*
Despite my criticism of Toma’s Harper voice, I still resoundingly give this audiobook a five-heart rating because Boudreaux’s magnificent performance across the board + Toma’s Riley perfection + Roman’s engrossing, expertly executed story = a must-have audiobook. Until I Saw You presents the dilemma of wanting to speed up the audio playback because you can’t wait to find out what happens, but not wanting to rush because you don’t want the story to end. I wish there were more pages to turn, more hours of listening … I simply didn’t want to leave Riley, Harper, and Larry, the ugly dog with a thousand names. Until I Saw You will undoubtedly be on my best of 2023 list.
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