Recent Release Audio Book Review: Leave by L.A. Witt (Author) & Greg Boudreaux and Michael Ferraiuolo (Narrators)

Reviewed by Sadonna

 

TITLE:  Leave

AUTHOR:   L.A. Witt

NARRATORS:  Michael Ferraiuolo & Greg Boudreaux

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  11 hours and 50 minutes

RELEASE DATE:  September 23, 2025

BLURB:

Call it a situationship, call it roommates with benefits—whatever it is, Riley Sweet is mostly fine with the arrangement.

After all, he’s got an awesome off-base apartment on Okinawa, and he’s got someone to hook up with on the regular with no pressure and no strings.

The problem is that he’s starting to catch feelings for the hot, aloof Marine who’s apparently interested in very specific types of fun, but nothing else. He won’t even sleep in the same bed as Riley.

Nolan Tyler is carrying a dark secret that’s kept him closed off from everyone for years. Out of shame, fear, and self-preservation, he keeps everyone at arm’s length, including Riley.

When Nolan is asked to be his brother’s best man, there’s no bowing out. Not even when going home means facing everything he enlisted to escape.

Though Riley doesn’t know exactly why Nolan balks at going home, he offers to come with him as backup. In exchange, Nolan will come with him as his “boyfriend” in a last-ditch effort to get Riley’s parents to accept, once and for all, that their son is gay.

Nolan takes him up on it, but he’s terrified that the truth about his past will come out… and the man he’s falling for will leave.

Content Advisory: past sexual assault, on-page harassment and verbal abuse, discussions of self-harm

REVIEW:

Whew boy.  This is NOT an easy read.  Please review the content advisory.

Nolan and Riley are roommates on Okinawa.  Riley is a Navy MP, and Nolan is in the Marines.  They have a no strings roommates with benefits arrangement.  Its just bjs and hand jobs, but it works for them.  Then Nolan gets an invitation to his brother’s wedding where he’s to be the best man in Seattle.  UGH!  The bottom drops out of Nolan’s world.  He has avoided going home for the decade plus he’s been in the Marines.  Riley volunteers to go with him, but he’s hoping that Nolan can help him out too.

Riley also avoids going home to CA to see his family but for totally different reasons.  His parents aren’t opening homophobic but they keep mentioning girls and settling down and kids, etc.  He decides he’s going to push the issue by bringing home a “boyfriend” who is of course Nolan.  Nolan agrees and so they are planning this leave trip to visit both families.

Riley really likes Nolan.  He has questions about Nolan’s past and boundaries because he has a LOT of rules around their arrangement.  And when Riley asks questions, Nolan immediately shuts down.  But since they will be going back to the location of whatever has happened to Nolan, he has to tell Riley something.  He speaks only in generalities that there is someone there that he wants to avoid and Riley figures out that Nolan has most likely been the victim of sexual assault.  He keeps his word though and doesn’t press for details.

The first part of their trip doesn’t go great.  Riley’s tired of waiting half his life for acceptance by his parents.  He and Nolan leave early from SoCal and decide to drive to Seattle.  The trip gives them the opportunity to spend more time together and their sexual relationship ramps up.  They do way more than they’ve been doing in Okinawa.  Riley is thrilled, because his feelings for Nolan are definitely getting stronger.

When it’s clear that someone in Nolan’s family dynamic is related to this previous SA, Riley is trying to suss out exactly what has happened.  There are  couple of tense moments and at first Riley makes an incorrect assumption.  But then the truth becomes clear.  And it’s not what Riley was expecting at all.  And the truth is SOOOOO much worse than he even imagined.  When Nolan lays out the whole terrible story, Riley is furious.  But for the most part, Riley’s real focus is to stick tight to Nolan and try to shelter him from his rapist.  Also he now completely understands Nolan’s boundaries and he is willing to do what it takes to help Nolan work past his issues 🙂

This is a long story and both men have a lot of baggage to work through.  The SA story line is not the usual.  It’s pretty terrible.  SA is such an underreported crime and this story just adds more evidence as to why.  I loved Riley standing up for himself.  Although hard, I think it also prepared and strengthened his resolve to stand up for Nolan as well.  There were a few surprises in this story that I didn’t see coming and as usual, this story is incredibly well researched.  There is a LOT of sex in this book – and the content is critical and relevant to the issues this guys are dealing with.  Both men really change and grown through this Leave.  Highly recommended.

Again, we have to absolute pros narrating this book.  Both Greg Broudreaux and Michael Ferraiuolo are veterans who know they craft.  These character really jump to life in the capable hands of these two extremely experiences voice actors.  These are perfect examples of WHY narration needs to be done by living, breathing humans and not AI.  The pain, the joy and fear – they are all so authentic in these performances.  Bravo gentlemen!

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

Audible