Author: Damon Suede
Narrator: Christopher Kipiniak
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Run Time: 12 hours and 46 minutes
Category: Mystery/Suspense
At a Glance: The narration here takes Suede’s words and makes them come to life. The story is fully acted, and you can really get a feel for the emotions and motivations of the characters with this excellent voice work.
Reviewed By: Mike
Blurb: PENT UP: Mix business with pleasure and take cover.
Ruben Oso moves to Manhattan to start his life over as a low-rent bodyguard and stumbles into a gig in a swanky Park Avenue penthouse. What begins as executive protection turns personal working for a debonair zillionaire who makes Ruben question everything about himself.
Watching over financial hotshot Andy Bauer puts Ruben in an impossible position. He knows zero about shady trading and his cocky boss lives barricaded in a glass tower with wall-to-wall secrets and hot-and-cold-running paranoia. Can the danger be real? Is Andy for real?
What’s a bullet catcher to do? Ruben knows his emotions are out of control even as he races to untangle a high-priced conspiracy and his crazy feelings before somebody gets dead. If his suspicions are right, Andy will pay a price neither can afford, and Ruben may discover there’s no way to guard a heart.
Review: Ruben Oso moves from Miami, following his divorce, to New York City, and starts working at his brother’s second-tier security service as a bodyguard. Hotshot fund manager, Andy Bauer, wants muscle to protect him from people he has bankrupted with his questionable, but still legal, maneuvers. The thing is, Ruben looks the part of a tough guy, but to better blend into Andy’s world, he needs his look, clothes, and attitude changed. From the very beginning of their association, Andy is very touchy feely with Ruben—and it is giving Ruben thoughts.
Ruben moves in to Andy’s penthouse to keep a better eye on his client after a few odd occurrences. Ruben’s feelings start to become undeniable, and it both scares and intrigues him. He is reluctant to move on his growing emotions even when Andy makes some pretty obvious overtures.
Things start to get dangerous for Ruben and his emotions. Andy meets up with his pursuers, and the whole situation explodes into a fast-paced collision of emotion, sex, and payback that becomes amazing fun for the listener. There is also the slow reveal into the mystery of who is after Andy, and that payoff is worth the wait as well. As usual, Damon Suede delivers a complete story, and the slow burn to its conclusion is worth the wait and the ride.
The narration here takes Suede’s words and makes them come to life. The story is fully acted, and you can really get a feel for the emotions and motivations of the characters with this excellent voice work. Kapiniak gives us the detail a book like this deserves. When Andy rises from a private pool high above Manhattan, dripping with water and sparkles of sun, you can feel Ruben’s visceral reaction to it. The action that follows is made all the more believable by the fine narration. I have not heard this particular narrator before, but I look forward to hearing more from him as he perfectly captures both emotion and action with equal gusto, and attention to detail that goes far beyond a simple reading.
Buy this book because it’s Damon Suede and you know it will be an amazing ride with fully developed characters, but buy the audio for the complete immersion into Ruben and Andy’s world. You will not be sorry.
You can buy Pent Up here:
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