Title: Manny Get Your Guy
Author: Amy Lane
Narrator: John Solo
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press/Dreamspun Desires
Run Time: 6 hours and 16 minutes
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: As an avid listener of audiobooks, it really is nice to find a voice in the genre that takes such care with what he is presenting, and makes it even better than just the written word. This is a performance more than simple narration.
Reviewed By: Mike
Blurb: Starting over and falling in love.
Tino Robbins’s sister, Nica, and her husband, Jacob, are expecting their fifth child. Fortunately, Nica’s best friend, Taylor Cochran, is back in town, released from PT and in need of a job.
After years in the service and recovering from grave injury, Taylor has grown a lot from the callow troublemaker he’d been in high school. Now he’s hoping for a fresh start with Nica and her family.
Jacob’s cousin Brandon lives above the garage and thinks “Taylor the manny” is a bad idea. Taylor might be great at protecting civilians from a zombie apocalypse, but is he any good with kids?
Turns out Taylor’s a natural. As he tries to fit in, using common sense and dry wit, Brandon realizes that Taylor doesn’t just love their family—he’s desperate to be part of it. And just like that, Brandon wants Taylor to be part of his future.
Review: Taylor Cochran is fresh out of a military rehab hospital, complete with war wounds, and blind in one eye. He returns to his hometown and visits his best friend from high school, Nica. Nica is now pregnant with her fifth child and needs more than random help to wrangle her brood while Jacob, her contractor husband, works long hours. Despite Taylor’s former reputation as a hellion, troublemaker, and liar, Nica and her brother, Tino, have a soft spot for Taylor.
Because Taylor’s VA benefits have not kicked in yet, he needs a job to get him through until they do, so Jacob forms a plan. Taylor would be perfect to be a nanny and kid wrangler to their less than pleasant children. At first Taylor is reluctant, the children are put off by Taylor’s looks and eye patch, but the worst of the let’s hate Taylor before we know him club is Jacob’s cousin Brandon.
This enemies-to-lovers book is nice, if a bit rushed in the bridge between enemies and lovers, but in the hands of John Solo, the narration becomes something more than just standard trope—the narration is as fast paced as the book. The frustration that Taylor displays over his limitations due to his injuries is palpable, and when the pairing of the main characters finally happens, John does his usual, well-above-average work here. Voices are clear, from the various male characters right down to the women and children who populate this book. Such attention to minor characters is rare and welcome in M/M narration.
I would also like to mention that none of the characters reads as cliché or tossed off to get to the “meatier” characters more quickly. As an avid listener of audiobooks, it really is nice to find a voice in the genre that takes such care with what he is presenting, and makes it even better than just the written word. This is a performance more than simple narration.
Buy the book for the exceptional narration. Look for other books narrated by John Solo, if you are unfamiliar with his work. Buy this book because the narration makes the story even better.
You can buy Manny Get Your Guy here:
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