Title: You Never Know
Author: Mary Calmes
Narrator: Greg Tremblay
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Run Time: 6 hours and 27 minutes
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: Buy the book for the expert narration, but be prepared to overlook a few story flaws so you can just immerse yourself in the ride and enjoy it.
Reviewed By: Mike
Blurb: Hagen Wylie has it all figured out. He’s going to live in his hometown, be everybody’s friend, explore new relationships, and rebuild his life after the horrors of war. No muss, no fuss is the plan. He’s well on his way—until he finds out his first love has come home too. Hagen says it’s no big deal, but a chance encounter with Mitch Thayer’s two cute sons puts him directly in the path of the only guy he’s never gotten out of his head.
Mitch returned for three reasons: to raise his sons where he grew up, to move his furniture business and encourage it to thrive, and to win Hagen back. Years away made it perfectly clear the young man he loved in high school is the only one for him. The problem? He left town and they have not talked since.
If Hagen’s going to trust him again, Mitch needs to show him how he’s grown up and isn’t going to let go. They could have a new chance at love… but Hagen is insistent he’s not reviving a relationship with Mitch. Then again, you never know.
Review: Hagen Wylie had a simple plan. Return to his home town, make a life doing remodels and building, and find a man to share his life and home with. In time, he meets Ash, a closeted TV actor who acts as if Hagen could be something special. Except, Ash can’t commit because career and closet conspire to keep Ash from the small town Hagen lives in. Hagen has a hard time trusting men, because he suffers from a form of PTSD that keeps him from the part of lovemaking that he used to enjoy the most—a feeling of mistrust only amplified when he recalls being dumped by the love of is life, former football star Mitch Thayer. Mitch used to be a closet case too, someone who could not find a way to be both Hagen’s love and a football god.
So, when Hagen unknowingly saves one of Mitch’s sons from drowning, the two reconnect. Feelings flare, the tension is immense, but the kids win Hagen’s heart in a day. Their father, however, is not such an easy sell to someone who was dumped in one of the cruelest ways possible—with indifference. It isn’t surprising Hagen resists his heart, his head, and the voices of everyone around him who seem to have forgiven Mitch for being so cruel and dismissive in the past. Especially when Ash turns out to be an inveterate liar who sees Hagen as a crutch to assist his career.
This story is saved by the voice talents of Greg Tremblay. He finds a way to humanize Mitch Thayer in a way that would not ordinarily be possible with someone not as adept at finding the emotion and decency in someone who had, in the past, been so callous and who found a woman to make his former life seem believable to the outside world.
Tremblay also gives us a way to understand that despite his misgivings, Hagen finds a way to heal his damage from both PTSD and being left behind by the one person he thought would never hurt or desert him. The story may have its flaws, but Greg Tremblay once again delivers a multi-layered performance that allows us to see past the flaws to the emotion that resides beneath the words.
Buy the book for the expert narration, but be prepared to overlook a few story flaws so you can just immerse yourself in the ride and enjoy it.
You can buy You Never Know here:
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