Title: Kairos
Author: Mary Calmes
Narrator: Michael Fell
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Run Time: 5 hours and 10 minutes
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: Kairos is more a straightforward romance filled with the Calmes staple of family drama, emotionally oblivious but charming MCs, a touch if danger, and a heartwarming HEA. With Michael Fell’s excellent performance to assist, the book is a fun, entertaining listen.
Reviewed By: Jovan
Blurb: Sometimes the best day of your life is the one you never saw coming.
Joe Cohen has devoted the past two years of his life to one thing: the care and feeding of Kade Bosa. His partner in their PI business, roommate, and best friend, Kade is everything to Joe, even if their relationship falls short of what Joe desires most. But he won’t push. Kade has suffered a rough road, and Joe’s pretty sure he’s the only thing holding Kade together.
Estranged from his own family, Joe knows the value of desperately holding on to someone dear, but he never expected his present and past to collide just as Kade’s is doing the same. Now, they’ve stumbled across evidence that could change their lives: the impact of Kade’s tragic past, their job partnership, and any future Joe might allow himself to wish for….
Review: Kairos is a friends-to-lovers novella that follows business partners and roommates, Joe Cohen and Kade Bosa, told from Joe’s POV. After being forced out of the police force in disgrace, and being shunned by all his family, except for his sister, Kade finds a lifeline and new purpose when he is offered a partnership in Joe’s PI business. In the intervening years, Joe has fallen in love with Kade, but in true friends-to-lovers fashion, misses all the cues that his bisexual BFF has feelings for him as well. Which, considering how aggressively OTT and almost annoyingly possessive and demanding Kade is when it comes to Joe’s ex, is a miss of epic proportions. When tasked to check on an informant by his mentor, and the one remaining cop that still keeps in touch with Kade, Kade and Joe find their simple check in turned into a scene of murder, mayhem and conspiracy.
Though billed as a romantic suspense, in true Calmes fashion, about halfway in the book takes a pivot away from being a romantic suspense, with Joe and Kade trying to protect a witness to a story about family, finding your place in the world, and second chances. As a novella, there is a lot of backstory and character personality to establish in a limited number of pages in order to tell a full, engaging story, and Calmes does a good job portraying two flawed friends, compelling secondary characters that add color and richness to the narrative, and her trademark blend of banter, fun, and hearts-and-flowers declarations that manage not to sound too trite or out of place.
This is definitely helped by Michael Fell’s wonderful performance. He’s a narrator that manages to create individual voices and convey emotion as well as adding those little touches included in the dialogue that separates simply reading a book to performing one. If you’ve read much of Calmes’s work, the characters will definitely feel familiar, and the storyline is not as involved as one would expect with a romantic suspense. Kairos is more a straightforward romance filled with the Calmes staple of family drama, an emotionally oblivious but charming MC in Joe, a rough around the edges, growly MC in Kade, a touch if danger, and the heartwarming HEA. With Michael Fell’s excellent performance to assist, the book is a fun, entertaining listen.
You can buy Kairos here:
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