Title: Starting Point
Series: Turning Point: Book Three
Author: N.R. Walker
Narrator: Sean Crisden
Publisher: Love Lane Books
Run Time: 8 hours and 23 minutes
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: This book is a great buy and a great example of quality voicework meshing so well with the author’s words. Buy the book, buy the whole series; it is more than worth the price.
Reviewed By: Mike
Blurb: After going past the point of no return and finally reaching breaking point, the only thing Matthew Elliott can do now is start over.
Matthew Elliott is a recovering man. As an ex-cop and ex-fighter, his new job teaching kids at the local community gym about drug awareness and self-defense, is a little bit of both. His new focus on helping street kids is helping him heal, and with Kira by his side, he’s making strides.
Brother and sister, Rueben and Claudia, are homeless kids and they’re very much alone. As they strike a chord with Matt, he does everything in his power to help them. But when Ruby and Claude need more help than he bargained for, it stops being about work, and starts being about home.
The day he met Kira, Matt’s life changed direction, and it’s only now he realizes that everything he’s been through was a lead up to this. It was never about endings. His life, his purpose, was just beginning.
Review: Months after the explosion of Matthew Elliott’s undercover work where he faked his retirement to infiltrate the world of underground no-rules cage fighting and its connection to the drug world, Matthew finds himself in charge of a city owned gym where the neighborhood kids can find a safe haven. Most of the fighters have stayed on to help operate the gym and help the kids in every way they can. Kira and Matt’s relationship now seems far more solid, and Kira’s mother is now planning their wedding. Much to the chagrin of Kira’s father, because his wife has turned their home into wedding planning central.
Life is a struggle, but it’s the best struggle Matt has ever experienced. Into the middle of it all wanders Rueben and Claudia, a pair of street kids the world has cast off as just so much more unwanted lives in the world. Both need Matthew’s help and while precocious, Claudia is willing to accept help—so long as it’s her idea. And Rueben may have fallen in with the wrong crowd. That wrong crowd will have dire consequences for them all.
In this final book of the series we see Matt and Kira rebuilding their lives in new and loving ways. Sean Crisden returns to complete this series’ narration, and his voice and talents are very welcome. His children are believable, and his female voices are impeccable and entirely without the cliché that can so often ruins other voice work. Matt’s old cop buddies are peppered throughout this book, and their voices reman the same crisp characters they were in book one.
When Claudia meets Kira’s mother, a bond if formed that will see them both through some heartbreaking circumstances. That bond is unbreakable and becomes a heartwarming touchstone in a world of chaos and rude shocks. Sean Crisden does not disappoint. When Ruby falls victim to the promise of an easy way to make money, Matt and his new friends try to help. His cop buddies do all they can to stop a dark outcome for Ruby, and their struggling new gym becomes a beacon for the entire neighborhood. Crisden’s voice adds all of the layers to this new world it needs to come to its satisfying conclusion.
This ending works out for all but one of the characters, and Crisden gives us all the best work here. This book is a great buy and a great example of quality voicework meshing so well with the author’s words. Buy the book, buy the whole series; it is more than worth the price. The ending is warm and complete. You’ll be glad you entered this world and that Sean Crisden is your guide to it all.
You can buy Starting Point here:
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