Narrated by Alexander Cendese and Sean
Crisden

Note: There will be spoilers for the previous book in the Rules of Possession series in this review.

A Deeper Blue is the sequel to The Blueprint, an enjoyable friends-to-lovers, gay/bi-for-you story about hip young physics professor Kelly Cannon and his dearest friend, NFL star player Britton (Blue) Montgomery. Kelly had been in love with Blue for years, but believed Blue was straight and they were destined only to be friends… until Blue sensed his friend trying to distance himself from him and realised that whatever he felt for Kelly, it was something way beyond friendship.

Working their way through various trials,
tribulations and misunderstandings, Kelly and Blue are a couple by the end of The Blueprint, although the intensely
homophobic culture that prevails in professional sports, plus the media circus
certain to ensue whenever Blue comes out as bisexual and in a relationship with
a guy causes Kelly to suggest that Blue doesn’t do it right away. Blue was
already planning how to break the news – he’d have to tell his coach, his team,
his agent, his publicist so they can control the narrative – but Kelly freaked
a bit, hating the idea of stepping straight into the spotlight without their
actually having time to adjust to being a couple first.

Six months later, Kelly and Blue are almost-but-not-quite
living together at Kelly’s place when Blue isn’t away at games, practices or
other work-related events. They haven’t gone public about their relationship,
and in this, A Deeper Blue takes a
slightly different path to other romances in which one partner wants or needs
to stay closeted for some reason, because it’s Kelly who puts the brakes on
whenever Blue suggests they move in together for real, and Kelly who seems unwilling
to commit – because he worries that maybe Blue isn’t all in and will come to
realise he’s made a mistake, that being with him was just some sort of phase.
(Of course, he doesn’t say any of this to Blue). BUT… Kelly is also frustrated
because he can’t be with Blue openly; when he asks Blue if he can come to a
prestigious conference at which he’s been invited to speak and Blue can’t
because of a team commitment to a charity event, Kelly gets upset and reminds
him that other team members have been allowed to excuse themselves if family
members or spouses need them to be elsewhere – at which Blue calmly points out
that as far as the world knows, Kelly is neither of those things. I like Kelly
as a character, but I didn’t like the way he wanted to have it both ways. He was
obviously uncomfortable about Blue coming out but then got pissed off when Blue
couldn’t treat him like his boyfriend in public. And this contradicts the
synopsis which implies this issue is all down to Blue not wanting to come out
yet, when – and I checked the ending of The
Blueprint to make sure – that isn’t the whole story.

There’s not a lot of plot here other than a
snowballing sequence of miscommunication and misunderstandings. With Kelly
continually turning down Blue’s request to move in together, Blue then starts
wondering if Kelly is having second thoughts about them as a couple – which in
turn causes him to start wondering if it’s worth coming out, and the whole
vicious cycle of assumption and misconception is perpetrated. Blue and Kelly spend
quite a lot of time apart – never a good thing in a romance – and there’s an
underdeveloped subplot concerning Blue’s mother, who abandoned him when he was
a kid and is trying to reconnect with him. There are moments of tenderness and
affection between the protagonists, but although the fact that we get more time
in Blue’s head in this story and are able to see just how much he loves Kelly
does help, I really wasn’t feeling the chemistry between them that was so
apparent in the previous book.

On the plus side, there’s a lot of humour
in the novel and I continued to enjoy Kelly’s clever brand of snark, excellently
realised by Alexander Cendese who once again completely nails the character’s
energy and spark. His performance of the opening paragraphs, about the
contradiction of loving someone while simultaneously being infuriated when he never
cleans up after himself, always leaves the milk out and spends a fortune on
shoes, is perfectly judged and made me snort with laughter a couple of times. As
before, he does a good job with Blue’s dialogue as well, lowering the pitch of
his voice and slowing down his delivery a little, and differentiates
effectively between the other secondary characters, most often via pitch and
tone. I’ve also said before that his female voices can be a bit iffy, although
they do work for me on some level and in certain contexts. They can be a bit
caricature-ish – especially when he’s performing the clingy girlfriend, for
instance – but the comedic quality he can bring to characters like Kelly’s
mother does work; it’s an acquired taste and your reaction to this aspect of
his performances will depend on whether or not the rest of what he does works
for you or not. I’ve listened to him quite a few times now and he generally
works for me, but I’ve listened to him exclusively in m/m stories, so I can’t
say how well or otherwise he performs female characters in m/f romances.

Sean Crisden is a favourite narrator, and
his rich, smooth tones and more measured delivery contrast really well with Mr.
Cendese’s brasher tone and faster tempo. We get more of Blue’s PoV in this story
than in the last one, which is a bonus, and all the things I expect of such an
experienced and talented performer are delivered; the characters are well
differentiated (he changes it up to perform Kelly’s dialogue really well), he
generally hits the right emotional notes and his pacing is just about right.
But that said, there was something slightly off about his performance I can’t
quite put my finger on; all I can say is that there were a few times I felt he
was on auto-pilot.

If you enjoyed The Blueprint and want to find out what happens next for Kelly and
Blue, then you might consider picking up A
Deeper Blue, but I’m not sure it actually adds much to their story other
than a shedload of unnecessary and avoidable miscommunication. The narration is
enjoyable despite my criticisms, and Kelly, as portrayed by Alexander Cendese,
cracked me up a few times, which is never a bad thing.