Narrated by Cooper North

The first book in Annabeth Albert’s Alaska-set Frozen Hearts series, Arctic Sun features a reclusive pilot who reluctantly agrees to lead a 10-day photography/wildlife tour. (His uncle, the regular tour guide, is injured and needs surgery.) Griffin Barrett is a hot mountain man, a former Air Force pilot and current contributor to his family’s tourism/air cargo business. He very much prefers his own company and keeps to the behind-the-scenes aspects of the business whenever he can, but this time he needs to step outside his comfort zone; there’s no-one else and the customers are relying on the business to provide the service they paid for.

River Vale is a
former-supermodel-turned-traveller/writer, working on his second book. I gather
his work has been in the vein of “Eat
Pray Love” – a mix of inspiration biography, travelogue and self-help.

River is thin, with a narrow build and blue
hair – and of course, model-gorgeous. Griffin is initially a bit dubious that
River will be able to handle the physical commitment and deprivations of the
tour but River is far more than just a pretty face.

For his part, River is instantly taken with
his taciturn tour guide. River is very much a people person and can charm the
stars from the sky when he wants to, but it takes a little for Griffin to begin
to warm up to him. Over the course of their tour however, the two begin what
each think will be a fling. But at tour’s end, they’re not ready to say goodbye
and begin to consider how they could continue their relationship.

River has an impending movie premiere (his
first book is shortly to be a major motion picture) and has some publicity
commitments for the film, in addition to a looming deadline to finish his
second book. He has a little more travel to do to finish the book. All of this
will take him away from Alaska and Griffin but they make plans to catch up when
they can.

The glitz of a movie premiere and River’s
modelling friends is intimidating as all heck for Griffin, who really prefers
solitude and quiet. Griffin likes to stay put. River likes to flit and not
settle in one place. How could they possibly make things work?

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting
when I launched into the book. I guess I thought it would be a romance which
was mostly confined to the tour? In any event, I remember thinking that I
really wished the pair would talk to one another a little about important
things; the attraction and sexual chemistry was great but I wanted a little
more depth. And voilà, just about immediately I was making my wish, that very
thing was delivered right into my ears. That kind of thing happened a couple
times during the listen actually. I’d think “I’d really like them to do more
talking” or “I hope this doesn’t turn out to be one of those books where
everything is fixed by the power of true lurrve” and I’d get exactly what I
wanted. Which was fabulous.

Both Griffin and River have emotional scars
(in Griffin’s case, physical ones too) and aren’t really in good working order
as far as relationships are concerned. Griffin is a recovering alcoholic and
River is managing an eating disorder. I’m not an expert in either but for what
it’s worth both issues seemed to be handled sensitively and sympathetically. Nevertheless,
this could be triggering for some listeners, so discretion is advised.

The tour is really only the first 1/3-1/2
of the book – there is a lot more story which takes place afterwards. I was
very grateful for this because it meant the novel was more than surface level.
Griffin and River have to navigate some complex issues and differences and find
a way to be together and they have to do a bit of work on themselves as
individuals too to make it to their HEA. Because of all that though, I did
believe in their HEA and I was very confident about their future.

Arctic
Sun was not perfect. A couple of times near the end
the story seemed to veer a little too much into navel-gazing territory and
there were some things I had questions about which were never really answered.
For instance, Griffin has scars from his “accident” which I gather led to his
discharge from the Air Force and he has a “bum foot” but there wasn’t any
detail about what happened. On one level I didn’t mind it because it gave the
sense of life before and separate to the book but on the other, I tend to be
curious about these kinds of things and one of my pet peeves is not getting the
whole story.

I’ve listened to Cooper North narrate
before and enjoyed it but that was a trilogy of M/F erotic novels, in a dual
narration/POV format. Here, Mr. North narrates alone. I was impressed. I
thought it would be good but his performance was even better than I expected.

The character voices for all of the cast
were well varied, with River and Griffin being particularly different. There
were a couple of times when I wasn’t sure who was talking (that seemed to be
because of a small error rather than similarities between the character voices)
but for the most part, I knew who was who. More than that, River and Griffin
had distinct personalities as well. Some of that was the writing of course but
some was definitely Mr. North’s performance.

Apart from one or two small errors where
there was confusion with which character was talking, the listen was smooth and
very well done. Mr. North injected just the right amount of emotion and tension
to the story.

I do hope Mr. North narrates more M/M romance
because he did a great job in Arctic Sun.
I’d like to hear more from him.