Narrated by Jeffrey Kafer

I’m listening to romantic suspense novels more and more often these days, and as I enjoyed Kaylea Cross’ Fractured Honor, the first in her recent Crimson Point series set in a small Oregon town and featuring four men who served together and are now making new lives for themselves outside the military. I confess I’d expected something more along the lines of Disavowed – a fairly fast-paced story with plenty of action and a high-stakes plot based mostly around one central couple – but Fractured Honor is more of a small town ensemble piece with just a dash of romance and a soupçon of suspense. So I had to adjust my expectations, and if you’re going into this thinking it’s straight-up romantic suspense you’ll probably need to do the same.

Beckett Hollister decides it’s time to end
his twenty years in the military following an operation in Syria which left a
really nasty taste in his mouth. Discovering his father has terminal cancer and
doesn’t have long to live also plays a part in his decision and he returns home
to the coastal town of Crimson Point, taking over for his father in his
specialised renovation business. His former sergeant and good friend Jace
Weaver now works with him as does a former colleague, Carter Boyd, who was
medically discharged a year ago following a brain injury which has started to
seriously affect his personality and seems to be getting worse and which starts
to adversely affect both his work and his marriage. Beckett is faced with
making some tough decisions as regards Carter – and this is just one of several
plotlines running throughout the novel, which is firmly centred around
Beckett’s return – and adjustment – to civilian life.

This is the first book in a series, so
there’s a fair bit of set up going on; we’re introduced to Carter’s wife Molly,
a nurse at the local hospital, who is best friends with Sierra Buchanan (the
town vet), sister of Noah, the local sheriff – who is also Beckett’s best
friend. I’m not a great reader/listener of small town romances, but I imagine
these sorts of interwoven relationships are par for the course.

While Beckett and his dad clearly have a
great relationship, the Buchanans have also played an important part in his
life and have been like a second family to him since the death of his mother
when he was a kid. Beckett has been in love with Sierra for years, but that
whole “besties little sister is off limits” thing won’t let him make a move,
and nor will the thought that if they start something and it goes wrong, he
stands to lose not only one best friend, but two as well as his extended
family.

The author introduces the characters who
will be the romantic couples in the rest of the series here as well, and the
best of the various plotlines is the one that deals with the impending death of
Beckett’s father, which is well-written and features some particularly poignant
moments. There’s a suspense plot running in the background, in which it seems
that someone is out to get Beckett, but honestly, it’s really thin and doesn’t
come to the fore until the last few chapters – and because the rest of the book
is so low key, what happens seems ridiculously over dramatic. The romance, too,
suffers because of the general “busy-ness” of the story; Beckett wants Sierra
but tells himself he can’t have her; Sierra has wanted Beckett for years but
doesn’t understand why he’s pulling away from their friendship – there’s lots
of mental lusting until at around the half way point they have a proper
conversation and decide to go for it after all. There’s little to no chemistry
between them, and given they’ve been in love with each other for years, there’s
no real romantic development either – they have sex and that’s it, they’re
Together 4 Evah.

I liked the way the characters stepped up
to support each other at difficult times, and once I realised that this wasn’t
a romantic suspense novel, I did enjoy the story, although I probably wouldn’t
have picked it up had I realised it was actually more of a small town romance
than anything else.

Jeffrey Kafer has narrated almost all of
the audiobooks available by this author, and while his deep, resonant voice is
a good fit for the romantic suspense genre, it didn’t work quite as well for me
here, probably because of the different nature of the story. That’s not to say
he gives a bad performance, because he doesn’t – his pacing is good (if a
little on the slow side) and he displays a good range of emotion and
expression, especially in the scenes between Beckett and his father. His
character differentiation tends to be on the subtle side; all the male
characters do sound different, but sometimes those differences can be hard to
detect straight away, and the same is true of the females, who are performed
using a softer timbre rather than any great hike in pitch. That said, there’s
no problem telling the leads apart, and that holds true for the major secondary
characters – Noah, Jace, Sierra, Molly and Beckett’s father – as well. Given
his naturally deep voice, Mr. Kafer does a good job with his portrayal of his
neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter; without resorting to falsetto or a silly
head-voice, he manages to convey her youth via only a small raise in pitch,
slightly faster delivery and altered speech pattern.

I’m on the fence about whether to recommend
Fractured Honor or not. Fans of the
author may love or hate it according to their expectations; if you’re a fan of
her previous romantic suspense novels, chances are you may be disappointed that
this one doesn’t follow the same pattern, or you might find the change of
direction interesting. If you’ve not read or listened to one of her novels
before and enjoy small town romances, then it might work for you even though
doesn’t have anything new to offer – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as we
all have tropes and formulae that we tend to gravitate towards. Ultimately, I
liked but didn’t love it; it wasn’t what I’d expected but the story did hold my
attention and the narration is more than decent. Make of it what you will.