Narrated by Aletha George

The blurb:

Ben Hudson had a thing for shy, sexy Reese Monroe from the moment he first saw her three years ago. Back then, she was married and living in Boston—two very good reasons for the Miami detective with a bad-boy reputation to stay away. But that was then . . .

Now Reese is divorced and moving to Florida, where her mother has rented her a small beach house—one that happens to be owned by Ben. Living right next door, he can’t get Reese’s soft curves out of his mind. He has waited three long years to touch her in all the ways he’s been dreaming about, and this time he won’t let anything get in his way.

For Reese, Ben’s sudden advances are thrilling but leave her stunned. With her limited experience in the bedroom, she never expected a man with such a wicked reputation to go after her. She knows she should be on guard, but he’s a temptation she can’t resist. And when trouble follows her down from Boston, threatening her life, Ben may be the only one who can help her.

Sounds good right? That’s why I requested Take Me Under for review. It sounded SO much better than it actually was. I don’t think Reese fell in love with Ben so much as she was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. Ben delivers gems such as “You can bitch and moan all you like Reese but I’m staying the night. I don’t give a shit if you want me here or not. I’m staying.” He’s a real peach.

As you may have guessed, I didn’t like Ben. At all. Reese was very much a Mary Sue with a side of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Romance clichés abound. Ben has a giant penis (in addition to being a giant penis IMO). Reese is beautiful but unaware of it – she has a tiny tight vagina and their sex is the best ever which equals true love. I can tolerate most of these clichés when I like the characters but here I did not. Most of the time I wanted to stab Ben with a fork.

The suspense plot went a bit into crazysauce territory toward the end. It works if you don’t think about it much.

I usually have a fairly high alpha tolerance but Ben stepped waaaayyyy over the line early on and just kept right on going.

The narrator had a hard row to hoe to keep my interest. It was my first experience with Aletha George (as well as with this author) and I’m inclined to give the narrator another try. I’m much less sure about the author.

Ms. George didn’t have a very deep male voice but Ben was distinguishable by a kind-of huskier tone and a Texas-sounding accent. He didn’t sound all that different from his brothers, Mike and Alex (who I gather will get their own books in due course), but they didn’t play a big part in the story.

The production values were good and I only spotted the occasional vocal error. Perhaps another narrator could have made Ben sound more sympathetic to me but it really doesn’t seem likely – it was his words more than anything that put me offside. Reese was mostly annoying because she wasn’t stabbing Ben with a fork like I wanted her to do but her characterization was consistent with the text.

It’s very difficult to enjoy a narration when the story isn’t working. The pacing and the tone was fine so I’ve bumped the narration grade on that basis but the book just wasn’t for me.

Kaetrin