Narrated by Johanna Parker

I’ve had the print version of Worth the Fall on my TBR since it was first released after I saw a tweet from Shannon Stacey recommending it. Alas, I have been defeated by the TBR of Doom so when I saw the audiobook come up for review, I requested it.

Abbie Davis is a pregnant, widowed mother of four (that is, four in addition to the bun in the oven). Her parents died when she was very young and she grew up in a series of foster homes. Her husband wasn’t much of a husband; he was too devoted to his job and making money. He was also a serial cheater. At least he left Abbie (apparently) looked after financially but as far as anything else, well, Abbie has basically always been on her own. Her children, Annie, Jack, Gracie and Charlie, are good kids who have really never known the love of a father.

Abbie, six months pregnant, takes the children on a seaside holiday for a week while she still can. There, she meets Navy SEAL, Matt McKinney. Matt is one of seven children himself and his family is very loving and close. At 34, he’s looking around and seeing most of his family settled down with a partner and children and he’s feeling a bit lonely. He accompanied his cousin, Rob, on holiday to act as Rob’s wingman but once he meets Abbie and the children, he’s deeply smitten. So much so, that when Rob goes home, Matt stays.

Matt is wonderful with the children and they adore him. He is familiar with kids and not fazed by taking care of them, having had plenty of practice in his own family. He finds Abbie unbelievably sexy and, by the end of the week, Matt is thinking of ways to make an ongoing relationship work because he doesn’t want to lose the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Abbie is very independent and tends to close herself off emotionally. Her life experience is that everyone leaves and she doesn’t like to open herself up to hurt. Matt lives on the other side of the country to Abbie and is away a lot in his role as a SEAL. He is also carrying a lot of guilt because his best friend and fellow SEAL, Tommy, died. Matt made a deathbed promise to Tommy that he wouldn’t quit – something he had been intending to do. Matt is now determined to keep his promise and stay with the SEAL team but he doesn’t see how he can do that AND be with Abbie and the children.

I mostly enjoyed the narration. Ms. Parker gave each of the children fairly distinct voices and I was dying of the cute most of the time they were speaking. Gracie, in particular, was adorable. Matt’s voice was a bit on the husky side rather than particularly deep but easily distinguishable. I didn’t have trouble identifying any of the cast. The emotion of the story and the sizzle of Abbie’s and Matt’s chemistry was definitely audible too.

My one complaint (if that’s the right word) is that Ms. Parker tends to add a certain… breathiness to the end of sentences, which was a tic I found a bit annoying. However, either it got better or the story won me over anyway because I was noticing it a lot less by the end of the book.

Worth the Fall was a sweet sexy romance and it worked well on audio. It sounds like a lot, to take on a woman and her five children, but Matt never batted an eyelash about it and the way it was presented in the book, it felt as natural as breathing. I thought the premise might be a bit difficult to pull off successfully and I found the ending a little drawn out but I was pretty much charmed by this one.

Kaetrin

Narration: B

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: Minimal

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Worth the Fall was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for review.