*** First a disclaimer: I was given a copy of this audiobook in hopes of a fair and impartial review. ***
This tale was NOT the one that I was expecting. It’s so much more.
Yes, Kyrone is a dancer at the Heaven and Hell club, but this is primarily Jared’s story. Its the tale of a young man who suffered a traumatic brain injury, spent months in a coma, and has almost complete amnesia. His well-meaning Surrey family felt like strangers and Jared decided to relocate to Leeds, partly to get away from their heart breaking hopes that he’ll remember, and partly to follow the one concrete lead to his past that he’s found, a note that simply said J. Leeds. He’s now apprenticed at a tattoo parlor and meets the intriguing, if somewhat cocky dancer pole Kyrone.
Several of the Heaven and Hell guys, Michael and Jag and Mac from book 1, all make appearances and play an important part here, but this is primarily Jared’s tale. That of a lad recovering from a life changing Traumatic Brain injury. It’s also Kyrne’s tale and we spend plenty of quality time with the new couple as their lives become increasingly intertwined. From “naughty” sex in a public washroom, to naughty sex in one’s childhood bed, with plenty of hot (and apparently loud) encounters along the way, these guys manage to keep themselves sated.
Kyrone was a bit of a surprise to me in another way as well. Other than his flashy muscularity, and his fondness for tattoos we’re initially given very little physical description of Kyrone at all. While that’s a bit odd for M/M fiction in general, it’s even odder for a man who dances naked for other men. In this we’re left to make our own assumptions. Amidst all the references to Jared’s pale skin, I completely missed what was actually being implied when Kyrone is referred to as having dark eyes and dark skin. To use a Briticism, I was gobsmacked when we meet his mother and her broad Jamaican Patois accent finally clued me in to what was being said without being said. This is an inter-racial tale as well. It made me curious as to how much of this ambiguity was intentional or just true color-blindness on the part of the author. My guess is that she was just being a bit cagey as she does become more forthcoming (but only a little) after we meet his mother.
As to Jared, I’ve actually read a few other books in which TBI’s played a role (most recently Ryan Loveless’s Ethan Who Loved Carter) and the effects of a TBI are never all that predictable. Here Jared has the emotional maturity one would expect of someone in his 20’s but has an almost blank slate when it comes to memories. He also has lingering problems with reading, frequent headaches, and weakness leftover from his time in a coma. To see Jarred struggle to be his own independent man, while seeing Kyrone struggling to be more supportive is heartbreaking. Yet, these are some of the most endearing, albeit bittersweet, moments in the book.
At one point, we discover that Jared’s family have withheld select details of Jared’s past life from him. It’s almost as if they wish that his amnesia might include his preference for men. But, as evidenced by many cases in the real world, that is generally not the case.
Piers Ryman does another laudable job here as the book’s narrator. His regional accents add a richer flavor to the audiobook, that might well be missing in the printed version. He gives each of the dancers, as well as the members of Jared’s family, male and female, their own voices without resorting to the breathy whispers or shrill falsettos that some narrators resort to. Kyrone’s family’s voices, women and children included, also ring true.
On some levels, Forgotten is superior to Broken, its predecessor, in that the central conflict of the book is more justified/well explained, but both books are worthwhile reads. If you share my penchant for strays, waifs, underdogs, & broken-winged birds, then Forgotten should be on your “must read” list.