Having listened to the previous book in this series, I went into this one prepared for angst. Thankfully, in the midst of angst, confusion, fear, and Seb’s continuing self-esteem issues, (which are mostly due to a couple reappearing villains who I’d be happy to see thrown off a cliff), there are also truly funny moments, sexy moments, and wonderfully sweet moments.

Jay seemed a bit more self-assured in this book than the previous, but he had his moments of understandable wallowing during separation & justifiable bitterness about people in football who are reluctant for him to be out.

As for Seb, oh man, Seb. Just as in the last book, I wanted to wrap him up in a hug & tell him how much more he’s worth than he’s been led to believe, that he’s not just a great musician, but a decent person worthy of love. Thank goodness that he’s got Jay & his bandmates to keep him from throwing himself into the abyss. Seb’s bandmates, along with Jay’s family & best friend. (who is also also his neighbor & ex-girlfriend in one), provide a good deal of comic relief and, as friends often do, keep the two leads from doing something stupid from time to time.

I will definitely be looking for more of C.F. White’s work, going beyond this series.

So far as the narration, Piers Ryman is fantastic with expressing emotion & his pacing is good. One unfortunate bit about this book for him is that he is not terribly skilled at voicing Americans/New Yorkers, and there are some in this story. His voice for one of the female Americans in particular made me shake my head. Thank goodness that they’re minor characters and not present at all times, Overall voice differentiation was decent and I appreciated that they were consistent with the previous book. During the first chunk of the book, Seb & Jay are on opposite chores & chapters begin with a quick line of where things are taking place. However, once they are in the same country, perspective periodically changes mid-chapter. Ryman did pause between these changes, but sometimes it still took me a moment of context to figure out whose head I was in. However, again, the emotion that came through the narration and the pacing were fantastic, in my opinion, and I wouldn’t hesitate in buying a book with him narrating; (well, maybe if all the characters are American women, I’d pause..)