And even though Hawk's secretary was only in the latter part of the book, she was my favorite character besides the H and H. One of the best books I have listened to period. And girl!!! I either wanted to become one of her characters or to make them all a reality. I have never seen an author pull off dingy without being annoying, but Kristen Ashley did. A little dingy but in the best possible way, with a little 'Sex In the City' thrown in. Bad guys blowing up stuff, and a hero worthy of role in 'An Officer and a Gentleman.' Gwen was the bomb. Was sadly disappointed, but it doesn’t make it a bad listen overall, just need to persevere to the end. And narrators need to portray the essence of the book. Although I do enjoy Kristen Ashley stories, and good chemistry between characters., personally, I would really like more to the story line like she started, not just about sex all the time. I couldn’t fully connect with either character.

And the narration for the male does not properly portray a man who is strong and looking out for his woman, like Liam in Rock Chick did. The narrator for this novel is to “breathy” for this story, which makes the female character sound weak rather than a strong woman dealing with what is going on around her. But sadly, the stories are more about sex than the story line, so I was a little disappointed. I loved Kristen Ashley’s Rock Chick series (Rock Chick especially), which encouraged me to download more of her books and follow the rest rest of her novels. Don’t even start me on what she thinks marriage is (hint, it’s all about the material benefits of a wedding - and people thinking the bride is pretty). The heroine is no peach either, breathtakingly shallow, she tells us while others yearn for family, or charitable achievements, she wants SHOES. This seriously messed up dynamic is not something she addresses once they start having a more ‘normal’ relationship. She remarks she hasn’t seen him in DAYLIGHT near the beginning of the book. The novel starts after he’s been ‘seeing’ the heroine for over a YEAR which involves breaking into her house and sleeping with her.

I have to take these novels with a large pinch of salt and a slight lobotomy as an intelligent woman to enjoy them, but with this one just NO. KA has a lot of toxic alpha types as heroes who ignore issues of consent, stalk, spy on, break into the houses of, trap and otherwise mistreat their “love” interests, but Hawk takes the cake. Nonetheless I tried again as Hawk features in other KA books and I wanted to know more about him. I’ve started and failed with this book several times as the narration is dire - voices, intonation, interpretation all bad.

Mystery man by kristen ashley