Fab listen for fans of m/m romantic suspense

Single Malt is the first book in Layla Reyne’s trilogy of romantic suspense novels featuring Agents Irish and Whiskey – Aidan Talley and Jameson Walker – two FBI agents whose unexpected  pairing in the field translates into a superlative working relationship … and into a more romantic partnership off the clock. Originally released in 2017, the author’s rights have reverted, and she has made some light revisions and republished new versions with new covers and, in the case of the audiobooks, a new narrator, Christian Leatherman.

Single Malt is a terrific series opener, and Ms. Reyne has constructed a fast-paced and intriguing thriller that completely captivated me, even when I occasionally got lost amid the techno-babble (as Aidan calls it, much to Jamie’s chagrin!) The plot is plausible and well laid-out, and she does a great job setting up the story arc that will run throughout the series as well as establishing her main characters and how they all relate to one another.  The chemistry between Aidan and Jamie is electric, and their slow-burn relationship is very well done, but they both have emotional baggage to deal with before they can really move forward together. The dénouement is high-stakes and exciting; but just as we’re starting to feel comfortable, there’s one more bombshell in store – one that threatens to tear Aidan and Jamie apart before they’ve even begun to be together.

I was pleased to see Christian Leatherman’s name listed as narrator for the re-recording. His narration is well paced, and expressive - I like his slightly husky voice and that he performs the narrative portions of the book using a different tone to the ones he uses for the character voices, so I was never confused as to whether I was listening to speech or dialogue. He does a much better job of differentiating between the two leads than the previous narrator, and of finding a variety of different tone and accent to voice the other male characters in the story – of which there are quite a few – especially Aidan’s brother, Danny, so they’re easy to tell apart in their scenes together. He performs the action scenes in a way that’s tense and exciting without going over the top, and he does a great job with the banter and UST that oozes between Aidan and Jamie. I really enjoyed his performance and even though I own the previous versions, I’ll definitely be picking up the new recordings of the other books in the series.

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