Story Rating: 4.5 stars
Audio Rating: 4 stars

Narrator: Craig Beck
Length: 7 hours, 4 minutes

Audiobook Buy Links: Audible | iBooks
Book Buy Links: Amazon | iBooks

Jodi is a successful web designer and his work is in demand. He can spend hours upon hours devoted to projects so maybe it’s good he doesn’t have a significant other in his life right now, or so he tells himself. Jodi does have occasional hookups, and his best friend, who used to be his girlfriend, rounds things out.

Until Jodi sets eyes on Rupert. Rupert is a firefighter that spends his free nights working the door at a bar. He’s newly divorced and has never been with a man and he’s hesitant on how to proceed with Jodi. Jodi is enamored with Rupert and has no intention of scaring him off. Quite the opposite really, as he is patient with Rupert and shows him how good things can be with a man. The men fall hard and fast and for four years life is better than they ever imagined.

Until Jodi is injured and wakes with no memory of his years with Rupert, or even the memories that he was into men at all. Rupert will still do anything for Jodi for he is the only man he will ever love and what remains may have to just be enough, unless Jodi can fall in love with him all over again.

Garrett Leigh often has me taking a look when I come across a book of hers that I have not read yet. This book carries her signature style with two intriguing characters and witty dialogue. We first meet Jodi and Rupert after they have been living together for a number of years. They are devoted to each other and even as the years pass, their need for each other has not dimmed.

The book starts out present day, but then seamlessly weaves the tale of Jodi and Rupert’s early years and how they fell in love. Jodi is shown as kind and loving as he falls hard for Rupert and then is patient for Rupert to take the intimate moments in their relationship in his own time. The book then deals with Traumatic Brain Injury, the recovery, and then what comes next for when Jodi awakens from a coma after many months, he not only doesn’t remember Rupert, but doesn’t remember that he his bisexual. Garrett puts two strong characters on the page as Rupert cares for Jodi as a roommate and Jodi struggles to recall a life and a love that is now out of reach. The author makes their world realistic and there is no easy fix for Jodi and no easy way back to the life he no longer remembers. By choice, I don’t read a lot of amnesia stories, and here, as expected, I had questions about Jodi’s recovery and while I did fully realize that I was reading a romance and not a documentary, the questions still remained.

The audio version of this book was a rather effortless way to enjoy it. Narrator Craig Beck has a strong voice with pleasant tones of a British accent that fit the characters and the setting. The pacing was well done and the entire production had a natural flow to it. The characters didn’t sound overly distinct, but it was the type of story that was still easy to follow. The story however, was quite emotional and I didn’t feel that all of the emotion came across in Beck’s performance and the intimate scenes as well also had the same cadence as the rest of the narration. I do feel that as a narrator every single word should be pronounced correctly and while the problem here was minor it still was present. If you enjoy Garret Leigh’s work and especially a heavier romance with amnesia as the main focus then either version of this book would be a good choice. For an emotional story of love, loss, and love again with the same man check out What Remains.