Love Comes Around

Senses, Book 4

By: Andrew Grey

Narrated by: Max Lehnen

Dan was a throwaway child and learned to take care of himself in foster care. As an adult, he devotes his life to the business he started and his heart to raising children no one else wants. Dan has already adopted six-year-old Lila, who walks on crutches, and then decides to adopt eight-year-old Jerry, who suffers from MD and is confined to a wheelchair.

Also abandoned as a child, Connor ended up on his own and retreated into himself. He works as a carpenter and woodcarver and is the perfect man to ensure Dan’s home becomes wheelchair accessible.

When Dan hires Connor, neither of the men are ready to open their hearts to the possibility of love. As they learn how much they have in common, both of them must weigh the possibility of family and a future against the risks of getting hurt again.

©2014 Andrew Grey (P)2014 Dreamspinner Press

Loved it

I am a huge fan of Andrew Grey and I especially love the senses series. This book did not disappoint. In this book neither of the men had a disability but they both had heartbreaking childhoods that led to their journeys. One of isolation and another to creating his own family. This family consisting of disabled children. Then coming together to complete the journey and family. 5 stars from me.

Love this series, not this story or narrator

Dan Harrington is now a rich guy who wants to help kids who didn’t have a good life, kids who were “thrown away” like he was. He adopts a little girl and then later a little boy, both with disabilities and converts his house to accommodate their needs.
Connor O’Malley, who considers himself a “throw away”, volunteers his handyman/wood working skills at the Children’s Home where Dan’s kids were adopted from. Connor had a crush on Dan when they were teenagers, but Dan moved away before anything could ever come of it.
At first Connor sees Dan as a rich guy who is self-important and selfish when he misinterprets an event he witnesses at the Children’s Home, but he soon realizes Dan is anything but selfish.
Dan asks Connor to help him renovate his house for the kids partly because he’s the best wood worker in town, and partially because Dan has always had a crush on Connor.
There are some brief moments of angst and miscommunication between Dan and Connor, both thinking the other doesn’t like or is too good for the other, but mostly the story is about helping these two forming a relationship and helping to raise two disabled children.

**
Andrew Grey is hit or miss for me. I read the first two books in the series, those were about one MC who was blind and the other deaf and it was about them finding love despite their respective issues.
In this case the “issue” is really that neither Dan nor Connor feels they “deserve” love because of bad childhood experiences.
In Dan’s case, it kind of makes sense. In Connor’s… less so, but I can sort of see it.
I’m not sure how to rate this book. The story felt… off. Connor almost felt like a man with a learning disability. He was slow talking, off-putting, reclusive and socially inept. I really have no idea what Dan saw in him. Connor kept isolating himself and making assumptions about Dan that cast Dan in a bad light when Dan was never anything but a sterling guy.
The kids really stole the show. Their story was heartbreaking and it was hard reading about and loving Jerry, the boy with Muscular Dystrophy who wouldn’t be alive for more than a handful of pain filled years.
I appreciated that Dan had a total collapse due to his controlling ways, but never really saw him lean on Connor and utilize the support that Connor could provide to take some of the burden.
I would have loved to see Dan give some of the children’s care to Connor and have them form their relationship as a partnership, taking care of the children and each other. Instead they only connected in the most superficial of ways, sexually. It felt like Connor was always just on the outside, never really belonging to the family Dan had created.
I had enjoyed the first two books in the series and I have to say this is the worst of the three I have read.
I give the story a 2.5 of 5 stars.

Audio:
Max Lehnen did a nice job with the narration. He has a “country” type voice that suits the setting and the characters and I enjoyed his interpretation. He did a good job with separating the voices out and making each unique. The sound quality was good. I give the narration a 3 of 5 stars.
Though the narration was fine, it didn’t add enough to really make the story more entertaining, so I am sticking with an overall rating of 2.5 stars, it was okay, not bad, not good.
Overall Impression:

2.5 stars- It was okay.