Always You

The Adair Family Series, Book 3

De: Samantha Young

Narrado por: Stewart Crank, Siobhan Waring

Arrochar Adair has loved her brother's ex-bodyguard and best friend, Mac Galbraith, for years. Once upon a time, she was too young for him, but now that she's a mature woman in her thirties, Arro can see no issue with their difference in age. Yet something deeper is keeping them apart.

Mac Galbraith remembers clearly the night Arro became everything to him, no longer just his best friend and boss's younger sister. Having made many mistakes over the years, there is one Mac is determined not to make: to believe that he is worthy of Arrochar Adair. Allowing them to grow closer during his daughter Robyn's return has proven his undoing. And when Arro forces the subject of their relationship, his response pushes her away. He just never meant for it to destroy them completely.

Devastated by Mac's final rejection, Arro is determined to move on without him in her life, though he seems intent on staying put. And when the Adair family face a new threat, one that may have ties to Mac's past, Arro can't seem to be rid of the man. In fact, Mac will do anything to protect her.

But with so much hurt between them, will Arro let Mac close enough to guard her from their enemy . . . before it's too late?

©2022 Samantha Young (P)2023 Tantor

Always You

This series is fantastic. I was waiting for the audio for this book because something about Mac called to me. Right from the first book when we meet him how much he holds on his shoulders. I wanted, no needed him to get his HEA.

In this series Arro is that one character you want to know more of. She is strong and yet she has that way about her that you want to protect and I like that she knows it but she doesn’t let many people see it. But she lets Mac, now that isn’t to say he is always protective of that right. And she sure lets him know it. See strong females are the best.

But when in doubt let someone surprise you, because it just might be the best thing that ever happens. Mac really does put the work into being better for himself and for Arro.

If you are a fan of Samantha’s work and you want a book you can fall into this is the book.
The narration is fantastic, it's what I love about this series. Each book is narrated perfectly. Don’t wait, run to get this beauty.

Fantastic narration

I read some reviews before listening that said the female narrator sounded too d for the part. This is simply NOT TRUE. The narration was SPOT ON and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. The story was beautifully written AND narrated.

Good Story but Flawed Main Character!

Glad to hear that the continuation of this series but the main female characters cluelessness was distractingly annoying.

Beautiful story. Stunning narration

I adore all of the Adair Family books and this one is absolutely stunningly narrated. Scottish accents are perfection and easily understandable. A story of age gap, forbidden love, bodyguard and his boss/best friend’s younger sister. . . Plus suspense and danger. It’s everything!

meh

i have mixed feelings about this book. there is a lot of time changes back and forth and LOTS of introspection which isn't necessarily bad, but then 3/4 of the way through it's decided that it will be a romance novel with a couple of suspense (very light) thrown in. i felt the author, whom I usually enjoy, either had a helper who didn't know what was going on or the author was having other things happening in her life that distracted her from what could have been a great book.

Performance Matters...

I liked the story but felt letdown by the performance. The narrators didn't do the characters justice. Mac sounded too young & immature for a 40something. It just seemed that the Scottish accent was more important than actually adding value to the performance -the American characters sounded like a watered down version of the Scottish characters. The narrators also changed how the Adair family's first names were pronounced from the previous two books. This book would have been better served with Charlotte North narrating alone. She was excellent no matter the gender or the nationality of the character. With that said, I will continue to listen to the rest of the series,

Best dialogues

Samantha creates the best dialogues and her characters are made to be part of our family. I loved this book and the narrators were great!

Fave so far

I knew the payoff for Mac and Arro would be brilliant - and I wasn’t disappointed! I appreciated having a proper dual POV and read and listened, so liked the dual narration. There was so much build-up with these two but once it ignites it definitely pays off. As with the whole series, definitely higher drama but I also cackled out loud multiple times.

Enjoyed less than the first two

Having listened to the first two books in the series and enjoyed them I didn’t check the sample of this one - and was a bit shocked by the narrators. I appreciate that Scottish accents were wanted for these main characters, but the female narrator sounded older (mid forties or more) and the male narrator younger (max. early thirties) than their respective characters. And as the age gap between them is a key theme it felt quite strange and disturbing.
Story was ok, but too drawn out.
I actually enjoyed the scenes with the other characters (especially the kids) more.

Feels different from the first two

I have read the first two books in this series multiple times and absolutely loved them. I would give them both 5 stars in all categories. This one feels like it was not written by the same author, or maybe I should say the first two books feel like they were written by someone else (since I didn't love another of Samantha Young's books). True, the story does use some of the same scenes from the first two books. I did have several issues with this book (those issues are below).

1. I prefer the performance of the reader in the first two books over this one. True, those were read by an American accented person because one of the main characters in each book was American. And true, those characters had cameo's in this book, but the main characters in this book is Scottish. So really I guess a Scottish accented person was appropriate. Though, the lady reader makes me think of a Historical Romance. This is not that and that kind of messed me up everytime I started listening again. And also while I love the Scottish accent, I did find it hard to understand what they were saying after I stopped and restarted listening. So this maybe my preference, but I would have loved other readers.

2. Plot seems slower than the first two books. The other books we could feel the plot move along. We could see it. In this book, it felt like the bad guys were just there. The other books built the suspense by showing how the bad guys were invading their lives or overtaking their lives. This one, it so didn't. This story felt about the angst they were dealing with, but no suspense. The other two books did both, the angst and the suspense.

3. Too many flashbacks. True most are in the first third of the book. But flashbacks make me loose space and time. Those should be limited to very few or all at the beginning and move on after that.

4. Too many therapy sessions that we are seeing. I guess it does help us know when one of the main characters has advanced in his thinking. Some of those therapy sessions seemed to be more information than we needed to do that though.

5. The female main characters name is Arrochar, however they mispronounced her name multiple times. If they want to pronounce it one way, then stick with it. But they did about 3 different pronunciations for her proper name and about 2 different pronunciations for her nickname.

So I would still like to say, I am giving this one about a 3 star, would be almost 4, because of the previous two books. But this one doesn't speak to me.