Home the Hard Way

By: Z. A. Maxfield

Narrated by: Shannon Gunn

Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Dare Buckley has come home - or at least, he's come back to Palladian, the small town he left as a teenager. After a major lapse in judgment forced him to resign from the Seattle PD, Palladian is the only place that'll hire him. There's one benefit to hitting rock bottom, though: the chance to investigate the mystery of his father's suicide.

Dare also gets to reacquaint himself with Finn Fowler, whose childhood hero worship ended in uncomfortable silence when Dare moved away. But Finn isn't the same little kid Dare once protected. He's grown into an attractive, enigmatic stranger who neither wants nor needs what Dare has to offer.

In fact, Dare soon realizes that Finn's keeping secrets - his own and the town's. And he doesn't seem to care that Dare needs answers. The atmosphere in Palladian, like its namesake river, appears placid, but dark currents churn underneath. When danger closes in, Dare must pit his ingenuity against his heart, and find his way home the hard way.

©2014 Z.A. Maxfield (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

amazing story

Mystery, murder, twists and turns. loved it all! Characters come to life. The Narrator is great at expressing the varying emotions.

Really good story, told with horrible narration

This narrator is probably one of the worst I've ever heard on Audible.
Even though he has a few different inflections for his voice, he doesn't seem to stay consistent with who has which voice. Plus, his way of almost yelling at you while he's voicing an exciting part of the story is so offputting that it seriously detracts from the experience.
Clearly, this story would have been so much better with a different narrator.

Home the Hard Way

This is a very good book it is a FABULOUS who don it with alot of twist an turns before You can see to the end I TRULY HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS BOOK AS MUCH AS I HAVE

Solid Meh...

This was just ok. The story line was ok, the mystery bit was ok, narrator....ok. Character development...ok. Ending...flat and predictable. It lacked explanation where needed and gave too much in others. The "smexy times" felt empty and cold. The narrator rushed thru almost sounding angry he had to read it. An overall disappointment. Can't honestly recommend it.

I had problems with this one

The characters were engaging, but I had problems with Finn. I think he needs serious therapy before he should ever try to be in a BDSM scene. Although he is portrayed as being a competent dom, his emotional and psychological damage would scare the bejeezus out of me and would definitely never let me trust him. I'm glad there was a seeming HEA to this one, but I'm afraid for Dare. So glad Bill is getting therapy...

A very good story. There were times I wanted to walk away from it because the characters made me just that uncomfortable, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

The narration was a bit confusing at times. It wasn't always clear who was speaking. I don't know if that is completely on the narrator or not, but it seemed to be confusing even to him.

Twisted

I am still wrapping my head around the story. The narrator really got into it, maybe even a little too much. And if you don't like BDSM, you might not like this story.

Dissapointing Narrator

The narrator wasn't good for this book. He made every character sound like a serial killer. He over acted so much I kept thinking about William Shatner and old movies were everyone was waaaaay over the top in a really bad way. I really didn't like that.

As far as the story goes, it was alright. I may have been inclined to like it more if the narrator had been better. The BDSM felt completely random and while I could infer why the characters would like that based on their pasts, It didn't really fit the story as a whole and felt like it was added simply because the author wanted to check that genre box off the list.

Not what I was expecting

First, though I usually love Shannon Gunn’s narrations, I found the main characters voices too similar and sometimes lost track of who was saying what.

Second, While it was an ok story, I never felt totally engaged. The bdsm seemed to come out of left field though I did appreciate that it wasn’t your typical setup.

Not bad. Not good.

Narrator was fantastic! A lot of character to voice and pulled off very well. Story on the other hand was disappointing. Through the first half I was empathizing with Finn and Dare, but after the introduction fetish aspect I found myself viewing Finn as a manipulative man taking advantage of an alcoholic and Dare as weak willed lush. Disappointing because I wanted to root for these characters. I ended up stopping at the final bondage scene in disgust realizing I now hated both characters and didn’t care what became of them. I’ve listened to a few other Maxfield books that I loved, but this one... let me just say I’m glad it wasn’t my first.

Unique and enjoyable

I really like Shannon Gunn's narration. It can sometimes seem a little over the top until you lose yourself in it, because he puts so much passion or anguish and realistic emotion into the dialog. The story held my interest throughout, though I would have enjoyed an epilogue to see Finn settle further into a loving relationship.