Know Your Heart

By: Tracey Alvarez

Narrated by: Rosie O'Toole

When the landlady from hell becomes the one woman he can't live without....

Kicked off a movie set, actress Savannah Payne flees to her vacation house in Bounty Bay to prepare for the audition of a lifetime. Only a stubborn, sexy lawyer is currently renting it and he won't budge an inch. Not even when she uses every weapon in her arsenal to drive him out of his mind. But all's fair in love and war, including his kisses that make her want to surrender.

Glen Cooper needs a distraction-free month to finish writing his first novel and he's found the perfect spot. As a lawyer he knows his legal rights, and the self-absorbed woman who doesn't remember the night he once saved her won't weaken his resolve. Too bad he's fighting a battle of attraction that he just can't win. With Savannah returning soon to Hollywood, could falling in love could be the truce needed for her to stay?

©2015 Tracey Alvarez (P)2017 Tracey Alvarez

Great story!

Loved listening to this story... it came alive for me with this narrator. Inflections and accents matched those in my imagination. Great job!

Tender

Glen is been in love with Savannah, his best friend Nate’s cousin, from the first time he saw her more than ten years ago. So, while renting her house in Bounty Bay, she knocks at his door wanting to get back her house, he knows that he is lost. Can they have a chance together and finally find love? A tender love story about love, friendship and pursuing your dreams. Very well narrated making you feel as part of the story.

Funny and sweet

I read this in ebook format a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. The characters stuck in my mind as well as the funny scenes around Sav's trailer. I was glad to get the audiobook and hear the story this time. I enjoyed the narrator and hearing the dialogue with Kiwi accents. It added an extra layer of enjoyment to the story. I will listen to it again in the future.

GOOD TITLE, BECAUSE SAV HAD TO UNDERSTAND HERS.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

As with book one, it’s well written and completely believable conversations. The situations had a few overboard moments but still within the believable realm. Savannah divorced 2 years earlier from a man who verbally and emotionally abused her. Growing up she saw her parents marriage break. After achieving some fame as an actor she is turned down for a part because of her weight so she goes home to work on a new script and a diet. She unfortunately forgot that her cousin and best friend recently rented it out to one of his buddies, Glen, a lawyer on sabbatical trying his hand at writing a novel. Glen sites the law and denies her entrance and habitation so a war of wills begins.

Glen knows having her around will destroy all his focus. He fell for her years ago when he met her at Jake’s 21st birthday bash. He rescued her from a potentially dangerous situation after she became smashed, drinking too much and trying to act older than her 17 years. Sadly, all Sav remembers is the SOMEONE saved her ass, but not the face or name and Glen doesn’t tell her who he is. All Savannah knows is some obnoxious lawyer stubbornly refuses to move out until his term is over and she is determined to make his term hell.

Well, we all know what happens when too forces collide and find an attraction... a HEA. But you’ll have to read all about it, or listen!

Rose O’Toole does an excellent job. Love her voice. She distinguishes male voices very well.

👍🏻👍🏻 Two Thumbs Up!

Another winner!

Know Your Heart is both a enemies-to-lovers story and a lovers with a past story--although for a good chunk of the book, one of the characters doesn't quite remember the brief past they had together. Still, it happened, and eventually it comes back to her, so it totally counts. ;)

Savannah, the heroine of Know Your Heart, is Nate's ( Hide Your Heart ) cousin. She's bought the property that Nate spent his book renovating to use as a retreat between projects, and at the book's beginning is supposed to be far away from New Zealand, on her latest movie set. But when she's bumped from the project for an actress twenty-five pounds lighter and five years younger, she decides that her new home is exactly the right place to be.

On teensy, tiny problem: Nate's rented her home out to an old friend of his who's trying to finish writing his book. And he's not willing to leave--not even for the Savannah Payne.

Especially not for the Savannah Payne, when he realizes that she has absolutely no memory of the first time they met--no memory that she's acknowledging, anyway.

So, yeah. Glen's got a rental contract and he's sticking to it. Savannah Payne can just find somewhere else to stay until it's over.

Except that her "somewhere else" turns out to be in an eyesore of a mobile home, parked the requisite ten feet away from the house, right in plain view of her office window giving Glen an unobstructed view all day long. So begins the "enemies" portion of the book, where Sav does all she can to try to drive him away in her "campaign of passive-aggressive tackiness" (LOL!), as Glen describes it at one point.

Lawn gnomes, pink flamingos, and really loud country music at god-awful early hours of the morning are involved.Through it all, though, they both find themselves fighting an attraction they're finding harder and harder to deny.

Sav and Glen go from enemies to friends to lovers, but through it all they both know that there's an expiration date on their relationship. Savvy's just marking time until her next LA project, and Glen's got to get back to his "real life" where he works in his dad's law firm.

In other words, there's no future there.

Or is there...?

I loved Savannah and Glen, both when they were getting along and when they weren't. Their chemistry was undeniable, and especially during Savvy's "campaign of terror" there were a whole lot of laugh-out-loud moments. Nate, Lauren, Drew, and Java, the stars of book one, wander in and out of their story as well; though this one could work as a standalone, there's enough references to book one events to seriously whet your appetite. (Plus, if you have read Hide Your Heart you know just how awwwwww-inducing it is to hear Drew calling Nate "Daddy". Seriously. So. Sweet.)

Now I'm left anxiously awaiting book three... ;)

The audiobook is nicely read by Rose O'Toole, who does a fun job with the New Zealand accents, as always :)

Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A

I so enjoyed Savy & Glen story!

Another good book in this series. I really enjoyed Savy & Glen & the rest of the Bounty Bay characters. I’m also glad that Lauren, Nick & Drew also made appearances.

Another Wonderful Far North Story

Tracey Alvarez always writes wonderful stories about New Zealand, and, when you add the narration of Rose O'Toole, magic happens! Characters come to life and the story takes on a whole new dimension. This is the second book in Ms. Alvarez' New Zealand Far North series and the main characters, Savannah and Glen have not only history, but chemistry too. The story develops as they try to dance around each other in ways that are funny, romantic, sometimes sad, and often hot, it holds your interest the entire way. Ms. O'Toole definitely rises to each occasion, making them memorable. The layers of characters in this story are fun to follow as they weave in and out of Sav and Glen's lives. The sexual tension builds and builds and has you holding your breath! The dialogue is already well written, but Ms. O'Toole brings life and realism to each person regardless of age or attitude. She truly gives another depth to this story. I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves romance AND New Zealand. I also recommend the first book, Hide Your Heart, that Ms. Alvarez and Ms. O'Toole collaborated on. You will not be disappointed!

Author Versus Actor

I enjoyed the first book in this series so much I immediately started in on the second. Narrator Rose O'Toole has become quite comfortable with providing a slight Kiwi twang to the characters' speech without going full boat (which would likely be as incomprehensible for Americans, at times, as we probably are to them), and had me happily immersed in the troubles of a struggling actress and first novel writer fighting mutual attraction. Deeper issues of controlling behaviors and perceived abandonment provide insight and basis for conflict, adding dimension to a Rom-Com HEA.

I liked Glen better

I normally enjoy Tracey Alvarez's work. This book was not bad, and I really liked Glen's character.

The beginning moved a little slowly, and Savannah managed to stay pretty obnoxious through a good portion of the e-book. She didn't redeem herself until Tom arrived in Bounty Bay. She fell off track again when she took advice from someone she had just met.

The narrator was very good. She managed to convey Savannah's character very well. You completely forget there is only one person narrating. You sense Glen's pain, his love and concern regarding Tom. The audio book allows you to be more sympathetic of Savannah's behavior than the ebook does.

I guess I felt like I was missing some things, but that was from the storyline, not the narration. The story of Glen and Savannah's past was confusing. He remembered her, she didn't remember him. Was she self centered or was she in pain? She had an issue with her father, but their reconciliation was seamless.

At some point, this book picks up speed and becomes more engaging. Ultimately the HEA makes an appearance. The last chapter was the best because of the HEA in the ebook. The audio had a few good chapters.

For this particular book, I liked the audio better than the ebook.

What does a diva do when can't go home?

The heroine's hideaway house away from Auckland (NZ) was temporarily rented out to a hunky guy when she suddenly needed it to work on her acting career and hide from reporters and friends in the city. As one of the most annoying landlords ever, she tried everything to get her tenant to move out and give her her house back. Unfortunately, he won't budge. Fortunately, he is a nice - and extremely tolerant - guy who unwillingly has the hots for her. The book did pick up pace after her little B&E! I really liked Glen - he was a lawyer trying out his creative muscles. Savannah was not so easy to like. Maybe her starvation diet makes her crazy, because she did behave badly. She does make you laugh, though, and she is a nice person under the diva veneer. There are plenty of other characters to add interest to the story.

I enjoyed Rose O'Toole's reading of Know Your Heart - it was nicely paced and she created distinctive voices with appropriate (in a mild way) accents for everyone. I really could listen to her all day!

I already had the ebook version, and was given an Audible version for review.