Squared Away

By: Annabeth Albert

Narrated by: Greg Boudreaux

In the wake of tragedy, SEAL Mark Whitley rushed stateside to act as guardian to his sister’s three young children. But a conflicting will could give custody to someone else - someone Mark remembers as a too-young, too-hot, wild party boy. Even after six years, Mark can’t shake the memory of his close encounter with Isaiah James, or face up to what it says about his own sexuality.

Isaiah’s totally over the crush that made him proposition Mark all those years ago. In fact, he’s done with crushing on the wrong men altogether. For now, he’s throwing himself into proving he’s the best person to care for his cousin’s kids. But there’s no denying there’s something sexy about a big, tough military man with a baby in his arms.

As the legal details get sorted out, their long-buried attraction resurfaces, leading to intimate evenings after the kids are tucked in. A forever future is within reach for all of them, if only Mark can find the courage he needs to trust Isaiah with his secrets - and his heart.

This book is approximately 80,000 words.

This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Deborah Nemeth.

©2018 Annabeth Albert (P)2018 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Fantastic narration!

I loved this story of grief and second chances and opening up to trusting others and falling in love and found family. Mark and Isaiah are so good together and I loved how Annabeth handled Mark’s s*xuality. Loved the ace rep! This can be read as a stand-alone from the series, but I recommend all of them. It’s one of my favorite series ever!

It took some time but loved this

I must admit that I love this series. There is just something about mm and uniforms that make me happy. We first meet Isaiah way back in At Attention as Dylan's roommate and a friend of Ben's we did not know a lot about his aside from the fact that he had a thing for military guys. In this book we get to know more about him and why he is the way he is.

I loved that fact that Isaiah is the type of person who knows what he wants and does not waver. When we meet him in this book, he is ready to step up and to take care of his nieces and nephews single handedly. He understands that up until this point he just worked but was not stable until he realized that there would be little humans depending on him. I fell in love with him and was routing for him since the start.

I enjoyed Mark at times. He was the type of character that you did not know if you would like him or not. The story had to progress so that I could decide on how I felt about him. I did not figure out if I liked his character or not until the last 3 chapters. The entire time he was selfish, and self-involved. I do understand that he lost his sister and his family is not the best, but he kept treating Isaiah as though he was just there and not someone that knows the kids better than he did.

The ending was cute and when Mark got it together the story was great. I loved the fact that kids played equal parts within this story. They were not in the background minding their business but in there playing a part.

Beautiful story

Another great book from this author. Narration is perfection. Life has a way of changing, taking everyday in a whole new direction. Facing adversity, and grieving loss, and yikes (!) 3 kids to care for. The emotion evoked from this story is deep and compassion is what the listener feels.

Great characters but unnecessarily dramatic

I liked this book and enjoyed the cast of characters, I like the way the stories in the series are linked but are good standalone books. My problem was that the story was dramatic for the sake of drama. There could have been a great emotional journey for the main characters without having to resort to the appearance of such black and white thinking from social services and the court about the suitability of guardianship. Both characters had extreme reactions to each other over miscommunications after both seeming to be rational people and it felt out of place. It probably would’ve been better just setting the uncle up as the big bad and have the relationship develop in a more natural way.
On a whole I did enjoy the story and the narration was good but I just found some of the drama unnecessary.

Excellent story and exquisite narration!

This was the perfect story for my Thanksgiving holiday. I cried and actually learned much about relationships, communication, human sexuality and estate planning - of all things! The narration was truly sublime and the characters were universally relatable.

This book will touch your soul and heart

WOW, I was not expecting this book at all, in the best of ways!!!!! First of all, book #4 is my favorite and it's so intense, emotional and erotic it's very hard to forget. So, I started reading Squared Away with the thought it would be something like the other books in the series, relationship wise anyway. But it turns out Annabeth has done it, again, and blew me away completely.

The narration is just FANTASTIC, Greg Boudreaux is an amazing performer with an innate sense for emotion and delicate tone changes. I read this book before I listened to the audio, and because I knew he will narrate it after he narrated book #4 in the series (my absolute favorite!) he had some BIG expectations to live up to.And boy did he ever! Greg took this wonderful book and infused it with emotion and life, the children's tiny cries and funny comments, Marks tough seal voice and Isaiah's charming personality. In a live video he did on facebook he spoke about getting ready to narrate and he said he reads the book first and really tries to narrate the book they way he felt it while reading. I can honestly say he narrated the book the way I imagined it should be but with so much more I could not know to expect. His voice is so versatile an he knows just the right moment to change it to maximum effect. i enjoyed this book the second time just as much, if not more, than the first time.

This is a book about family, and love, it's infused into every word and character and seeps into you when you read it. Mark and Isaiah are PERFECTION together, first of all as partners in taking care of their three nephews while coping with the loss of the children's parents, Mark's sister and Isaiah's cousin who was more like a brother, in terrible circumstances. The kids are young, and need constant care, so both men throw themselves into the role of caregivers with hardly any time to cope with their own loss and grief. This turbulent time forces them to see the best in each other, lean on each other and soon the need for comfort is too great.

Mark and Isaiah form an incredibly delicate, impossibly sensual connection that is so unlike most M/M book out there it's almost magical to read. And it focuses so much on the emotional bond, between them and the family they slowly become with their nephews, children they start thinking of as their own. This is the best thing about Squared Away, the emotional bond, between all the characters, some from previous books, but always at the forefront are Mark and Isaiah. The kids, Daphne, Zoe and little Liam are just adorable! And you really get the feeling of them dealing with all the hardships of parenting, there is no sugarcoating and most of the time is spent around the kid's needs.
Mark and Isaiah's intimate interactions were so amazing to read, really putting the E in erotic, but not like you would expect! I do not want to spoil anyone's reading so I will only say this: Annabeth is a MASTER at bringing unique characters, making them feel alive. Part of that is the fact she brings diverse sexualities and gender identities into play, and this quality in her writing is exceptionally good in this story. I will not divulge it exactly, as I feel it’s an important part of the book and characters, but again- it's very unlike most M/M books and it managed to be incredibly erotic and sensual, to a point I was squirming in my seat while I was reading. It was HOT in the depth of emotion and not so much the graphic descriptions. And it is refreshing and real and so fitting for this story, it was a story I was invested in with my heart and soul through and through.

This book has many deep emotions but no major drama moments, which is 'just right' for these two amazing men. It's like the saying "silent water runs deep", this book will borrow into your heart and stay there! The ending was pure MAGIC in both the setting and how they figured out the way they want their future to be as a family. I was clutching my chest all teary eyed, emotionally wreaked. Another amazing book in a wonderful series, Annabeth is a one-click author for me and I am so looking forward to more books in the series!

Unbalanced approach between Mark and Isaiah

The story was good but seemed to focus on Mark being selfish when in reality Isaiah was really the more selfish of the two And the author never acknowledged this fact which made the story resolution not as attractive as it could have been

Superb

Great story and fantastic narration by Greg Boudreaux as always. I can't wait to hear the rest of this series.

I still think this has to be a pen name for L A Witt. The writing style and USN knowledge are way too similar.

Emotional and surprising.

Another wonderful addition to the Out of Uniform series- I've enjoyed these books a lot!
While all the books have had an emotional element to them, I think this one hit me hardest because of the tragedy surrounding the kids and their parents.
Mark was a bit of a tough nut for much of the book, but I still like him! I loved Isaiah. I loved how much he loved the kids and wanted to do whatever he could to make sure they were taken care of.
The romance was on the slow side, as Mark tried to keep his distance. I really liked how things ended up working out.

PS- it took me until the end of the book to realize we have met Isaiah previously!!!

Greg's narration was great, he did a terrific job with all the voices.

great to see a main character on the ace spectrum!

I love listening to books where one of the main characters is on the ace spectrum. It's really refreshing to read a book where the main characters don't fall into excessive sex just because they found their person. The story was amazing as was the performance. The dual guardianship scenario can easily read as a trope, but this book actually did it really well and in a far more realistic way then most.