Shock & Awe

By: Abigail Roux

Narrated by: Brock Thompson

After barely surviving a shootout in New Orleans, Sidewinder medic Kelly Abbott has to suffer through a month of recovery before he can return home to Colorado. He's not surprised when fellow Sidewinder Nick O'Flaherty stays with him in New Orleans. Nor is he surprised when Nick travels home with him to help him get back on his feet - after all, years on the same Marine Force Recon team bonded the men in ways that only bleeding for a brother can. He's very surprised, though, when Nick humors his moment of curiosity and kisses him.

Nick knows all of Kelly's quirks and caprices, so the kiss was a low-risk move on his part...or so he thought. But what should've been a simple moment unleashes a flood of confusing emotions and urges that neither man is prepared to address. Now, Kelly and Nick must figure out what they mean to each other - friends and brothers in arms or something even deeper - before the past can come back to ruin their tenuous future.

©2013 Abigail Roux (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Good spin off

This is a good spin off to the cut and run series. I loved getting a closer look at Nick and Kelly but also the slightly quieter story. It's fairly quick listen and Thompson does a good job with the narration.

Nice interlude

The narration was terrible .2 main characters sound almost exactly the same . Really bad

Love This Series!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes! Brock Thompson does a great job with differentiating between Nick and Kelly. His gravelly voice adds to the emotional scenes.

What did you like best about this story?

LOVE Nick and Kelly and getting to be in their head as they discover each other and what they ultimately want from each other.

Which scene was your favorite?

The salute at the end, when they are at the airport. I won't say more but that is a moment that really got to me. Very touching moment that just cemented how close the Sidewinders are.

If you could rename Shock & Awe, what would you call it?

Nope. Name fits just right.

Any additional comments?

This is a side story to the Cut and Run series and yet it works by itself. Short, fun, sexy and heartwarming. This is a another good one from Abigail Roux.

I love Nick and Kelly! Not happy with narration

I liked this book a lot and was excited to see it at Audible....The narrator was a disappointment :( He did ok on Nick but he turned Kelly into a different character to me...He made Kelly less vibrant and playful.

Sidewinders are off to a great start!

Where does Shock & Awe rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It is one I would listen to again.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Shock & Awe?

The hotel room!

What does Brock Thompson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The native Boston accent for Nick.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Shock and Awe seems to fit perfectly.

Any additional comments?

Kelly Abbott and Nick O'Flaherty have been friends, brothers, comrades in arms for over a decade. With Kelly still on the mend after being shot during the fiasco in New Orleans, Nick takes the time off to stay with his friend and help him while he heals. Kelly isn't sure if it's the pain meds, or being in such close quarters with Nick, but his perception of his friend shifts almost as soon as they get to his cabin. What starts out as mild curiosity, quickly turns into so much more and soon, they cross a line that they can never jump back over again.

I really enjoyed getting to know more about Nick and Kelly. Being secondary characters throughout the Cut & Run series as members of Ty's rag tag secret black ops team, the Sidewinders, I only got to know them in the capacity that fit into those stories. Now the focus of the story shifts to Nick and Kelly, the strong bond they already share after relying on each other in life or death situations for over a decade. So, while to some this may seem like an insta-love story, I assure you, it is not. It's been brewing for close to fifteen years.

Narrated by Brock Thompson, this is my first audio with Thompson and it did take me about twenty minutes to get used to his narration. After listening to the Cut & Run series, I got used to that specific voice for Nick and Kelly, so Thompson's was off at first. It did not take long for the story to pull me in though, and I actually think I like Nick more voiced by Thompson because he has his Boston bread accent. This wasn't the norm for the Sidewinder guys, this was a singular story about Nick and Kelly realizing a mutual attraction, talking about it, then acting on it. It was short, sexy and even a bit steamy.

I quite enjoyed this romantic reprieve and look forward to more stores for Nick and Kelly. They aren't quite as troublesome and volatile as Ty and Zane, but they might graduate to that with more time. If you are a fan of the Cut & Run books of course you'll enjoy this companion series. But if you've avoided that series due to the madness, murder and mayhem... this is slower but just as appealing as anything else Roux has written.

Good stuff

Not all I'd hoped it was compared to TY and Zane, but definitely worth the listen on a quick trip. 10$ for 3 hours here audible take my money.....

SO glad it's on audio finally. Good job of it.

*So happy to be able to listen to this!!!*

**(Note - there is a file sequencing problem. Hopefully it will be fixed quickly - I reported it to audible on the release date - in early release, chapters 3&4 are actually chapters 10 & 11. I was quite confused for a moment, skipped ahead, found that chapter 5 was actually chapter 3 ... listened on with no trouble but then had to go back to 3&4 to hear the ending in proper order.)

I don't want to review this one for story or any of the usual. I came to Abigail Roux's Cut & Run series accidentally in the middle by getting my hands on an audio copy of Divide and Conquer. I didn't realize that I was listening to book 4 in a series. I was hooked from the beginning, and when I got to the end I went, "What the HELL just happened?!" And as much as I wanted to see what came next, instead I went back and bought book 1. I devoured everything that Abigail Roux (along with her early co-author) had written in a crazy short amount of time ... and listened to every book available in audio format an insane number of times. This series is what hooked me into the m/m genre and so I am in no way objective about any of the books, stories, arcs or even the author. I love it, her ... all of it.

That said, I have definite opinions about narrators and audio books in general. I have learned to overlook and forgive a lot with certain series for the sake of my affection and attachment to the material. C&R has been one of those series for me. I *hate* having multiple narrators and different voices in my head. I hate when the accents are absent, or just not right. And I hated that I could only listen to books 1-5 of a 9 book series with 3 "spin-off" books also sprinkled through the time-line. I have been wishing (and occasionally pestering the publishers) for audio books since the release of book 6.

This book is listed as Book 1 of the Sidewinder Series. As I said, I can't disentangle myself from my own experiences with these books enough to judge these books objectively. I can't decide if I think that this novella is a good stand alone or not. For me it is an offshoot of the C&R series, and I do know that in going from this book to Book 2 of the sidewinder series I was sad that I couldn't immediately listen to the C&R book that was released between the two, as events in that book colored all of the events in these. (For me) it was fine listening to these 2 books on their own, but the addition of the C&R books and events add so much texture and color to them that as soon as I have access to those, they will all be in one playlist in sequential order on a loop. :)

I was worried about the narrator, but ultimately I loved him. I am no language or accent expert, but for me he hit the tone of the varied accents just right and it added depth to the story for me. I can't wait for the rest of the Cut and Run books to be released in December so I can go on an audible orgy and listen to the whole shebang in chronological order over and over! I am interested to see what the narrator of the C&R series is like, and hope that he is as good a fit and nice a surprise as this one was.

I don't usually pay for novella length books at the price this one is set at, but for Abigail Roux I made an exception and I am not sorry at all. This is a lovely fleshing out addition to the world she created and HAS to be on the bookshelf with the rest of it. No regrets.

Engaging, Flirty, Passionate 1st of Spin-Off Serie

Would you consider the audio edition of Shock & Awe to be better than the print version?

To a certain extent, most definitely. I love to read a book and form my own conclusions, but yet, as I listened to the narrator, I felt he nailed the pace, tone, characters, and situation.

What did you like best about this story?

The blend of playfulness and passion in a friends to lovers romance.

What about Brock Thompson’s performance did you like?

His ability to tell a story so I forgot he was even there. (I mean that as a great compliment). He got it so right that not once was I pulled out of the story to be distracted by his narrative.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Spicy Hot Friends to Lovers Romance

Any additional comments?

The novella came with a follow-up short story, Bait & Switch that did the job of smoothing the abrupt ending and leading into what is to come after.

This is a beginning to a spin-off series, but I would strongly recommend reading it after the Cut & Run series. It falls after Touch & Geaux in that other series and refers back to situations and characters a great deal.

Is it hot in here?

Seeing as I gave up on the "cut and run" series three books in, I didn't know this was a spin off. You definitely don't need to read the cut and run series to read this one. Though it does help a little, I never felt lost for long while listening to this one. There's no action in this book, its mostly just them figuring out what's going on between them. It's pretty good can't wait to listen to the next and see where this relationship goes.

Where's J F Harding???

I absolutely loved, loved, loved the Cut and Run Series'. The characters Ms. Roux created were complex, flawed, fragile...human and very hard to let go of after finishing the series thanks to Abigail Roux and her awesome imagination as an author. That being said the ONLY reason I purchased Cut and Run to begin with was J F Harding's beautiful ability as a narrator to bring each and every character to life. He has that innate talent to make each book he narrates special......SO WHAT HAPPENED?
I am in the first chapter of Shock and Awe and was really looking forward to Nick and Kelly's journey and I'm ready to quit the book. The reason being...yes wait for it, the narrator. I can't tell if the book will be good or not because the narrator is that different. Not only that, I knew who Nick and Kelly we're from Cut and Run because they were key participants in that series and now their like totally different characters. I'm sorry I purchased all three books. It's a total wash with B. Thompson narrating, not so much that he's a bad narrator it's just that he's too different. Why you didn't stick with Harding is beyond my comprehension.