Carrying scars and regrets, River Darcourt avoids too much intimate contact. Among his friends, he is known as a quiet loner. Forget about love. It’s not something he will consider… until sweet, young, and tempting Morgan Hayes becomes his housemate. River closed his heart long ago, but the attraction is impossible to deny.
Morgan Hayes needs a change. He is moving out of his critical father’s home and in with his friends, including his secret/not-so-secret crush, River. Having feelings for River is a terrible idea. But what is a guy to do when the annoyingly sexy mechanic is just across the hall?
While Morgan has overcome ugliness and is ready for love, he’s just not sure River ever will be. They have both experienced pain in their lives. So Morgan dares River to take a chance, and love will either break their fractured hearts in more pieces or, just possibly, make them whole again.
Narrated by Michael Stellman
Listening Time: 7 Hours, 36 Minutes
I’m a big fan of “The Guy” series by Skylar Cates and binge listened to the whole series and fell in love. I hadn’t read any of the Sunshine and Happiness series when the audiobook for Secrets of You came through to the blog, but I did snatch it up pretty quickly. I conferred with another Unicorn who LOVES the books as to whether this was a standalone situation or a series commitment and thank goodness I asked Red because she let me know right away that if I didn’t do the whole series I would be missing out and damn she was right! Thanks Red! So, I backtracked, used a bunch of audible codes and binge listened to the first three books making my way to Secrets of You. It was a great ride and exactly what I expected from the author.
She’s amazing at writing relationship dynamics and they run the gamut of types and degrees in the Sunshine and Happiness series. I was really looking forward to Book 3, Close to You and I had mentally prepared myself to make that my favorite of the series, I mean really, it was Tomas and Marc’s story! And I did love it, very much, but, Secrets of You turned out to be my favorite of the four books in the end. It’s probably my weakness for misunderstood, heartbroken bad boys (River) and eternally optimistic rays of sunshine (Morgan).
What made these two so good together was their differences and their resilience. They both had been through some incredibly difficult times as of late, but deep down, they both still wanted to be happy. It was understandable they were a little reticent to be jumping into a relationship together, and if they had I would have called BS on it, so the roomies with benefits (while a convenient trope) was still a perfect avenue for them to explore one another both in out of the bedroom. The setup where all the other guys were gone on a cruise was convenient but necessary. There’s no way River would have opened up to Morgan the way he did if the rest of the friends had been present.
My favorite parts of the story were the quiet times between the two while they were home alone. Even if they were supposed to be keeping it casual, it was obvious they were meant to be together by way of the care they took with one another. It was quite sweet to see them fall into a relationship without even consciously realizing it. Accidentally in love is one of my favorite things.
Of course, nothing is that easy and it would be a cop out to not give these boys some angst to work through given everything they’d been through, but it wasn’t overdone and the issues they had made sense for them both separately and together. River’s story surprised me more than once and finally being in his head to get his impression of the relationship he had Brendan broke my heart and really made the story something so much more than what I expected. It also gave me more hope for his relationship with Morgan long term. It was a roller coaster I wasn’t anticipating and I love when a book gives me that!
Another thing that grabbed me when the audiobook came up for review was the narrator. I love Michael Stellman’s voice. His tone and organic narration get me lost in the stories he reads. I highly recommend listening to anything he is a part of. While each of the Sunshine and Happiness audiobooks has a different narrator, I thought that worked out really well for the series. There are a lot of characters and having different narrators gave each audiobook a distinction that probably wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Michael Stellman was the perfect pick for Secrets of You though. He could read an instruction manual to me and I’d be happy.
**a copy of this audiobook was provided for an honest review**
Yay!!! I knew you'd love the whole series. So glad you got to meet everyone and see why this is my favorite too!
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