Seeking Solace
By: Ari McKay
Narrated by: John Solo
Series: The Walker Boys,
Book 3
Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 04-09-19
Language: English
Publisher: Dreamspinner
Press
Whispersync
Whispersync for Voice-ready
All-hands-on-deck for a
shipboard romance - with a secret.
Like his cousins, Devin
Walker aspires to be a chef, but he wants to indulge his wanderlust while
feeding his customers and working a cruise ship seems like the solution. Since
he can’t find an opening in the kitchen, he’s happy to start out in a position
behind the bar.
While on board Poseidon’s
Pearl, Devin is assigned to shepherd a visiting executive. Paul Bailey is quiet
and unassuming, and the car accident that cost him his leg also shattered his
confidence. He doesn’t think he’s attractive to other men anymore, and Devin is
eager to show him just how wrong he is. Paul has a surprising secret that might
sink their passionate affair before it even leaves port.
©2019 Dreamspinner Press
(P)2019 Dreamspinner Press
Buy links: Dreamspinner Audible Amazon
Cat gives this one 4 Meows Story 3 Meows
...
Seeking Solace is a Dreamspun desire. This means it
is based on a usual trope, full of romance and usually a HEA ending.
Seeking Solace is also book 3 of the Walker Boys
and where this stands alone pretty good, I think I would have gotten more if I
had read the others. I felt like this
was more Paul’s story than Devin who is one of the Walker Boys.
Paul is the son of the owner of Triton Cruise lines,
a high luxury vacation line. He is being groomed to take over as CEO of the
company when his father retires. He also been in an accident and lost his leg,
his boyfriend and confidence.
Devin is the bartender on the Pearl and loves his
job though he is hoping for a job in the kitchen to open up as his dream is to
be a great chef and open his own restaurant. He and Paul hit it off from the
start, then Devin finds himself as liaison to Paul to help him meet everyone. This
makes both men happy. They become good friends, hoping for more, but will Paul’s
secret tear them apart when the cruise is over.
I liked this story. It was very sweet, and a good
vacation read. I loved getting a tour off the cruise ship and resorts and felt
swept away.
I listened to it on audio and have to say this wasn’t
the perfect choice for a narrator for this story. I have listened to some John
Solo and usually like his narration but the voices he gave these characters
just didn’t fit. Devin is a Texan and he had no accent or any personality. Other
than the voices the narration was good.
If you like, cruises, bartenders, men that are
physically challenged, a sweet romance you will like this book.
Excerpt…
Chapter One
PAUL MERCER stood in front
of the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door and checked his
tailor-made navy suit for lint or wrinkles before he left his cabin, which was
more like a small hotel room than he’d expected. But Triton Cruises prided
itself on being one of the more upscale cruise lines, and Poseidon’s Pearl was
one of their top ships.
The suite was luxurious
enough that Paul could have spent the entire trip inside, maybe reading on the
private deck, which was big enough for two lounge chairs with a small table
between them. But Paul wasn’t on vacation.
He’d been sent by his
father, who was the CEO of Triton Cruises, to assess the ship and its crew and
to report on whether the crew was adhering to company standards. To do so, he
was posing as Paul Bailey, a new executive with the company who needed to learn
about the cruise line. He was using his mother’s maiden name to help avoid
anyone making a connection between him and the company’s founding family.
He glanced down at his
pants, which were loose enough to hide the fact that he wore a prosthetic on
his left leg below the knee. He’d covered the prosthetic foot with a shoe, and
looking down at his dress shoes made him feel almost normal again. He had a
slight limp, especially at the end of the day when he was tired, but most
people were tactful enough not to ask about it, if they even noticed.
The other reason Paul had
been sent was because he’d never been on a Triton cruise before. Hell, he’d
never been on any cruise before. The cruise line was strictly eighteen-plus so
Paul was never allowed to go with his parents when they took their annual trip
while he was growing up. Then he’d gone away to college, and after graduation
he went straight into grad school for his MBA. After that, he’d started working
his way up the ladder at Triton and hadn’t taken much time off except for a few
long weekends here and there. Then the accident happened. So the trip was a way
for him to experience a Triton cruise from their guests’ perspective. It was
also the last trip Paul would take anywhere in a while. Andrew Mercer was ready
to retire, and he had put Paul on a fast track to taking over after Paul
finished rehab and was cleared to return to work.
Focusing on his
reflection, Paul smoothed his hand over his dark brown hair, which was cut
short and neatly styled, its natural wave tamed with product. It was too early
to go to the dining room, so Paul decided to visit the bar for a while instead.
While most cruise lines
these days seemed intent on going the megaship route—huge vessels that could
accommodate almost seven thousand passengers—Triton catered to a different
clientele. Ships like Poseidon’s Pearl and her sisters carried a maximum of
nine hundred passengers, with a crew of nearly six hundred, and every stateroom
on the ship boasted a private balcony. The decor in the common areas was just
as posh as it was in Paul’s cabin. As he left his cabin on Deck 7, it was only
a short walk to the Seafarer’s Lounge.
He heard soft piano
music—live, not recorded—as he entered the two-story lounge, which was set in
the fore of the ship. It had glass windows from floor to ceiling on three sides
that offered a magnificent, panoramic view of the Gulf of Mexico and the
serenely blue sky above. The room was large, with stairways on the port and
starboard sides giving access to the second level. Small clusters of loveseats
and chairs were set around low tables, allowing for intimate groups to engage
in conversation, while the rear of the room was lined in bookcases housing the
ship’s library, which was large enough to cater to almost any taste. The plush
carpet underfoot was patterned in tones of deep blue and gold, which set off
the cream of the upholstery.
In the center of the room
was a semicircular bar topped with polished mahogany, surrounded by comfortable
high seats. As with everywhere else on the ship, the trademark of the line—a
three-pronged triton—was subtly worked into the decor, such as the patterns of
tile fronting the bar and the fabric covering the seats. There were no more
than twenty or so people in the bar, broken into groupings around the room.
Everyone was well-dressed, and conversations were muted, giving the room a
relaxed and welcoming feeling.
As Paul approached the
bar, he caught sight of the bartender, who was tall with broad shoulders
tapering to a narrow waist emphasized by his tailored uniform vest. He had high
cheekbones, a square jawline that looked sharp enough to cut paper, and skin
with a rich copper glow that seemed to result from a combination of genetics
and sunshine. His dark, thickly lashed eyes were crinkled at the corners as he
flashed a dazzlingly white smile and handed an olive-garnished martini to his
customer. His midnight-black hair was pulled back from his face and hung in a
thick braid that reached all the way to his waist.
As soon as the bartender
had scanned the customer’s cruise card and returned it, he turned to Paul, who
had claimed a seat at the end of the bar, and Paul got the full effect of his
smile. “Good afternoon, sir. I’m Devin. How can I make your day even better?”
The intense charisma
behind that smile made Paul almost believe Devin meant the greeting for him
alone, but he sternly reminded himself that the ship employees were supposed to
say such things to all the customers.
“I’d like a glass of
Malbec, please,” he said.
“Excellent choice,” Devin
replied. He retrieved a bottle from the wine rack, and after uncorking the
wine, he placed a crystal wineglass on the bar, then held an aerator over it as
he poured a stream of the rich, dark wine from the bottle through it, making a
bit of a show of the process. Then he set the bottle and aerator aside, placed
a gilt-edged paper napkin in front of Paul, and served the glass of wine.
“Thanks.” Paul picked up
the glass and took a sip, and he was pleased by the quality of the wine.
After cleaning up and
recorking the bottle, Devin returned to Paul, favoring him with another smile.
“How do you like it? Triton prides itself on the quality of the wines it
serves, even the ones they use in the kitchen.”
Good to know, Paul
thought, making a mental note for his report. “It’s good, thanks.”
Devin glanced around the
nearly empty lounge, but he must not have seen anything that needed his
attention, since his gaze returned to Paul. He tilted his head to one side,
looking at Paul with a slightly puzzled expression. “If I may ask, sir, have
you cruised with us before? You look familiar.”
Paul smiled as blandly as
possible and shook his head. Full-sized portraits of Andrew Mercer and Abraham
Mercer—Paul’s grandfather and the founder of Triton Cruises—hung in the atrium,
so Paul wasn’t surprised one of the employees had picked up on the family
resemblance.
“No, this is my first
cruise,” he said, assuaging the slight pang he felt over deceiving the crew
with the fact he was telling Devin the truth.
Ari McKay is the
professional pseudonym for Arionrhod and McKay, who have been writing together
for over a decade. Their collaborations encompass a wide variety of romance
genres, including contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, gothic, and
action/adventure. Their work includes the Blood Bathory series of paranormal
novels, the Herc’s Mercs series, as well as two historical Westerns: Heart
of Stone and Finding Forgiveness. When not writing, they
can often be found scheming over costume designs or binge-watching TV
shows together.
Arionrhod is a systems
engineer by day who is eagerly looking forward to (hopefully) becoming a full
time writer in the not-too-distant future. Now that she is an empty nester, she
has turned her attentions to finding the perfect piece of land to build a
fortress in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, and baking (and eating) far
too many cakes.
McKay is an English
teacher who has been writing for one reason or another most of her life. She
also enjoys knitting, reading, cooking, and playing video games. She has been
known to knit in public. Given she has the survival skills of a gnat, she’s
relying on Arionrhod to help her survive the zombie apocalypse.
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love the excerpt
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