Audiobook Review: Lay Down by Mary Calmes

Title: Lay It Down
Author: Mary Calmes
Narrator: Alexander Collins
Release Date: August 26, 2016
Category: Contemporary
Length: 4 hours and 38 minutes
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Paradise can be hell.

Most people would say being stranded in the villa of Spanish shipping magnate Miguel García Arquero on the beautiful isle of Ibiza wasn’t such a bad deal. But Hudson Barber isn’t one of them. To him, being stuck without a passport in a foreign country far from home is a nightmare, made worse by the fact that the person who did the stranding was his flighty twin brother.

Unwilling to turn Dalvon in for identity theft, Hudson is forced to wait, but meanwhile he discovers the chance to rehabilitate Miguel’s failing local businesses—enterprises left to Dalvon’s inexperienced care. The flagging ventures are a badly wrapped gift from heaven, and if Hudson can turn them around, he might be able to leverage the experience to finish his MBA.

Then Miguel returns to Ibiza, and instead of finding a boy toy, he discovers Hudson has turned his cold villa into a warm, welcoming home. Miguel’s path is clear: convince Hudson to lay down his defenses and let love in.

*** Audio copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie by Dreamspinner Press in exchange for a fair and honest review. ***

Hudson goes to visit his twin brother who is living in a luxury villa with billionaire Miguel, who Hudson believes will become his brother-in-law.  Miguel is out of the country on business so Hudson spends his time with his brother, only to be drugged and stranded by his twin who took his visa to pretend to be Hudson to escape the country and run away to be with Hudson's ex and leaving Hudson to break up with Miguel for him.  Unwilling to call the embassy regarding his stolen visa and get his brother in trouble, Hudson decides to use his time fixing Miguel's failing businesses.  Miguel returns to find a different twin in his home and that the businesses are prospering.  He and Hudson seem to immediately fall in love, even though Hudson didn't believe in love.  Hudson and Miguel also discover why Dalvon pretended to be his brother when he left the country and Hudson cleans up the mess left behind.  

Honestly, Hudson's twin is annoying and an asshole and Hudson just makes excuses for him and continues to fix his messes.  I just continued to wait for Hudson to have to run back to the U.S. to clean up whatever new mess Dalvon had made.  And I fully expected Hudson to do it.  

This is the first book from Mary Calmes that I've read or listened to and I fully intend to read this book but I won't ever listen to the audio again.  I believe this is my first experience with the narrator, Alexander Collins, and he was really hard to listen to.  The way he narrated the story was odd and really off-putting.  The last word of EVERY sentence was oddly dragged out.  Was this to make every sentence more dramatic?  It grated and made it difficult to listen to.  One thing I really enjoyed, there were several scenes in which there were phone calls and I thought those were handled really well.  It really sounded like two people were speaking and the listener was eavesdropping on their conversations.

This story was full of drama, insta-love, soap operish storylines and ended with a HEA.  

Overall: 3.5

Performance: 2 

Story: 3.5