What a lovely find!

I just stumbled upon this novel by Cat Sebastian and I must say that was a lovely surprise! It is a totally believable story of an early 19th century village community, full of atmosphere and a little bit of suspense. A great bit of escapism. The fact that the romance is a gay one and lovely depicted in the context of the time adds greatly to the charm of the story. And do not start me on the narration by Joel Leslie. As always: spot on! I would give this 6 stars if I could.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

Cat + Joel = Perfection

Once upon a time, I was a Cat Sebastian fan. Then she went ahead and wrote a book that was more charming and lovely than any one book has a right to be, and I was upgraded to superfan.

It Takes Two to Tumble is a bright and beautiful story overflowing with characters that the reader can’t help but fall in love with. From the gruff and grieving sea captain to the local vicar with a bit of a radical streak, even the children and their canine companion, each character makes an impression that you won’t soon forget. There are no secondary characters in this book; each one has a vital role to play.

Cat Sebastian’s writing is some of the best, every word, every scene perfectly placed to keep the story moving while allowing the reader to be fully immersed. She has an amazing capacity for storytelling, and her fictional worlds are some of my favorite to get lost in. Attraction, longing, grief, despair, love, and hope are all mixed with unexpected bits of levity and it’s truly a joy to read.

When I heard that Joel Leslie would be narrating this series, my soul left my body, and I’m pretty sure I cried a little bit. All the dreams I dared not dream came true with this pairing, and this was one of his best performances I’ve heard to date.

He took an already amazing story and amplified it, giving it a new dimension that words on a page just cannot achieve. With distinct characterizations and impressive emotional range, he tells this story like it was written specifically for him to perform.

It Takes Two to Tumble has earned a place on my favorites shelf and has cemented Cat Sebastian as one of my auto-buy authors.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

Held back by a wheezing narrator & missing scenes

I liked it a bit, but critical scenes are missing at the beginning. The leads went from distrusting each other to damn near serenading each other from rooftops over the course of a few pages, and there are nowhere near enough moments between them to justify this shift. I needed to see them warm up to each other, but it's skipped over. This makes all their declarations and private moments feel forced and hollow. It feels as if the author already understood how they became close and simply forgot to inform the reader how it happens. The romantic scenes are written beautifully, so they could have been extremely powerful if there had just been some foundation for it laid early on. Alas, the foundation isn't there, so the beautiful words have very little impact. Those early missing chapters ruin the book, honestly.

The writing is strong in all aspects except the main plot (Philip and Ben's love), so it's still an enjoyable read/listen. Everything fit logically into the time period and setting. The rambunctious children are a delight, and I rarely enjoy child characters. Philip and Ben's intimate scenes are beautiful. The two men have distinct personalities and voices. Philip's continuous nautical references are a bit tiring, but I found it humorous by the end. The subplots are a model of perfection. The connection between Philip and his son, Ben's issues with his father, and even the "villainous" neighbor's role are all artfully woven into the book. Because of all this, I recommend this book so long as you can suspend disbelief around the leads' baffling insta-love.

But... read it, don't get the audiobook.

The narration almost entirely destroyed my ability to enjoy anything at all about this book. The narrator is fantastically skilled but was the entirely wrong choice for this book. He delivered the entire novel in a stiff, almost snobbish tone completely at odds with the written words. This caused scenes meant to be humorous or light to sound far too serious. At one point, we're introduced to a new character who immediately starts slinging insults at Ben, and I prepped for drama. After a moment, I realized he WASN'T slinging insults at all, instead engaging in a teasing banter, and the narrator had delivered the dialogue in such an inaccurate tone that this was lost. Moments like that happened over and over. I could only tell when we switched between Philip and Ben's POV by context clues, never the narrator's shift in delivery. I had to pause the audiobook multiple times out of irritation at the breathing and inhaling the narrator did directly into the mic, especially during dramatic scenes. The more dramatic the scene, the less breath control the narrator had.

The worst of it, however, is how Philip is voiced. I cannot imagine a single soul believing this voice is a fitting portrayal. Philip is our 35-year-old naval captain physically fit enough to withstand commanding a ship at sea (and sexy enough to instantly tempt the local vicar), yet he's voiced as if he's a 70-year-old man wheezing out his last breath after a lifetime of pipe-smoking. The hideous rasping makes no sense at all for such a young man. I had to stop and relisten to the beginning a few times because at first, I kept mistaking Philip's dialogue as some elderly man entering a scene. The narrator's ability to create a voice like this is impressive and will be useful in a lot of stories, but it's misplaced in the lead of a romance novel. He's not a monotone or stumbling narrator; on the contrary, he's lively and able to create a huge range of voices across ages and genders, which makes him a fantastic narrator in the grand scheme of things. He's just a poor fit for this book.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

It Wasn't For Me

I really wanted to like this book, because I love books set in this timeline and with that "forbidden romance" aspect to it. I was sadly disappointed in this book. I couldn't get into it at first, and I had to restart the first chapter three times because I realized I wasn't paying attention. I think it was a combination of the narration and the romance aspect of it. The narrator when reading the descriptions did quite well, but the voices he did for the two men made me cringe. Philip constantly sounds like he's on the last third of the breath he's taken, like wheezing out what he says. Ben always sounds like he's crying. Crying and wheezing during lovemaking made it awkward and difficult for me to listen to, quite frankly. Then the almost immediately "can barely stand not to touch him" descriptions of how the men were feeling as soon as they saw each other was strange and didn't make sense.
I get what the author is trying to do: set them at odds but show that they're attracted to each other. It just all happened so fast, and the characters who were rigid and set in their ways just completely changed by the end of the book. I don't know. Maybe I'm not describing it well enough. I did listen to the whole thing and finished it. The side plot with the young lady was interesting. It just wasn't a book for me.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

The Sedgewick novels are jewels

I love Joel Leslie's narration and I love Cat Sebastian's writing. Do yourself a favor and indulge. The title made me pause but it took just a few minutes to suck me in. These stories ticked so many boxes for me. Clever, droll, sexy, romantic, funny, great characters, interesting period of history and totally believable.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

- 4.5 to 4.75 stars -

This would be my 2nd time reading and listening to it and I for some reason didn't write a review like I should have when I listened to it the first time. I know when I first read/listened to it I thought it had been one of the best historical MM romances I had read. This time reading/listening to it, I'm just kind of confused and have a lot of questions. But I still enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I had enjoyed it the same amount as the first time, especially since I knew what was going to happen and what happens in book 2 (but not in book 3).



*Spoilers*
I know this is based during a time where being open about the fact that Ben and Phillip are in a gay relationship was looked down upon and I'm assuming from what both Ben and Phillip said, could put them in jail. But I found it sad that they had to hide and sneak around, along with not being able to admit to anyone that they were in love with each other, despite the fact that a couple characters already assumed or guessed who Ben was in a relationship with - Hartley and Ben's housekeeper who married his father definitely know about his feelings and relationship with Phillip, but I'm not sure about Welsh/Walsh or Miss Crawford.
I really would have liked a bit more confirmation about who exactly knows about their relationship and feelings for each other and on what happened after the ending of the story. Did Welsh/Walsh know about Phillip and his feelings towards McCarthy on the ship? Did he realize Phillip was in a relationship with Ben and was part of the reason he chose to stay instead of going back out to sea? After Miss Crawford and Welsh/Walsh are married - since it was highly suggested they were going to get married sometime soon - did they stay in the town Ben and Phillip live in or did they decide to move to another town or city? Did Miss Crawford really not know who Ben fell in love with?
I am curious if the kids realized Phillip and Ben are in a relationship. I know everyone thought Phillip was going to marry Welsh/Walsh's sister, but after he had made it clear he wasn't and Ben is still staying around, I'm wondering if they put two and two together and figured it out. But I doubt I will ever know. I just hope they are supportive and are okay with it.
I also wonder if at some point Phillip and Ben won't have to be as careful about hiding their relationship, like not needing to wake up at the crack of dawn to hide the fact Ben hadn't slept in his bed, or if they were in the company of trusted people - such as Hartley or Will - that they could be open about acting a bit more intimately, such as holding hands or kissing.
Also, what exactly had they decided to do about arrangements? Is Ben living with Phillip or did he decide he wanted to live in a house near by? Hopefully he decided to live with Phillip. How are they fixing up the house they purchased from Martin and turning it into a school? Was Ben successful with his new school? Are Phillip's kids attending his school? What is Phillip's role in helping out with the school?
How did McCarthy die? Did he fall overboard or did he die from sickness?
Also, I could not figure out how old Ben and his siblings were, along with the majority of the other characters, such as Welsh/Walsh and Miss Crawford. I know Phillip is about 35 and Martin is about 21, Nate is 13 or 14, Jamie and Peggy are about 8 or 9, but I have no idea how old anyone else is. I'm assuming Ben is probably in his mid to late 20's, maybe around 25, with Hartley being slightly younger - at least a year or two younger. But I would have liked to have known their ages, unless I had somehow missed it.
Another thing I would have liked to have read was to have seen Phillip bottoming for Ben. Phillip had made it clear he wanted to, but instead they had switched to Ben bottoming their first time. But I don't think there was a scene with Phillip bottoming or at least one with the same amount of detail as the first time they did it, unless I had missed it and forgotten about it. But if I hadn't missed it, then I would have liked to have seen it as in a way that scene was being built up but never came to fruition.
Another thing is that I suspect that Miss Crawford suffered from Polio and that Phillip and Jamie have dyslexia. I did a little bit of research and I believe Dyslexia can be hereditary and Miss Crawford's symptoms matched to what people suffer from with Polio. I am curious though. Since it was clear that people had limited or no knowledge at all about what Miss Crawford, Jamie, and Phillip had, I am curious to know if people during this time period knew anything about STDs or HIV, since there was no mention of it or with using any safety precaution. But this is a fictional book, so I am probably taking this too seriously. But I couldn't help thinking about it.
I think that is pretty much all the questions I had. I know the first time I read this book I also felt sad that they couldn't share the knowledge about their relationship to other people. I will admit that I am not very familiar or I have very limited amount of knowledge with this period of time and what it was actually like for people to be in a gay relationship during this period of time. I also don't know if people really swore like that either, such as with the f word or a couple other words they had used in this book. But then again this is a a fictional book.


*Narration*
I thought Joel Leslie did an amazing job. I didn't have any issue with how he narrated any of the characters.

Overall, I did enjoy this book, but my enjoyment was definitely lessened because of my knowledge from reading/listening to this book before and with all of the questions I had throughout the book. I would recommend this book/series to other people as it is a good book.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

A gay Sound Of Music

This was so sweet and steamy at the same time. Cat Sebastian has a way with writing dialogs that make it sound so natural and easy and coupled with Joel Leslie's amazing voice it's just perfect.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

A story of balances exciting and steamy

I used to have only one favorite author but after listening to the 1st and 2nd book of the Sedgwick novels I now have another favorite author Cat Sebastian and Abigail Hilton.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

Dashing!

I really enjoy Captain Dacre and his Vicar. They’re sweet together without falling too easily. And I love Ben’s dad! I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the series and another great performance by Joel Leslie.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Fabulous!

Fabulous!
I’ve heard this book described as a retelling of The Sound of Music. But gay. And then I couldn’t get that out of my head! I loved it so much! Sea Captain Philip Dacre heads home after his wife dies so he can tame his three unruly children. When he arrives, he finds the very handsome Vicar Ben Sedgewick has worked sorcery on his kids and staff. And soon, Philip finds himself under Ben’s spell, also! I couldn’t quite work out how this pair was going to get to their happily ever after, and I loved that! Honestly, I loved everything about this book, including the amazing Joel Leslie!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!