Deferred Consumption (Unabridged‪)‬

If you like the romance genre, you may like this one.

Deferred Consumption is listed in the Mysteries & Thrillers/Suspense. I would probably list it more in the Romance category. There is very explicit sex and language.
The narrator, Shoshana Franck, did a very good job. She was wonderful with the accents, including Russian, Texan and New Yorker. Her male and female voices were good. She did not have to moderate her voice register greatly to create believable male characters. I could tell which of her main female characters were speaking by the tone and slight change in pitch. I would definitely listen to another audiobook by her.

The book revolves around Heather, is an investment banker in New York City, working for an old established firm, run by a jerk, David. David is in the process of taking over the firm from his older father. While his father was ruthless in his day, he did not work with terrorist like David was. Brody, Heather’s fiancée, is a tennis pro. He is setting off on a tour so they are trying to spend some time together.

As this is an audio and I had not read the book itself, I am going to butcher the names so let me apologize in advance. One of Heather’s clients is a Russian, Evanof, who she describes as a psychopath. He pursues Heather with a total lack of finesse despite her lack of interest or her fiancee. There is a third man who is critical in the story, Evan, who is one of the wealthiest men in the world. I really cannot give more details without spoilers.

My problems with this audiobook all had to do with the writing and not the narrator. The narrator was great. The writing was not that good. I enjoyed the book for the wrong reasons. It made me laugh where I am sure the author never intended to elicit a laugh. For example, Heather’s boss, David, walks into her office. The author describes him like this, “He moved into her space like a termite after a delectable chunk of plywood, preening and strutting like a peacock.” I had to replay this and listen to it several times. I do not believe I have ever heard someone described as a termite and peacock in the same sentence. Hopefully, I never will again.

The sex scenes had descriptions that I could have done without. I am not a prude but the phrase, “Tickled her love flower”, made me laugh, not feel a sense of desire. Another phrase that made me laugh out loud was, “Plugging his member into her depths like it was a job”. I may have the last word in the sentence wrong because I was laughing and may not have heard it correctly. I do not read a lot of romance other than the author Jamie Shaw, so this may be my fault do to lack of exposure.

I need to be careful not to include any spoilers but the book ended abruptly. I remember my twelfth-grade Humanities teacher describing this technique as “Deus Ex Machina”, “a character or thing that suddenly enters the story in a novel, play, movie, etc., and solves a problem that had previously seemed impossible to solve” (definition credit to Merriam-Webster). As a novel, it was not satisfying. I found the characters two-dimensional. The story had subplots that never really developed. The writing never drew me in. If you like the romance genre, you may like this one. In any case, I feel the narrator Shoshana Franck is worth checking out.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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