Bound by Brenda Rothert
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
College senior Kate Camden has learned to adapt – to her last year of school, to the promise of motherhood, to the fact that she’s doing it all alone. But just when she’s learned to adjust, heartache threatens to break her apart.
Pro hockey player Jason “Ryke” Ryker has it all: adoring fans, a promising career, and a beautiful wife. But when his seemingly perfect life is shaken by tragedy, he’s left questioning whether having it all is ever more than an illusion.
When circumstance brings Kate and Ryke together, they discover they don’t have to hurt alone. Bound by a grief that haunts them both, they must rely on one another to survive heartbreak. But that grief is more powerful than they realize, and the tie that binds them together may ultimately tear them apart.
Bound
Finding love after grief and loss!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙❤️💚
Steam: 🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘
World building: 🌏🌍
Character development: 😊😅🤨
Narration: 🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration
The Hero: Jason Ryker – he is an NHL hockey player who lost his wife Maggie two years ago. Since then, he hasn’t dated, though he isn’t celibate. He attends a bereavement support group which has helped him quite a bit. His relationship with his wife wasn’t perfect, though many thought she must have been the love of his life, he knew she wasn’t and that caused a lot of guilt.
The heroine: Kate Camden – she was a senior in college when she found out she was pregnant. The father wanted nothing to do with her or the baby when he found out. Her mother went to her doctors’ appointments with her and while at one of her appointments, they found the baby had no heartbeat. She had to deliver the baby and soon after had to get back to her classes. She never had time to grieve properly and after graduation, she decided to go to a grief support group.
The Story: Ryke and Kate meet at the support group, and he was interested in the beautiful but sad woman from the start. When he finds out she is looking for a job, he offers her a job as his personal assistant. He looks forward to seeing her every day, until one day she does something similar to what his wife did for him. He is a bit troubled after that, but they keep working together.
I usually don’t read books like this where people are suffering a loss, because they are a bit depressing, and this one was all that. I picked it at random out of my audiobook library, so I listened to it all. I did like the characters quite a bit though it definitely isn’t a book I would read again. There were quite a few flashbacks both to when Ryke was married and when Kate lost her baby. I wasn’t fond of those, but they did provide some insight. Of course, the book did get better as it went along, it just isn’t really my cup of tea.
This audiobook was told in dual points of view via dual narration and was narrated by Chris Ruen and Kristen Leigh. I am not really a fan of either of these narrators, they both sound like they are reading rather than speaking naturally. Chris’s voice isn’t as deep as I usually like for a Hero, but it is gravelly which is nice. Kristen’s voice is soft which does match Kate and she is good sounding sad and depressed.
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