Great Duet - Troy and Rose work well together

The men of Plain Daisy Ranch continue to bring a smile to my face, a blush to my cheeks, and flutters to my core. Jude and Sadie in The One I Stood Beside may have tested my patience for a bit with their slow-burn and sexual tension, but once the cat was out of the bag, things heated up quickly and often. I enjoyed the storyline, the conflict and solution that pulled them together, their passion and attraction to each other, and also how their strengths and weaknesses were developed and formed the entire circle around their lifelong friendship and their dynamic. Without those, the story would not have been as believable as Piper Rayne was able to make it.

I loved experiencing this story through the duet narration of Troy Duran and Rose Dioro. This is my favorite style of narration since it makes following along so much easier. It is more like listening to a stage play instead of having a story read to you. It allows you to fully immerse yourself and get carried away into another world.

Both narrators used their voices to enhance the reader's enjoyment. Their tone and style clearly indicated whether they were excited, sad, sexy, or mad. When things heated up on the pages, they knew just how to steam the reader up, too.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the audio of the One I Stood Beside, I did take a bit to attach the voices to some of the characters. Rose playing the part of Sadie was perfection. Her voice matched the character in my head to a T. I did struggle a bit with her rendition of Sadie’s mom, Rhea. I know Rhea struggled with her health, and maybe I’m totally off base here, but the voice made her seem so weak, fragile, and much older than I pictured her. Perhaps she is that feeble, but I pictured a woman nearing sixty, and I found the voice made her seem much older.

For Jude’s voice, kind of the same thing. It took me a good bit to connect Troy’s voice to the character in my head, but once I did it was fine. It’s just that my original perception of Jude had him having a younger-sounding voice. Once again, my opinion may not be yours. Each narrator did a great job with the side character voices as well, giving each one a slight distinction to make it easy to know who was now speaking. I loved how the narrators worked seamlessly together and delivered an outstanding rendition of The One I Stood Beside. I would definitely listen to them again.

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