The Dark Side Audiobook By Laura Baumbach cover art

The Dark Side

Reese Holt, Volume 1

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The Dark Side

By: Laura Baumbach
Narrated by: Joel Leslie
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Kidnapping victim Alex Throne literally drops into the arms of security specialist Reese Holt, pulling Holt into a battle against a ruthless drug cartel, personal betrayal, and a specter from Holt's CIA past. Holt agrees to put his team of specialists on the trail of Alex's assailants while he takes on the personal job of protecting the life he inadvertently saved, motivated, in part, by a romantic attraction. Keeping his mind on protecting Alex could prove difficult, especially when he can't keep his mind off Alex's body.

©2017 Laura Baumbach (P)2017 Laura Baumbach Romance Romantic Suspense Suspense
Intriguing Plot • Engaging Storyline • Excellent Narrator • Action-packed Adventure • Believable Female Voices
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This was decent story. Maybe a bit too much melodrama for my taste, but entertaining.

Decent story. Decent narration.

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I really enjoyed relationships in this book, between the male characters and between Reece and his team members. Don’t see a sequel. :(
Good level of drama. Narrator is a male yet he performed the males oddly. Don’t quite understand that. However, his non-character narration was enjoyable. I’d try another with him reading it. One complaint though—this book needs a trigger warning.

Narrator weird but story good!

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Joel Leslie is a treasure for audio book... He’s the best I have ever listened to and I just don’t know how to listened to anyone else...He gira the right tone to every character and he always make the story much better... Thank you Joel 🔥🥰

Joel Leslie 🔥🔥🔥🔥

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This is my first time reading a book by this author and I was not disappointed. I loved it! It had romance and suspense which is my favorite type of books to read.

Love it

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Reese Holt is an ex-everything from CIA to Special Ops, and now manages a mercenary/security firm that works all kind of James Bond-esque missions. The book opens with Reese working job that takes him out to sea, where, quite literally, Alex Throne drops right in front of him in the middle of the water. From there, Reese and Alex’s lives are intertwined, and Reese finds a new mission in life: protecting Alex Throne. The plot is fast paced with a lot of action and some heart wrenching moments. There’s violence, grief, and implied sexual assault, but the relationship between Reese and Alex is loving and gets its happy ever after.

Joel Leslie is a phenomenal narrator and does a wonderful job bringing the book to life. I love the different voices he uses and the amount of emotion he brought to his performance.

Overall this book was a 3 star rating for me. The writing was solid, but the plot had a lot happening with not enough build up for my taste. I never fully felt like I connected with the characters, and that may be because this book was supposed to be the first in a series (unfortunately, I don’t think anymore books was written in the series) and it felt like an introduction to the characters. The book does well as standalone, and I still enjoyed the story overall.

Action Packed Adventure with Romance

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This was ok. The story was interesting, but I got really tired of the ego stroking descriptions of Holt. I don't mind a story that talks up the MC, but this was repetitive and irritating. And there needed to be more Avery. I typically laughed out loud when he spoke. He reminds me of Hawk from the Robert B. Parker Spenser series.

Joel Leslie, as the narrator, was not a good fit for this. His voice is breathy, and that doesn't work for these characters. He sounded like he was in pain while reading this. I have liked his narrations in other books, but just not this one.

Eh

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This was the first book I've heard by Laura Baumbach. I really enjoyed it. Though the villain was pretty easy to predict, there were still details left to surprise the reader.
As far as the narrator, I will pretty much listen to any book narrated by Joel Leslie even if it's a book I might not be totally interested in. He is absolutely fantastic!

Difficult to put down.

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I enjoy gay romance with more than just a romance, angst filled storyline and this book delivered that. Reese was consistantly portrayed as emotionless but came into his feelings for Alex both sharply and slowly enough to be realistic. Characters were deep enough and visuals detailed enough I could see scenes in my mind, which are both important.

Of course, being narrated by Joel Leslie only brought more depth as usual!

Great story, gritty main character

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This is really a great story but the experience would be so much better under different narration. Actually maybe Joel just needs to take a different approach. It comes off so much like "the name is Bond...James Bond" in a deep husky voice throughout the whole story, never just getting real. I've like much of his other work, however. Looking forward to what's next in this series!

Loved the story but the narration not so much

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Great Story AWESOME Narrator, as usual, Love it 100% Joel is one of the best narrators...

Awesome Book

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