Variation Audiobook By Rebecca Yarros cover art

Variation

A Novel

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Variation

By: Rebecca Yarros
Narrated by: Teddy Hamilton, Carly Robins
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About this listen

Instant USA Today, Amazon Charts, and Publishers Weekly bestseller.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fourth Wing comes a new contemporary romance about the summer a celebrated dancer returns home and unearths years of family secrets and deep regrets with the Coast Guard rescue swimmer she never forgot.

Elite ballerina Allie Rousseau is no stranger to pressure. With her mother’s eyes always watching, perfection was expected, no matter the cost. But when an injury jeopardizes all she’s sacrificed for, Allie returns to her summer home to heal and recover. But the memories she’s tried to forget rush in and threaten to take her under.

As a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Hudson Ellis knows that hesitation can mean the difference between life and death. He’s always prided himself on being in the right place at the right time, especially when it came to Allie Rousseau…until the night he left for basic. After the biggest regret of his life, the secrets he keeps mean he can never be with the one woman he wants more than his next breath.

When Hudson’s niece shows up on Allie’s doorstep, desperate to find her birth mother, Allie finds herself in an unimaginable position. Allie and Hudson’s past and present might be endlessly complicated. The thread that tied them to each other all those years ago may have unraveled, but the truth could pull them back together, or drive them apart forever.

©2024 Rebecca Yarros (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Contemporary Heartfelt Summer
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Critic reviews

“Carly Robins and Teddy Hamilton mesmerize listeners with their performance of this emotional contemporary romance.… Robins’ intimate, poignant narration paints a vivid picture of Allie's past pain, desire for Hudson, and hope for the future. Hamilton's warm, enveloping tone captures Hudson's raw determination and protective instinct for his family and Allie. Both narrators create expressive, distinct character voices that transition flawlessly throughout the story.”AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award Winner

“Rebecca Yarros’s stand-alone romance novel is a graceful departure from her bestselling fantasy juggernauts Fourth Wing and Iron Flame. With shades of The Summer I Turned Pretty and Bunheads, this winter-appropriate beach read begins with an ocean rescue off the coast of Cape Cod. Hudson, a local Coast Guard swimmer in training, swoops in to save Allie, a wealthy young ballerina, from a sinking rowboat. Metaphors and plot twists abound as Yarros’s story bobs neatly into the future. A decade later, her star-crossed characters land back where they started, for different and equally complicated reasons. The question of whether they’ll find their way back to one another is a fun one to ponder over a slice of leftover pie.”—Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times

“Yarros keeps the twists coming as her complex but lovable characters find their way back to each other in the face of impossible odds. Readers who like their romance on the soapy side will be more than satisfied.”Publishers Weekly

What listeners say about Variation

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So good

Loved the whole book didn’t want it to end! Love all of her books but this was just a feel good book.

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Cute Story

This was an easy listen...cute story and easy to follow. Not as entertaining as her other books but still well done.

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COULDNT PUT IT DOWN!

Not unlike any other Rebecca Yarros books, this one had me laughing, crying, and on the edge of my seat all the way through. It’s so refreshing to read a book with characters that you really feel you connect with. This will definitely be a re-read!

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Loved It! 💕

Love Rebecca Yarros, and loved this storyline! I knew could quite pinpoint the ending until it came. 10/10 recommend!

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Sweet rekindling summer romance

RY did it again, another great book! I love be writing style and really appreciated 2 POVs of main characters and voices! Win win

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phenomenal

wow what an amazing read, I have no complaints and feel like every unexpected twist and turn was well executed. (*sigh of fondness) just when you think you've got everyone and all the events pegged you couldn't be more wrong. I look forward to reading more books by Rebecca Yarros. I've yet to be disappointed.

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beautifully written and narrated

Teddy and Carly made a already wonderful book even better. This book could not have been more perfectly cast. They made me feel every emotion that Allie and Hudson were going thru. It was perfect. There is just something magical about the way Rebecca Yarros writes. This book gripped me from the first chapter and never let go. You could feel the yearning and angst between Allie and Hudson. The characters in this book range from charming to funny to detestable. But they are all so well written and vivid that they seem real.
This is the story of Allie, a ballerina and Hudson, a rescue swimmer. They knew each other as teenagers and were brought back together as adults by some twists and secrets that just keep getting more interesting as the book progresses.
Yarros does a fantastic job of letting the reader see all sides of the coin, just not all at once. This is an emotional roller coaster of a book, and I enjoyed every second of it.

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Perfect

Love this book. It was different from her books but just as wonderful!!! Can’t wait for her next book!

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Amazing...just amazing

4.5 Stars ⭐️

Rebecca Yarros is one of those authors that I sometimes just stand in awe of. I mean, she can write (and has written) many books in the contemporary genre - and in that genre she takes no prisoners and writes books that completely seem to tear your heart to pieces. Yet she is probably more known for her fairly new DRAGON series Fourth Wing.... Yep, I said Dragon series. What an unbelievable dichotomy that is.

This book though, is her latest entry (again, back in the Contemporary romance genre) andI just find it truly amazing that she can pen something just so amazing in both these two so incredibly different genres.

In this book, we are introduced to the Rousseau family and we learn that there are 4 sisters and that the Rousseau name means something in the Elite Ballet community. They are basically royalty.

Then we get to meet the family of Hudson Ellis - boy what a different family they are. But, regardless of anything relating to these families- there is a young 10 year old girl that throws a hand grenade into everything.

Without going into spoilers, this is a story that pulled me in from the very beginning. This story starts from a certain point of time, but then it becomes apparent that MANY events occurred BEFORE we even got here. Things happened that truly are important to the "now" timeline, but they have not been uncovered yet.

And that is what this book is about. Uncovering the events that got us to the point that we find ourselves at at the beginning of this book. And boy oh boy are there some doozies.

What is so AMAZING about this book is the great, dare I say...SPECTACULAR - character development that we see in these characters. We get to see depth and then growth from our two MC's.

FMC Allie Rousseau and then MMC Hudson Ellis each have some HUGE issues to deal with when this book starts. But honestly, it was Hudsen that grabbed me and pulled me in. Yes, this is a "he falls first'' trope, but it is done in such a way that I was blindly following along as the story begins and then I found myself just...well, just all of a sudden rooting for him. He was so unbelievably patient, yet self-aware and he was not willing to push Allie too hard. He understood her personality, her fears and yet, even if it ended up hurting him, he only wanted what was best for her. *sigh* Yep, definitely rooting for him.

But then, just because I could understand Hudsen's side - well, Ms, Yarros wrote this in a way that I could also see things from Allie's side. She had reasons. Boy oh boy did she have reasons, for her behavior. And we haven't even gotten to the plot of this story yet.

So - yes, this is another FANTASTIC book by an author that is and has been an automatic "auto-buy" for me. I listened to this on audio and completely enjoyed the narration by the duo of
Teddy Hamilton and Carly Robins. All in all - this was another winner.

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A heartbreaking and heartwarming masterpiece

WOW. Just, wow. This story was sad, tragic, and breathtakingly beautiful all at once. My heart absolutely broke for all of the years Allie and Hudson lost together, and the devastating truth that kept them apart.

It was obvious very early on that these two were made for each other, and they just need to get out of their own ways long enough to allow it to happen. The growth they shared to face their fears and overcome the obstacles was truly beautiful. The way they unconditionally support each other to pursue their dreams, is what every single person in existence deserves from the person they love.

Sassy little Juniper was top tier cuteness level, and I love how that girl kept everyone on their toes. Roadblocks for Juniper simply do not exist. She is overly determined to find a way to make the things that she wants happen, and thank the sweet baby jesus that meeting Alessandra Rousseau was one of the things she wanted.

This book made me laugh, it made me cry, and it stole my entire heart.

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