Title: A Kind of Home
Series: A Kind of Stories 04
Author: Lane Hayes
Narrator: Seth Clayton
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 8 hrs, 56 mins
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (4th December 2017)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: 💖💖💖💖💖 5 Hearts
Blurb: Isaac Dalton is the guitarist for Spiral, arguably the biggest rock band in the world. The band’s meteoric rise to super-stardom has its perks, but fame and fortune aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Nonstop touring and performing exhaust Isaac, and when an overzealous fan makes it imperative that he travel with a clingy bodyguard, he is ready for a break from the madness. More so when his newly single first crush shows up on his doorstep. Adam is strictly off-limits. He’s a memory from a place Isaac would rather leave behind. And he’s straight.
Fun-loving former athlete slash construction worker Adam McBride desperately needs a new beginning. And New York City is the perfect place to start over and think about how to rebuild his life. A short stint as roommates with his brother’s best friend from high school seems like a mutually beneficial arrangement. However, when friendship gives way to fierce attraction, both men find themselves in uncharted and possibly dangerous territory. Isaac has to decide if he’s willing to take the ultimate risk for a kind of love and a kind of home he never dreamed possible.
Product Link: Audible US | Audible UK | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Reviewer: Prime
Review: A Kind of Home is book 4 in Lane Hayes’ totally awesome series, A Kind of Stories. The books follow the lives and loves of what has now become one of the biggest rock bands in the world (perhaps a little emo, ala My Chemical Romance).
If you haven’t read or heard the previous books in the series I strongly recommend you do so, if only to get a handle and get to know the other members of the band and their partners who feature in the background. I have devoured and adored all the previous books in the series and this one was just as awesome to hear the audio.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard or read the previous books, I remember the audio being pleasing but I don’t remember if Seth Clayton has been the narrator for the whole series. Regardless, Clayton has done a marvelous job articulating the tone of the two MCs and absolutely nailing the emotions of both guys. The MCs are vastly different men and I think that their personalities and their chemistry was well reflected in the narration.
The story itself follows the guitarist of Spiral, Isaac Dalton. He is exhausted after relentless touring and recording. The bandmates are friends and so even though they live in each other’s pockets they care for each other. Which is why, when Isaac gets some messages that leads him and the record label to believe that he has a stalker, he doesn’t want to worry the guys unnecessarily. However, when he gets home from tour and finds a house guest when all he wants is to be alone, one that was meant to have only stayed a week months ago.
That houseguest is Adam McBride. Something of a ghost from Isaac’s past. Adam is the older brother of Isaac’s best friend. The McBride family were the bright spot in Isaac’s formative years. He was the adopted child in a small town where his parents got divorced and his mother ran off with his biological father. It’s a complicated back story, which is why the story is there in the first place. As I said, the youngest McBride, Ned, was Isaac’s best friend. The middle McBride taught Isaac how to play guitar and the oldest McBride, Adam was Isaac’s first crush. The problem was, Adam was straight, wasn’t he?
Now that Adam is in New York with Isaac the two get to really know the real men that they have become. Adam is recently divorced and needs to get his head together. He’s pretty much got himself sorted by the time he meets up with Isaac again, but the ex-builder/tradie is now an aspiring baker and has plans to open a bakery in his and Isaac’s small hometown. The two men have a lot to tackle as they get to know each other more as adults and as men who are sexually attracted to each other with a hint of more romantic things to come. The main thing they have to deal with is the craziness of Isaac’s career, including crazy fans, potential crazy stalker fans and zero privacy. They also need to somehow compromise Adam’s dreams too. I love the fact that Adam’s wishes for a career wasn’t totally ignored in favor of Isaac’s insane life as a rock star.
Okay, and this is where I go pop culture. First off, with the name Spiral, all I can think of is Mystic Spiral, the band that was in the MTV cartoon Daria. I think I’ve been waiting for the whole series for someone to go “Hi, we’re Spiral, but we’re going to change the name”, The other thing is that I’ve listened to this audio on the back of watching Bohemian Rhapsody (which is all kinds of fantastically awesome). So, I think my enjoyment of this book was definitely influenced by my love for the movie, mostly because I found my mind wandering back to the movie because there were definitely some shared themes besides the obvious.