Title: Dumped in Oz
Series: Tales from Kansas 01
Author: Andrew Grey
Narrator: Rusty Topsfield
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 3 hrs, 55 mins
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (14th April 2017)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥ 4 Hearts
Blurb: Because of an opportunity he’d be a fool to turn down, Lyle Powers transfers to his company’s warehouse in central Kansas. The last thing he expects is to meet another gay man in the small town, let alone one who captures his interest.
Roger Kypers is a recovering alcoholic with a 12-year-old daughter he only gets to see for part of the summer. Neither Lyle nor Roger is looking for a relationship, and they fumble at the start, yet emotions build as Roger shows Lyle the landmarks of Oz.
But when Roger’s wicked witch of an ex-wife threatens to take his daughter away for good if he doesn’t act “normally”, he’s faced with the challenge of letting her get away with it, or fighting to accept himself and standing up for what he knows is right.
Product Link: Audible US | Audible UK | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Reviewer: Prime
Review: I love a good Andrew Grey book (to prove it, I have 18 books on Audible and all his books in ebook format), which is basically any book the man writes, and Stuck in Oz is no exception, so I’ll keep this to the point. Grey is brilliant at writing heartfelt stories, that of course include a beautiful romance, that is gentle, relatable and believable. His characters are down to earth, and everything just works. He also tends to add children into the story which takes heartwarming to a whole new level,
Narration for this story was done by Rusty Topsfield. He has narrated as number of the Dreamspun Desire imprint that I could basically eat up for breakfast if it was a foodstuff. I really liked Topsfield’s voice and the tone that he lent to the character. He really just nailed the performance in my mind, as he has done for the entire Tales from Kansas series.
Stuck in Oz starts off with Lyle Powers being transferred, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, to his company’s main warehouse in Kansas. Lyle thinks, that even though he is taking up an incredible professional opportunity, he doesn’t move with the expectation that he’ll also find a HEA in her personal life as well. He meets Roger Kypers, who has his own set of issues – he’s a recovering alcoholic and has a 12 year girl he only gets to see for part of the summer holidays. Their relationship starts out really sweet and unsure as Roger shows Lyle the Wizard of Oz themed landmarks around town.
This book is one of the few where Grey casts the mother of the child central to the couple in the Wicked Witch of The West (pun fully intended) but it works really well and didn’t take from my enjoyment of the book. In fact, the motivations were well outlined and not thrown in just for the sake of drama. This point of the book really helps drive the relationship and forces Roger to comes to terms with the man that he is and build a family with his daughter and Lyle. (PS I really love Lyle, although both guys are relatable Lyle I found it so easy to connect with Lyle.