All Kinds of Tied Down (Audiobook), Mary Calmes

All Kinds of Tied Down AudioRating: Audiobook : 3.5 Stars Narration:  4.5 Stars

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press 

Genre: MM Romance

Tags: Contemporary, US Marshalls, Action

Length: 9 Hours and 1 Minute – Audiobook

Reviewer: Paul

Purchase At: Dreamspinner Press

 

 

 

Audiobook Review

Narration by, Tristan James

Blurb:

Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones has a reputation for being calm and collected under fire. These traits serve him well with his hotshot partner, Ian Doyle, the kind of guy who can start a fight in an empty room. In the past three years of their life-and-death job, they’ve gone from strangers to professional coworkers to devoted teammates and best friends. Miro’s cultivated blind faith in the man who has his back… faith and something more.

As a marshal and a soldier, Ian’s expected to lead. But the power and control that brings Ian success and fulfilment in the field isn’t working anywhere else. Ian’s always resisted all kinds of tied down, but having no home—and no one to come home to—is slowly eating him up inside. Over time, Ian has grudgingly accepted that going anywhere without his partner simply doesn’t work. Now Miro just has to convince him that getting tangled up in heartstrings isn’t being tied down at all.

 

Review:
If you like to be inadvertently teased to the brink of sexual despair over a long period of time. All Kinds of Tied Down will very slowly leave your stomach in knots. It’s a tease of a book and doesn’t give anything away lightly, it simmers on the back burner over a three year period and revolves around Miro Jones and Ian Doyle. Two of the US Marshal’s who run the witness protection program within The United States, secreting witnesses away while awaiting major court cases under hostile conditions. It’s a dangerous and life threatening job when they are dealing with high profile witnesses, until they can put them on the stand in court. Putting the meanest of the crime lords, serial killers and the most wanted organised crime syndicates away for life. Which also leads to people with a lot of money searching for those witnesses. Once they accomplish that fated day in court, they are then relocated and given new identities to begin a fresh live.

Miro is the calmer of the two and in the beginning he can’t believe the way his military man and partner Ian, keeps throwing them into danger, even on their days off, sometimes unarmed. Miro pleads with him to wait for back up but just sees the slight cock of his head and with a wicked grin, Ian Doyle is off in full flight, Miro can’t help but follow him, exalted by his lithe grace for such a tall and fit man. He loves to watch him in action. Milo is no slouch either although he’s shorter and stockier, whereas Ian just glides through the air with a silently and deadly force at the ready if necessary.  

The bigger the crime, the more people they have coming after them keeping them on high alert as dirty cops help to undermine their hard work. They are taking pay offs for locations of witnesses to silence them forever, which in turn stops them from being put behind bars for life and continue to walk free yet again.

Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones’s life changed the day ex-Special Forces and still active Green Beret US Marshal, Ian Doyle joined their small unit three years ago. Miro found himself instantly attracted to him, almost lusting after him. Ian was just so well proportioned and one sexy, well built man that swaggered as he strutted around the office like he owned it. Miro was a goner from the day he laid eyes on him with a slow burning gaze.

Miro was also the new kid on the block but he was definitely not wet behind the ears because of his years in foster care. He’d bounced around in the system from a young age to finally be placed into a great family and made it through college. That’s also where he met his real family, four tough as nails women who made him their brother. He was still quite stunned at landing his job, due to his colourful past and misspent youth.

To the shock of the entire department three years ago, when Miro was placed with Ian Doyle, he wondered how he’d come to be Captain America’s new partner. Which had royally pissed off the rest of the fellow marshal’s. After six months though, their jealousy was long gone and slowly turned to pity for Miro and all their respect for Doyle was long gone as they thought he was insane, as he constantly and recklessly kept leading Miro into extremely dangerous situations.

After every shift ended back in the beginning Miro, along with his constantly bloodied and bruised body, gained pity from his department as they automatically handed him ice packs and any spare pharmaceuticals they had lying around at the end of each day. Ian just couldn’t follow protocol and was a,“kick their ass or kill them now kind of guy, and asked questions later,” but Miro began to see the strength and loyalty in his partner that none of the others did. He always knew he was safe when Ian was around.

Even though Miro was at his wits end with him, he was a patient man. Unfortunately for him though, that subconscious metamorphosis between the two, that had woven a binding cocoon silently around them had began its transformation from the moment they’d met, went completely unnoticed by Miro. He resigned himself to the fact that he could never have the handsome, womanising man that he really loved.
“What everyone missed was that Ian didn’t come from a police background like most of us. He came from the military and wasn’t versed in proper police procedure or adherence to the letter of the law. As the newest marshal on the team, I was the one who had the book memorized the best, so the supervisory deputy, my boss, assigned me to him. It actually made sense. Lucky me. Doyle was a nightmare.”

After some time had passed, Miro finally began to get through to Ian Doyle, he was a stickler for going by the book but gave up with Ian, he began to claim small victories with him. Even if it was getting Ian to put a bullet proof jacket on before busting a door down before a raid.

They had also slowly started to form a trusting bond as partners, Ian had a foul temper and basically had nobody except for an endless stream of girlfriends which never lasted long. While Miro was openly gay, he began to notice Ian slowly encroaching on his personal space. Always having to touch Miro, even if it was only a shoulder bump. That began progressing to a gentle hand placed on Miro’s hip or slide of his hand up under his shirt while talking to him, not even aware of what he was doing and it was driving Miro insane. The slow simmering pot he’d placed on the back burner was beginning to boil over at time as all Miro’s blood drained from his face into a very undesirable place while they were in public. He wanted this man so badly that the more Ian touched him, the more reckless Miro’s behaviour had absently started to rub off on him. Ian was becoming a caring and very close friend now too, a side to him that Miro had never seen before. Unfortunately it was marring his judgement and he was placing himself in more and more dangerous, unplanned situations, which would set Ian off into rants that were now becoming rages at how stupid he was and it wasn’t going unnoticed by their co-workers.

“ My boss, Supervisory Deputy Sam Kage, recently called me into his office and asked me flat out if there was any truth to the rumours he was hearing. Did I want a change of partner? The blank stare I gave him hopefully conveyed my confusion. So it was no one’s fault but my own that I was running in the slushy melting snow down the forty-seven hundred block of Ninety-Fifth Street in Oak Lawn at ten on a cold Tuesday morning in mid-January.”

As their friendship grew even stronger, and they became really close friends, it wasn’t until then that Miro took a nasty fall and Ian laughed it off at first until he realised Miro was really hurt. I also think they both realised that they were taking on each others traits, almost reversing roles. That cost Miro a broken wrist and one panicked Ian going over his body to make sure nothing else was seriously hurt, who then rushed him to hospital to find out he’d broken his wrist.

Two nights later the dynamic between them deepened again. The chrysalis was slowing but surely making changes within them, snug in its cocoon.

Ian’s girlfriend’s brother was having a party, his girlfriend was over the moon when Miro arrived and she started to tell him why. Basically she told him that Ian didn’t say a word unless Miro was present, he was rude when they had guest’s, the only time she saw him laugh and act civil was while Miro was in their company, and he knew she genuinely liked him but she said, can you go over there and make him play nice, he could see Ian making a scene at a gaming console.

This pissed Miro off as he headed over, for two reasons’s. Because he didn’t want to be there and he knew it was the only reason he’d been invited at the last minute and Ian pleaded with him to be there. He also didn’t believe or maybe realise just how fucked up Ian really was. Then, as they reconvened in the kitchen, he noticed Ian visibly stiffen as another man entered the kitchen and he shifted his focus elsewhere, looking for something to hone in on, and did he hit the jackpot. Of all the things he spotted, it was a guy handing out drugs in the middle of the room. Miro went along with it but it took a rather nasty twist as the dealer saw a gun aimed at him, so he lunged for the high rise window, with Miro hot on his heels.

“Following fast, I used him as a shield against the glass flying toward me, got my hand on the back of his overcoat, and hung on as he hit the railing and sailed over. Flipping backward, I saw everything in a slow-motion arch: the dark night, the snow falling gently through it, the lights of other buildings and street lamps, and finally, thankfully, the fire escape. When we went over the side, we switched places so I was falling first, propelled through the icy air. Grabbing for anything with my one good hand attached to the working arm, I reached out and caught the ladder as Roland slammed into the railing and then tumbled over onto the platform, winded and gasping for breath. The way I was hanging was bad: all my weight held only by my right hand, but that was why we practiced those damn dead lifts. Pulling myself up, I got a foot on the railing, pushed, twisted, let go of the ladder, and flung myself forward onto a slow-rising Roland. There was no air left in his body after I crashed on top of him, driving him facedown under me.”

Ian went completely berserk at Miro, it was like the chrysalis inside the cocoon had been closed for way too long and now, maybe, Ian saw that he was wrapped inside it with Miro too. They were changing and not even mother nature could stop that transformation from happening. Only one thing on the planet could and it happened.

The call came soon after, Ian was still a Green Beret and he was being called in for a two moth mission. Every time this happened a very cold an stilted Ian returned home, it took Miro weeks if not months every time he was called away on a black op’s mission. This time they kept this goodbye brief although it was no less awkward. Some serious stuff happened while Ian was away leaving Miro hospitalised, but the four women that adopted him as sisters in college all came rushing to his side. He was messed up badly and although he hated to admit it, they were his only family as he imagined a family or siblings would be like. They were four strong woman who took no crap from anyone, except him. Within reason.

Miro returned to work and a couple of weeks later was about to fly out the next morning to get a very important witness, as his phone rang while he was at the office. He was waiting in Hawaii for his connecting flight and hadn’t been informed about Miro’s ordeal, as soon as he did the old Ian was back with a vengeance and stole the job out from Miro’s partner. It was a very interesting flight and drive to collect a very important witness but a life changing event happened on the way as they drove into a nasty trap that was looking like it was the end of the line for all involved. One thing happened though, was the chrysalis ready when it was forced from its cocoon?

All Kinds of Tied Down is a well written book, it was entertaining and kept you on your toes. It did have a touch of the “romance formulae” to it but it was a solid read with interesting strong main characters who interacted well together.

The Narration by Tristan James was excellent. He portrayed every single character to the best of his ability and was an utter pleasure to sit back and hear him read. I think regardless of what your personal thoughts of this novel are, it is an excellent example of an outstanding overall production from start to finish.   

Review copy supplied by the publisher in return for an honest review.



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jana
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jana

Great review Paul. Mary Calmes is always a comfort read for me. Glad the narrator was good it makes an audio. 🙂

Paul
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Thanks Jana, it’s really important to me because for the last year it gave me books back after a long hiatus from reading, I honestly didn’t think I was picky initially about audiobook but it soon became apparent it was imperative to me. I mainly listened to contemporary fantasy, horror, thriller etc. . . until I stumbled across the world of M/M. This is when narration for me really changed and with a bit of hope we can encourage more and more authors in our little genre to get their books read for us. I hope to find out why… Read more »

Cindi
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This looks like my type of book. Thanks for another great review, Paul.

Paul
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Thanks Cindi