The Secret Life of Cooper Bennett

Golden Czermak is a master! I love his writing, it grabs the reader and thrusts them into this amazing world and he doesn't let you leave. It's two days later and I am still in awe and not wanting to leave, I can't stop thinking about it. I stayed up all night listening. Golden has a way with his words that makes you feel everything, every emotion – it's horrible and beautiful at the same time. It's why I curse Golden so much throughout listening. I love when I can turn on an audiobook and get lost in the story and quality narration, that, is something that happened with this book. I adore this cover, it's one of my favourite covers of 2017 – it tells a story all on its own. I like that the audio cover is different but the same ensemble of characters. The inclusion of the narrators names makes me happy. Don't you just love it? The Secret Life of Cooper Bennett is a complete standalone, however, mention of certain things and a character or two may be familiar to readers/ listeners of the Journeyman Series.

These characters are everything! How can anyone not love them? They're sweet, charming and some are horrendous. Cooper Bennett, Billy Arnett and Alyssa Noble are wonderful characters. I loved them so much. The friendship between the three of them was beautiful. Each was strong in their own way. Cooper's dad made me so freaking mad, I swore at him more times than I am prepared to admit. Liam Manning and Lance Goddard drove me crazy, but I wasn't sure if I was misreading them, I ended up feeling bad for them. I love the detail and world building that goes into a Golden book. I loved the banter and humorous moments in this story, they really off-set the action. I laughed, and I cried, I gasped and at times I even got a little freaked out. It reads like an epic fantasy as opposed to romance, but fear not, there is romance too. I loved that about it. It has action, fantasy and an undercurrent story of romance that isn't an in your face love story – it's understated and works well in the overall story.

Wen Ross narrates a good 80% of this book, perhaps more. Ordinarily I'd say this book would have worked with a solo narrator and it would have, but the inclusion of Kai Kennicott was freaking perfection. Only a handful of chapters are from a female POV and the book doesn't have a whole lot of female characters, but the duet style of narration really worked and gave the narration a little flair. Wen was spectacular, I'm not a fan of the creepy Wen though, it worked, and he did it wonderfully but no! We like nice Wen, not creepy Wen! His characterisations were spot on and each character was distinct, and there are a lot of them. Kai was fantastic as Alyssa. The production was smooth with no issues at all. I love how their voices complement each other so well and the contrast of them.