I adore Michael Pauley!!

I adore Michael Pauley and he narrates Buzz perfectly. He brings Cam and Noah perfectly to life and I hope we get a chance to hear more of The Riley Brothers series narrated by him.

5 people found this helpful

Amazing

The greatness of this book, the series in fact, cannot be stated with enough adjectives.

Noah's soft heart and acceptance allow for a heartbroken Cameron to find a place of space in a world that is spinning off its axis.

From the first meeting to the last scene you feel the blossoming of love expressed in the between words. Those words and thoughts we keep to ourselves out of fear that they will not be welcomed.

Art curator and a forced retired hockey player navigate the landscape keeping each other in their sights, tethering one to the other and all that comes from it is beautiful.

5 people found this helpful

An opposites attract, low angst and easy listen!

Cam and Noah come together so beautifully.
This was a sweet opposites attract romance, low on the angst and high on the fluff.
This was quite an easy listen and I found myself engaged in their story.
Michael Dean has taken this story to new heights with his audio performance.
It was pure perfection.

3 people found this helpful

Buzz

This book was good. Nothing truly note worthy. The Story between Cam and Noah is just a cute romance with no angst or Drama. Which is kind of nice. Sometimes you just need a sweet story to read and this would be it. I’ve read the book and the series before and they get better as the books go along.
Listening to the Audio of this book was a nice way to spend a few hours! Michael Pauley did a good job narrating this one. His voice is really nice to listen to and he does a good job keeping all the voices separate and putting enough emotion into them when needed.

2 people found this helpful

An unusually cute m/m sports romance

Buzz is actually an unusually cute m/m sports romance. Why? Because generally when an athlete is forced to leave his chosen sport as Cameron was, he takes another sports-related job like coaching. So to see Cameron go into beekeeping made it a rather unique storyline. As someone who grew up in the part of the Florida Panhandle where Tupelo Honey is harvested, I have a healthy appreciation for bees and their keepers and found that aspect of the story to be quite lovely.

While I'm not an artist and don't have artistic bone in my body, I appreciated Noah's passion for art and wanted to hunt down the board member(s) who were making his job more difficult than it should have been. Granted, I loved the idea of the hockey-themed art installation at the arena and wanted to see it come to fruition. The description of the metal sculpture that Cam's brother made for the show was spectacular and made all of Noah's hard work worth it.

The relationship between the two men was an enjoyable one. They were well matched and despite some speedbumps and a major (but understandable) omission on Cameron's part, their relationship progressed quite nicely. While their attraction was obvious from the beginning, they took their time getting to know one another before they had sex. And their sexy times were steamy, especially the last one in the book.

While I enjoyed Michael Pauley's narration and thought he did a nice job in bringing Cam, Noah, and the others to life, I enjoy his romantic suspense and thriller performances more. Pauley has an edge to his voice that heightens the intensity and suspense in a scene. As Cam had a couple of confrontational moments in the book, Pauley's edge elevated those scenes.

The sports. The romance. The bees. The Riley Brothers. I'll certainly keep my eye out for future installments in the series to be released to audio as I was definitely entertained and would love to hear Jackson find his forever with Chase.

NOTE: I listened to this title via Audible's Romance Package.

2 people found this helpful

heartwarming story

glad rhey put this book on audio. hope they put the next books out soon

1 person found this helpful

Cameron Riley Finds Love

E Davies has become a favorite author of mine. She writes true-to-life characters and situations that a reader/listener can't help but get lost in the storytelling. In 'Buzz', middle Riley brother Cameron has his hickey career abruptly ended after developing a life-threatening heart condition. After returning home to New Brunswick, he meets local gallery curator Noah. The two quickly fall into what can only be described as the cutest couple ever.

The book makes for a nearly un-pausable listen. Some of the things I love about it: It's nearly angst-free. Cameron and Noah's relationship grows in a completely true-to-life way. All three Riley brothers have featured roles. Now I want to hear Jackson and Thomas' stories as well. My favorite aspect of the book is the smoothly-flowing dialogue written by E Davies and performed by Michael Dean. If you're looking for a story featuring adorable guys falling in love with a terrific setting and plot, this is the one you want.

Michael Dean has also quickly become a favorite of mine. His performance style suits this story perfectly. The voice acting is top-notch.

This audiobook was given to me, at my request, as a free review copy and I have written this voluntary opinion of it.

Highly recommended.

Great narration elevates a "just ok" story

This is the first book in the Riley Brothers series which centers (at least for the first three books) on brothers Cameron, Jackson and Thomas Riley. This book focuses on Cameron (Cam), a pro hockey player on the cusp of being drafted who then has it all unceremoniously ripped away due to an unexpected, undiagnosed heart condition that forces him off the ice, permanently. He returns back home, anxious, lost and confused, not really sure what’s wrong with him and if it can be fixed, and not knowing who he is or what he should do now that his hockey player dreams are gone. Cam temporarily moves in with his older brother Jackson after Cam’s ex-boyfriend (unforgivably) dumps him while Cam is laying in a hospital bed. This book uniquely provides us with Jackson’s point of view, as well as that of Cam and his other half, Noah Clark.

Noah is an art curator putting together a hockey-inspired exhibit and, falling in the “it’s a small world” category, has commissioned a large steel hockey piece from Cam’s brother Jackson. Cam initially meets Noah at a fair where Noah is manning his beekeeping Uncle’s booth, selling homemade honey and beekeeping supplies, and accepts a job as an apprentice working for Noah’s Uncle. Noah and Cam immediately hit it off and from their first touch, it is crystal clear that they have electric chemistry.

Everything in this story is fine - interesting plot, well-developed characters, likeable couple - but it’s really not much more than that. It seemed a bit flat to me in terms of emotional engagement and I’m not sure why because the groundwork was laid. I just couldn’t get invested in either Cam or Noah and the pacing and events were often slow. I think the art exhibit could have been expanded into something more problematic or angsty because those were the parts of the book that seemed the most disconnected from the romance.

Michael Dean’s narration, though, was definitely the highlight. As per usual, his narration is excellent. He embodies these characters with totally distinct voices, and his cadence and pacing are just right, enabling him to achieve just the right delivery for every word he says. I recommend reading and listening to this story because his vocalization of the characters is a definite value add. I’m interested to hear the next book which focuses on Jackson. Ironically, I found him to be one of the most interesting characters from Buzz so there’s definite promise for his own love story in Book 2.

Great listen

I read this book quite a while back and remembered that I liked it so with Michael Dean as the narrator, I knew the audiobook had to be amazing. I was right. Michael does such a great job of bringing characters to life and adding a dimension to the book that would otherwise be missed. It helps when it is such a great story. One unique part is that E. Davies included Cameron's brother Patrick's point of view instead of just keeping it to Cameron and Noah.

I really enjoyed the developing relationship between the two men, especially with everything happening in their lives. The story was well developed in that you could see the natural progression of how things grew instead of everything being shared too soon (or unrealistically).

I look forward to listening to the other books in the series, especially with Michael as the narrator.

Hockey player turned beekeeper

Buzz is the first book in the Riley Brothers series and after finishing the Significant Brothers series, I found it to be similar in feel regarding the pacing, sweet storyline, and characters with a fairly high heat factor.

I was drawn to listen to Buzz because Cameron was a hockey player; but that was not a big part of the story, at least not in terms of time on the ice. It factors in to the overall story theme, but it is not a sports-romance. When Cameron moves home and starts working in bee keeping, I found the transition smooth without any difficulty. The whole story is low-angst.

A couple of things I found not as successful to me for the story was the fact that a couple of chapters were in Cameron's brother Jackson's POV. I was not sure what that was accomplishing to the plot and it confused me when it first came about. Also, I would have liked a little more "wrapping up" of some threads in the story that were left dangling. They may come up again further into the other brothers' stories, but I felt like I was missing a few things at the end.

The narration was very good and made the characters come alive. I enjoyed listening to the story so much that I think liked it better in audio than I would have reading it in print.