Catch and Release

The Release, Book 3

By: BA Tortuga

Narrated by: Lou Lambert

Dakota Landry just got out of prison after 12 years. If anyone can understand how that feels, it's his new friend, Sage, who is determined to help him get used to life on the outside - and believes Dakota didn't commit the crime he was in for.

Jayden Wilson is a former prosecutor who agrees to look into the case at the request of Sage's lover, Adam. He sets out to prove Dakota is just another "innocent" ex-con, but once they meet, Jayden is more and more convinced Dakota just didn't do what everyone thinks he did.

Trouble follows Dakota, and nothing is easy as he struggles to figure out how to live, now that he has choices. And Jayden isn't sure how Dakota, or any lover for that matter, fits into his life. Their path from friendship to romance is a slow one, but Dakota begins to believe he deserves a chance at life, and Jayden falls a little more for Dakota every day. Now they just need to tell each other how they feel.

©2016 BA Tortuga (P)2017 Dreamspinner Press

perfect over all

loved the story and the narration was outstanding! very true to the cowboy theme. I am looking forward to more!

4.5 stars

Narration: This was my first by Lou Lambert. He had a deep voice with a lovely southern accent that soothed as he read. The cadence was easy to follow, and he used perfect emphasis where needed. If you write southern-themed MM stories, this is the narrator for you.

Story: As for the story. This was a sweet love story that built over time. I say sweet, but really, Dakota had been through absolute hell in jail. Jayden showed patience and a willingness to work through things. His faith in Dakota’s innocence was amazing and heartfelt. Although this is a series, I started here. I would think it would make the reading of this better knowing the past characters that are in this book, but it wasn’t a must for me. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, but I did want to get the other books by the time I was finished!

At nineteen, Dakota was a chubby, unattractive rich kid that was accused and found guilty of raping a girl at a party. Since his release, things are tough, like the girl’s family harassing him and working for low wages. But he pushes forward and doesn’t let things get him down. He did what he had to in jail—being the laundry whore—to make it through. Because of that, he doesn’t see himself as worthy anymore. Topping that off, his parents abandoned him when he was arrested and told his siblings and the public that he’d died. Now at 32 and recently released, a pen-pal named Sage is making it his mission to help. He meets Jayden through Sage. I liked this character and how B.A. wrote him.

Jayden is a retired prosecutor turned real estate lawyer. He had his own issues, I’m guessing the book before, but it’s explained here in enough detail that I understood what was going on. He agrees to look into Dakota’s case, and he’s shocked to learn that there was DNA evidence that was never tested. So that’s where he starts. His character helped pull me into the story and kept it interesting as things moved. So there is a plot in with the romance.

I enjoyed listening to the story, and I’ll be looking for more in the series.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Not my favorite in the series

This is book three in a series and it’s a heartbreaking group of men BA Tortuga has given us.

We met Sage and Adam in book one – and the hard, hard life Sage led, inspires him to help others, in this case, Dakota.

Dakota is a character that thoroughly smashed my heart to pieces. GAH! I cannot imagine living his life and yet he’s still persevering and trying to live his life when I think many others would have given up. He’s an amazing character.

Jayden is a bit more difficult to pin down. He’s a lawyer, and in the beginning, he’s only interested in Dakota’s case because he’s bored. Later, he admits to maintaining the research into the case because he’s attracted to Dakota. At some point these feelings deepen, but I honestly think it was his “lawyerly” interest that drove this primarily.

I have to say that I’m a big fan of this series and I’d really, loved books one and two. I was looking forward to this once I’d read the blurb because I’ve seen how well BA Tortuga can handle “broken” men and turn them around.

Unfortunately, I was left a little bewildered by the end of this story.

What worked for me: Dakota’s story. It’s one of triumph, perseverance, strong-willed, growth, discovery and faith. If you read this as a story about a man leaving prison and re-discovering life – who happens to be gay – then I think this story “works” really well.

I also loved seeing the guys from books one and two. It’s always nice seeing old MCs and following up in their lives again.

What didn’t work for me was Jayden and the “romance”. Jayden never felt like he really connected with Dakota, or vice versa. I’m just not sure how well they fit. The chemistry wasn’t there nor was there more than just a friendship/lawyer connection. For the reasons given below and more, I just didn’t feel their love like I had with other couples by this author.


(This is a bit of a spoiler – so you can skip it if you want)






The two don’t have "relations" on page and what they do have is at the 98% point and I wonder if that was part of my disconnect. I really wanted to see how Jayden and Dakota managed to have sex given all of Dakota’s issues. I was looking forward to that part of the “hurt/comfort” and the fact that they don’t discuss his time in prison or his outlook on sex or do anything just felt really inadequate and I was disappointed.








(End of spoiler)

I think that this would have been better listed as gay literature, because the bulk of this is Dakota’s life story. Jayden’s presence as his lawyer and friend were more important than as his lover. It was too platonic and didn’t feel authentic to me.

If you’re a fan of the author or this series you’ll probably want to at least give this a look. If you’re new to the author/series I wouldn’t start here.

3 of 5 stars

Audio
Lou Lambert is a new narrator to me and his voice is definitely "western" - which fits the characters, but he's a bit older sounding than I thought the characters would be. He does a fairly nice job as far as being clear and easy to understand. He didn't do a lot to differentiate characters and he wasn't great with expressing different emotions. He gives the listener that "country" feeling and is an acceptable way to listen to this, but it didn't really add to my overall enjoyment, nor did it change my overall rating.

3 of 5 stars