Game Changer

Game Changers Series, Book 1

By: Rachel Reid

Narrated by: Tor Thom

Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Admirals captain Scott Hunter takes his pregame rituals very seriously. In this case, it's not just a lucky smoothie he's craving - it's the man who made it.

Pro hockey star Scott Hunter knows a good thing when he sees it. So, when a smoothie made by juice bar barista Kip Grady precedes Scott breaking his on-ice slump, he's desperate to recreate the magic...and to get to know the sexy, funny guy behind the counter.

Kip knew there was more to Scott's frequent visits than blended fruit, but he never let himself imagine being invited back to Scott's penthouse. Or kissed with reckless abandon, never mind touched everywhere all at once. When it happens, it's red-hot, incredible, and frequent, but also only on Scott's terms and always behind his closed apartment doors.

Scott needs Kip in his life, but with playoff season approaching, the spotlight on him is suddenly brighter than ever. He can't afford to do anything that might derail his career...like introducing the world to his boyfriend. Kip is ready to go all-in with Scott - but how much longer will he have to remain a secret?

©2018 Rachelle Goguen (P)2019 Tantor

Worst accent

I enjoyed the story but I almost didn’t finish the book because of the narrator’s horrible attempt at a Brooklyn accent.

Sweet story

The story is sweet and ends with a HEA, with just the right amount of angst (minimal). I think if I’d read the book instead of listening to it I might have rated it higher than three stars. I can’t tell because the narration soooo got in the way of my full enjoyment of the story.

While the narrator has a wonderfully deep, pleasant voice, the delivery of the story was stilted, every word was pronounced exactly rather than delivered as someone would naturally speak, and it was as if each character was assigned one emotion and that’s how everything was delivered. I will not even go into how atrocious the accent attempts were. Suffice it to say I was laughing so hard at some points of this story, and it wasn’t because it was a funny bit of writing.

My suggestion? Skip the audiobook and get the ebook or paperback. This story was good enough in spite of the narration that I plan to try reading the next installment.

Game Changers is life. Ilya forever.

The whole series is phenomenal. Just epic. That’s speaking about the books. The audio, however…yikes. I dealt with it but holy bejebus, there’s a lot to be desired when Tor does his Kip accent. Definitely doesn’t do Shawn or Kyle or Carter any services either. Like whoa yikes.

Loved the Story

Great example for those who can be in love and come out to made headway for others.

Ugh the narrator almost ruined it

I almost gave up on this a bunch of times because the narrator. His natural voice was fine and most of the other background characters were fine, but Kip, geez, he’s supposed to be 25 from Brooklyn, and he sounds like and ogre from a under a bridge in a fantasy novel. And Scott was okay most of the time, but the narrator didn’t give him any emotion, except to lower his voice and talk effeminate when he was trying to be sexy.
The story was the only thing that kept me going. But it’s been hard.

how did I miss this?

First I want to say “How did I miss this when it first came out????”
I’m a huge hockey fan and I’ll tell you I get really annoyed when authors don’t know the sport or do a crummy job integrating the sport with the romance.

Rachel Reid does neither.

I read book 2 first, because that’s what I’d requested but I immediately turned around and read this because it was that good!

I can’t say if this one or that one is better because they are so different.

In this we have a “good boy” but closeted and another pretty “good boy” but out who meet. Kip has no real knowledge of hockey and doesn’t even recognize Scott as the star he is.

The author does a terrific job of giving us the regular NHL cities with probable NHL teams with different names. It allows her to lean on our own knowledge of the city and the fan base and the experience without having to infringe on rights or create an alternate world.

I was very impressed by this and her knowledge of the sport.

The romance is really sweet with some smokin’ hot smexy times and the sweetest HEA ever!

I really can’t say enough about this!

If you like Cinderfella stories, hockey, sports romances, coming out stories and sweet love stories – this is for you!


Audio

Tor Thom did a fantastic job with this. He has a lovely deep voice and really tries hard to give all the characters a unique voice to match their persona. He’s a relatively new narrator (to me) but I’ll definitely keep him on my radar for the future! Recommended!


5 stars

Horrible narrator accents

The story is great but the narrator could not possibly be worse.

The Brooklyn accent sounds like a speech impediment. It’s beyond atrocious.

The other main character finishes each sentence with a raised, exasperated inflection- like he’s asking a question. Every single sentence.

If stupid voices ruin an audio book, then avoid this one.

Great Story

Great story... sadly didn't work for me as an audiobook.

One of the worst parts of being a New Yorker is listening to what narrators think a Brooklyn accent should sound like. Serious Shudders! It was torture.

But the romance is fantastic, and Scott's tale is really nicely done. (After reading the other books in this series, it's so great to get that climactic Stanley Cup Kiss in real time.) Wonderful.

Game Changer

Love me some hockey MM romance ❤️ Continuing on my binge of all things hockey and MM stories, I loved this one and am looking forward to continuing the whole series.

Tor Thom’s narration as Scott Hunter was beautiful, however his narration using the Boston accent for Kip was atrocious. I had to keep changing the speed of the narration for Kip to speed it up because it was awful listening to Kip talking at the standard 1.0 level.

Love the book, narration is a terrible

Not that this will surprise anyone if you’ve read any of the other reviews, but the narration is *painfully* bad. If I had listened to a sample before, I never would have purchased.

Zero stars for narration.
5 stars for the story
A GENEROUS 4 stars for the overall score