Sweet story, good narration

Tommy is a sweet, sweet 19 year old college student who has decided it’s time to come out to his family and be the man he always was inside. Part of this decision is his super-stalker-crush on the hot bartender he meets, Mike.
Mike is 40, a porn star and a bar tender at a local gay sports pub. He’s not really looking for a relationship as he’s just gotten out of one where – yet again- his boyfriend couldn’t handle his career.

When Tommy comes out to his family, they disown him, forcing him to re-evaluate his life and priorities. Luckily, his roommate’s family is awesome, and they mostly adopt him and help him with his new look on life.

With their support, Tommy gathers his courage and asks Mike to be his “first”. His first real kiss, and everything.

Mike and Tommy find themselves connecting on a level that neither expected. To Tommy, Mike is everyone he’d ever hoped to find, even if he’d never really defined that. Tommy happens to hit all of Mike’s buttons, both protective and otherwise, despite the age gap.

The big conflict comes when Tommy – who comes from a very strict background with very black and white morality code – finds out Mike’s also a big porn star.

Mike has to decide – what’s more important? His career or his love life?

**

I really enjoyed this book. Tommy was a sweet heart and though he seemed almost too “good” to be true, I appreciated his ability to just set aside the non-sense from his family and concentrate on his own heart. I was glad that he got immediate support from his roommate’s family and that going to school was never the issue.

I also though that Tommy’s attitude about porn and his unwillingness to have Mike in the industry felt very authentic. And while Mike never made it out like porn was anything but work, I was glad that he could see Tommy’s side of things.

The “firsts” were super hot and I loved the chemistry between these two guys.

This was a fun, mostly angst-free look at first love and two incongruous people coming together in a perfect fit.

I’ve always enjoyed KC Wells’ writing and find it smooth, flowing and immersive.

I highly recommend this book and give it 4.5 of 5 stars.

Audio

Gregory Salinas
Gregory Salinas is a new to me narrator. He has a lovely reading voice and he seemed to have a fairly good "grasp of his subject"- meaning he had good timing, infused the appropriate emotion in the dialog and was very easy to listen to. He didn't do a lot for the characters, though I really, really loved his version of Tommy. Just the right mix of innocence, Southern Charm and youth. He didn't do Mike as I'd imagined him - but maybe that's because the model on the cover is a "real person" and I pictured his voice in my head. (Can you picture a voice in your head? LOL) Anyhow... it was an easy listen and definitely a good way to enjoy this sweet story.
Overall 4.5 of 5 stars.

6 people found this helpful

5 stars = I freaking LOVED this audiobook!!!

I received a free copy of this audiobook to listen to and review for Wicked Reads.

Wells strikes a very interesting balance between sweet and naughty in First, and oddly enough, I can relate to both characters for very different reasons. Tommy is a shy young man who was raised in a small town in the Southern Bible Belt, so he was raised to believe that homosexuality is evil, sex is dirty, and he can only make God and his parents happy by building a “traditional” family – a wife and kids. Mike is a middle-aged man who has enjoyed a long and successful career as a porn star, who is proud of his success, yet suffers heartbreak after heartbreak because his partner(s) cannot separate Mike from his on-screen persona, Scott Masters. So how, you ask, can I relate to a sweet farm boy from the south and a naughty porn star?

Yes, I know, you didn’t actually ask that, but I’ll answer your unasked question anyhow. I grew up in a small town in the Southern Bible Belt, so I’m familiar with the religious messages that are spread like gospel among a town’s residents, the never-quiet gossip mill, and the prejudices one faces for being different. As a straight woman, I cannot pretend to know how Tommy felt as he struggled with knowing that God made him gay and reconciling it with the sermons about the evils of sodomy and homosexuality he grew up hearing. But I have seen the prejudices that Tommy would have seen, being practiced out in the open for all to see and can understand why he wouldn’t want to admit to himself or others that he was gay. For me, Wells did a wonderful job of capturing all this in Tommy and his intolerant family.

As for Mike, my best friend, my soul mate, my sexually incompatible significant other, was a gay porn actor for about a decade. I met him at the very end of his career, at a time when he was no longer doing scenes but would still make appearances at events. Because of that, I’m well acquainted with the difference between the on-screen persona and the man behind it. I watched my partner don his porn-persona while we were out and about and witnessed the relief as the weight lifted from his shoulders once he was home and could be a regular Joe again. He loved what he did, loved meeting fans, loved the attention, but he couldn’t be “on” 24/7 because it was an act, a heightened and exaggerated personality. He said, on more than one occasion, that it was a relief to be able to come home to me because he could just be himself. So I can appreciate why Mike was so hesitant to tell Tommy about his porn career. Tommy gave Mike a safe place to be himself, absent of all expectations to be Scott Masters when they were together. Because Mike knew that Tommy did not know about Scott Masters, he knew that Tommy was attracted to, cared about, and wanted to be with Mike – and to be loved for who he was and not a character he pretended to be was something Mike had waited for, for years.

I enjoyed watching the romance between Mike and Tommy play out. The age difference (an issue for Mike) and Tommy’s shyness and inexperience meant there could be no expressway to the bedroom. Even when they finally moved past their mutual admiration of one another from afar (or across the barroom), their first step was to become friends. It was as they spent time together as friends that they recognized the potential for more, especially once Tommy asked Mike to be his first. The gradual development of their relationship, the conflict over Mike’s career, and the realism of the characters make First a 5-star book for me. As for Gregory Salinas’s narrative performance... well done, sir. Salinas does an amazing job with the southern accents; so well that at times I was rolling my eyes at the characters for their run-on words, consonant dropping, and word dropping. Obviously, Wells did a great job of capturing the southern dialect, but Salinas brought it to life and had me feeling like I was back home, listening to my friends chat. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed First and have already listened to it a couple times because Tommy and Mike’s story has a special place in my heart.

2 people found this helpful

Older Porn star, Young Farm college boy, Sexy!

I love older men and stories with older men, and younger men are always on my to-read list. I l also love K.C. Wells as everything she writes is so hot but has a great storyline to balance the heat.
First is a story of Tommy, a young college man that is a virgin with high morals and also comes out to his parent. He gets a crush on an older bartender and once their relationship develops he finds out That Mike is also a porn star.
This is a great story of how life isn't always how we plan.

I listened to this on Audio and was swept into both Tommy and Mike's lives. The story is so hot and interesting. Gregory Salinas Did a fabulous job narrating this story. His voice was mesmerizing. He didn't do a lot of voice changes, but enough that you could tell you was talking. I was drawn into the story and couldn't stop once I started.

If you like older men, coming out, firsts, second chances, romance and scorching man-sex you will love this one!

2 people found this helpful

First

*Audible code was provided to Bayou Book Junkie by Dreamspinner Press in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Tommy grew up in a religious family, in a small southern town on a farm. He goes away for college to study chemistry at his mother's insistence. College life is a lot different than anything Tommy has experienced before and he has a sexually open roommate who opens his world to new experiences. While out with his roommate he finds an ad for a gay sports bar and decides to check it out. At the bar, he meets bartender Mike. Tommy can't take his eyes off Mike and continues to frequent the bar to watch.

Mike notices the young man who comes into the bar and always seems to be watching him. Mike is 20 years older than the innocent young man and hundreds of years older in experience. Tommy doesn't know it but Mike's full-time job is working as a porn star.

Mike and Tommy have to work through a lot of issues but this is not an angsty story.

I haven't read this story but have had it on my TBR pile for a while. The narrator, Gregory Salinas tells a well-paced story. There were quite a few characters but he does well at individualizing their voices.

I enjoyed listening to the story as told by the narrator and would recommend! Even if you've read the book, I think listening to the audible gives a completely different feel to the story and allows you to focus on the characters!

Overall rating: 4 stars
Performance: 4 stars
Story: 4 stars

2 people found this helpful

Not a fan of the narrator

I think it was a good enough story, a bit predictable. But I think the narrator killed it for me. I've listened to some other book read by him so I was reluctant the buy this book but I'm a fan of the author. He reads too dramatically. It doesn't feel natural. It's too over the top which makes the "acting" bad.

2 people found this helpful

Mixed feelings

I liked the story. The execution was a bit lacking. I’m not sure at whose feet to land that complaint.

The narration of this book, while it did have some shining moments, was overall mediocre, often feeling stilted and mechanical. Both writing and narration felt like new artists who hadn’t yet honed their respective crafts.

Since I listened and did not read with my eyes, I am unsure if some of the oddities that jumped out at me were narration errors or the writer’s mistakes not caught by editing, proofreading, and beta readers.

This narrator was new to me. This recording was several years back. I don’t know if he improved his skills over time. He definitely had potential to do so. His performance really drew me in during several emotional or intense scenes.

Bottom line, this audiobook is not as polished as other KC Wells titles I’ve read or listened to. The story is good, but know going in, you’ll need to grade it on a curve while you listen.

1 person found this helpful

Love the narrator's voice!

The story moved along fairly believably until the big porn reveal (I was thankful for Tommy's sake that Ben's family turned out to be so supportive). However, having everything quite so neatly - and quickly! - wasn't quite so. Would also have liked to have some more info on Tommy's birthparental units in a world without their only son, and if that changed their minds any.

1 person found this helpful

First

loved reading this book and it was brought to life on audio. Gregory Salinas did an outstanding job...

1 person found this helpful

great Listen!❤

this story was sweet and everything I wanted it to be. the characters were awesome, the nareation was good and the steamy scenes were plentiful. I would listen again in the future.

Accurately depicted the love is messy theme.

Well written but a whole lot of trigger warnings.

All of the characters are unlikeable and don't really ever soften up but I kinda think that was the whole point of the book.

Love is messy, people are imperfect, being a hypocrite happens, friends make mistakes, misunderstanding occur.

It all felt very real to me or at least in a way I can relate to on how relationships just arnt picture perfect. If you fall for someone you just have to find a way to make it work

Ultimately there was a whole lot of to take in with this book. It was adorable, cute, got me all mushy feeling. But also got me really upset and aching with the rocky road these guys kept going through to get to a point of being happy.

Overall this book was well written and I think very accurately depicts the non perfect ways relations get started.

It was also interesting to get a different POV on the adult film industry. I knew this kinda stuff happened but I always kinda pushed it into the back of my head not wanting to acknowledge it. Unfortunately this book kinda forces you to face the terrible issues that these actors do and some common misconceptions. It really took the sexy out of adult films but in a respectful way.