🎧 Berls Reviews Catch Me If You Can #COYER

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Catch Me If You Can by Christina C. Jones
Narrator: Leon Nixon, Wesleigh Siobhan
Series: If You Can #1
Published by Tantor Audio on May 25, 2021
Genres: Mystery, Romance
Length: 7 hours 24 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads

Diligence. Focus. Agility.
For Naomi Prescott, it’s not just a cute little saying. It’s a critical mantra, words to live by if she wants to retain her freedom, and more importantly, her life. Impeccable planning is the only way to ensure she sets off the small flutters that will trigger the big ripple she needs to pull off the score of a lifetime — no matter the stakes.
FBI Agent Marcus Calloway is a straight-shooter… if you overlook his sometimes unconventional, law-skirting, expensive ways of solving a case. A big arrest would do wonders to restore his reputation, and he has one woman in mind: Jolie Voleuse
Unforeseen circumstances force them into a closer proximity than either — especially Naomi — would like to be. Sparks fly, and as surely as fire ignites,eventually their undeniable chemistry combusts into a passion that neither expected as they join forces in the dangerous pursuit of a common bounty.

My top thoughts:

I don’t read many of these kinds of books – with FBI agents and espionage – but I did enjoy this one and I think I would like to continue the series. I like the characters and I am interested to see where things go.

What I liked/didn’t like:

This is an enemies-to-lovers meets fake romance story – which are both among my favorite tropes. So that definitely worked for me. Naomi’s character development was strong. She is a very complex character, who’s dealing with a constant pull and push between her feelings for Marcus and the fear of letting her guard down/forgetting the job she’s been focused on since she was a teen. And then you have Marcus; I was less impressed with his character development. He starts off a pretty straightforward “good guy” FBI agent, focused on closing cases and not really getting nuance IMO. By the end, he’s emerged as someone who sees the gray area, and some things he’s doing (spoiler territory) paints him a very different light. It was kind of whiplash for me, since we’d been getting his POV as well and never saw this.

The story has a nice pace, with a balance between romance (which gets sizzling!) and then the spy elements. There were some definite hold your breath moments and I’m very interested to see where things will end up. I’m also curious to see development of some of the other characters – there were some surprise twists near the end that I think could result in some very interesting story lines.

Narrator thoughts:

I listened to Catch Me If You Can, which was dual narrated by Leon Nixon and Wesleigh Siobhan. I thought they complimented each other well, with no real disconnect when the chapters switched POV/narrators. They both delivered consistent voices and I enjoyed listening at 2x speed. I do think that Leon Nixon’s narration for Naomi produced a stronger feeling of the characters being African American than Wesleigh Siobhan’s narration did, but that was the only significant difference. I will happily listen to them both again in future books (assuming they continue narrating the series.

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