Unloved by Katy Regnery

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My name is Cassidy Porter…

My father, Paul Isaac Porter, was executed twenty years ago for the brutal murder of twelve innocent girls.

Though I was only eight-years-old at the time, I am aware – every day of my life – that I am his child, his only son.

To protect the world from the poison in my veins, I live a quiet life, off the grid, away from humanity.

I promised myself, and my mother, not to infect innocent lives with the darkness that swirls within me, waiting to make itself known.

It’s a promise I would have kept…if Brynn Cadogan hadn’t stumbled into my life.

Now I exist between heaven and hell: falling for a woman who wants to love me, while all along reminding myself that I must remain…

Unloved.

Unloved

Original and surprising!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙❤️💚🩷
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪🧪
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: 🙃☺️🙁😋🥰
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Brynn – she is a San Franciscan born and bred. A former bartender, she is now a web site designer. She is grieving her fiancé Jem, who was murdered one night at a concert, along with nearly 30 others. Her car wouldn’t start that night, so she texted him that she couldn’t make it and he was killed not long after that. Nearly two years later, she decided to go for a hike in Maine to his favorite mountain, for closure and to say goodbye.

The Hero: Cassidy – he is the only son of a serial killer. His father was a long-haul truck driver that was only home about three days month, and he was arrested when Cass was only eight. He hadn’t really known his father at all. He had gotten a lot of hate as a child from the other children until his mom pulled him out of school to be homeschooled at his grandfather’s cabin in the shadow of Mount Katahdin in Maine.

The Story: Cassidy’s mother once gave him a book about Adolf Hitler’s nephew’s four sons who moved to America and changed their names, to live in secrecy, each of them promising to never have any kids so the bloodline died out with them. Cass thought his mom, who was dying at the time, gave that to him because of his father. His grandfather talked to him about the fact that both he and Cass’s mother worried about him turning out like his father. Cass, himself worried about that as well, so as an adult, he continued to live off the grid at his grandfather’s homestead.

When Cassidy wants to be near people, he hikes up the mountain, staying out of sight in the woods while listening to other hikers. He sees a group of hikers, which Brynn has been hiking with, and Cass is interested in Brynn, he watches her. He thinks she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

I liked Cassidy and it was obvious from the start that he was nothing like his father. His homestead was completely self-sufficient, and he very rarely had to go to town and got anxious months before he even had to go. His grandfather used to kill one of the chickens for holidays and Cass can’t even bring himself to do that. His mother collected a lot of books on the subject of genetics and whether evil can be inherited. Cass spend way too much time reading those types of books and believing it is possible for him to be like his father. Despite his loneliness, he thinks loving a woman is impossible because he doesn’t want to deprive a woman of children and he won’t have any. Plus, he is afraid he might be a danger to a woman he falls for.

This was a very interesting love story with a lot of angst and moral uncertainty. There was also a bunch of longing and yearning. I really enjoyed both characters, and the world building was terrific. The way Cassidy lived off the grid was well described. There were a lot of details about how he got water, how he used a composting toilet and had solar panels and much more. There were some huge surprises in this story as well, which I loved because it isn’t very often when a romance book is unpredictable and surprises me in a good way.

This audiobook was narrated from multiple perspectives, done in dual narration by Maxine Mitchell and Joe Arden. Maxine has a nice voice and has this quality that sounds anxious that works well for Brynn. Joe Arden is one of my favorite male narrators. He has a deep, sexy voice which I love, and he always does a fantastic job.

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