Loud and Clear

Title: Loud and Clear
Author: Aidan Wayne
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Release Date: May 23, 2016
Genre(s): Contemporary
Page Count: 93
Reviewed by: Crabbypatty
Heat Level: 1 flames out of 5
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Blurb:

Jaxon is getting by fine, severe dyslexia or not. Being a cab driver means he doesn’t need to read much, and the job has its perks. The pay isn’t bad, the people can be interesting, and having memorized the city streets keeps him from feeling too stupid.

When he picks up Caleb, a quiet fare in a nice suit, Jaxon doesn’t think anything of it. Then he ends up driving Caleb home the next week too, and the next, and the next. Eventually Caleb tries to communicate—by writing things down. Turns out that Caleb has such a bad stutter he spends most of his time mute.

If only Jaxon had an easier time reading what Caleb had to say. But he’s interested in trying, and Caleb seems interested back. They discover that, with a little bit of effort, it isn’t so hard to make themselves understood. Especially when what’s growing between them is definitely worth talking about.

Wow, Loud and Clear is Aidan Wayne’s first book. It’s a lovely story and I’m looking forward to reading more from this new author.

The plot is simple – Caleb, a successful executive in a demanding marketing job, needs a cab ride home every Tuesday night from the bar, due to a work-mandated evening of drinking and corporate “bonding.” Jaxon, the cab driver who picks him up weekly, is dyslexic and cannot read well, believing himself to be “dumber than a box of rocks” (yet he has basically memorized the entire city in order to do his job.) Caleb stutters and ASL is his preferred mode of communication, followed by writing notes … which Jaxon cannot read.

Despite this, they find a way to communicate and start a romantic relationship that slowly develops throughout the course of the book … without huge amounts of angst or miscommunication or insane plot points and drama and, get this, no sex scenes. Loud and Clear holds your interest from start to finish and every last scene in the book fits beautifully into the story.

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