Pieces of the Night, by Jennifer Hartmann | Free Audiobook

The premise puts Maren in an impossible position from page one. She is committed, she is not looking, and she finds Chase Rhodes at his lowest point. What Hartmann resists, consistently, is the easy path. Neither character is made to be obviously sympathetic or obviously at fault. The tension between them builds slowly, which means that when things finally shift, you believe it. There is no moment where you roll your eyes at a convenient misunderstanding carrying the plot forward.

The music thread is handled with more care than I expected. Songs written in the dark, lyrics that carry what the dialogue won't say out loud. It never reads as a gimmick. Hartmann clearly built the entire story around the idea of music as a second language between two people who haven't yet found the words they actually need. The original song she wrote and had produced for the release is a good indication of how seriously she took that idea.

The pacing is patient. For a book running over 16 hours in audio, that patience is tested in a few middle sections, but the final act earns the wait. The moment when the outside world catches up with what Maren and Chase have built in private is the book at its sharpest. Hartmann doesn't soften it, and that restraint pays off completely.

On the narration: Angelina Rocca and Austin Stone each take their character's chapters in a true duet format. Rocca is the stronger of the two in the quieter scenes, which is where the book spends most of its time. Stone handles Chase's chapters without overplaying the damage, which is precisely the right call for this character. At 16 hours and 16 minutes, neither narrator lets the pacing drift. The booth work matches the page work.