I’d seen Cosmic Kiss by Clio Evans floating around for a bit and finally decided to give it a read, just to see what the hype was about. Unfortunately, it didn’t take a hold of me as I hoped it would. Part of it might be the fact that I listened to this as an audiobook, but I think the stronger part is simply that I’ve read better.
The audiobook wasn’t done as well as other romance dual narrator audiobooks. Don’t get me wrong, the quality was fantastic and I loved the voices of both Ehlen Valentine and Gregory Salinas. What didn’t do it for me was the way the audio parts were split. During Stella’s chapters, Valentine would voice Stella’s narration, but also Zin and Toras’. Salinas would do the same during Zin and Toras’ narrations. It just pulled me way out of the story. If Zin or Toras were talking during a Stella chapter, they should have had Salinas narrate that dialogue and vice versa for Stella. Also, partway through the book, I could not differentiate between Salinas’ Zin voice and Toras voice. I get that it was likely cheaper to get one person to narrate two male characters, but it just didn’t pay off for me.
Writing wise, it left a lot to be desired. The amount of times the word fuck was uttered was about twenty times too many. I hate romance/erotica where they constantly write out the vocalizations during sex. Like, we get it. I don’t need you to tell me they said Fuck, or ooo, oh, ahhh. Once okay, but every single time? Repetitive and annoying. Then, there’s the way I don’t feel Cosmic Kiss really understood what it was trying to be. About two thirds of the book was sex, which if it was just a spicy read between mates I’d be good with. But then, we have an actual romance trying to be sprinkled in with what seemed like a detailed background. And then, we also get a mystery crammed in because why not. If the story had focused on the romance and the spice, it would’ve been really good. If it had focused on the mystery and had the spice secondary, I think it could’ve been good as well. Instead, we have 75% sex scenes and plot sprinkled in as a far afterthought. When I said I’d read better, I meant The Naughty List by Jade West. That had an underlying story (make enough to see her parents) and nonstop explicit sex of so many different variations with a bit of romance thrown in for color. Cosmic Kiss just failed to find that balance.
I’m sad to say I don’t think I can recommend Cosmic Kiss by Clio Evans, especially not the audiobook version. Maybe the written book is better because it is faster/easier to skim read it, but even then, I don’t think anyone picks up a book with the intention to do a quick skim read. Certainly not for $5 or $6 USD. If you just want quick m/m/f porn and can ignore the rest, you might enjoy this. But if you’re someone like me that can’t simply ignore a third of the book, steer clear.
