This Then Is What Counts

By: HJ Brennan

Narrated by: Luke Welland

“This Then Is What Counts” renders an unlikely, contemporary couple bound in love and forced into a tragic odyssey.

James is thirty-something and emotionally adrift when he encounters a tall, heroic and deserted June. They work and sweat side-by-side on a historic construction project in the forest along the Chesapeake. Their mutual passion is lit, June' s secrets are revealed, and love and life are threatened.

Twenty-five years later, James is alone. He reflects on that short time he and June shared. It seems like yesterday, and she was bigger than life and the only love he' s known. It was a physical year of working with their hands and enjoying their bodies, and they took hold of those days and swung them over their heads. When June' s troubled past showed up, she laid out her options: “ I either fight hard, run hard, or I' m screwed.” They ran. As James tells the story in his darkly comic and unsettled retirement, a mystery builds as to why he' s alone when his memories of that single year with June present such a wide-screen love.

©2024 H J Brennan (P)2024 H J Brennan

A melancholy trip through other eyes

Life often takes us on a meandering course of seeking purpose, occasionally finding it, and establishing short- and long-term relationships. This story ebbs and flows on such a journey as our main characters alternate between running from something and running to something and the decisions that take them from city to city across the country for days or months at a time, An excellent narration by Luke Welland sets the tone and the tension while the story takes us to varied locations adorned with diversely interesting people. There's a good deal to ponder after it's done, and opportunities to reflect on the actions and outcomes.

poetic, poignant and well-performed!

A story of love and loss, beautifully weaved by HJ Brennan with wonderful prose and vivid imagery. Welland's narration was also outstanding and thoughtful with just the right amount of emotion and storytelling-wonder. Can recommend this audiobook for fans of American road trip adventures, those who will do anything for love, and anyone who likes to be taken away by a good 'ol fashion character drama.