I was really looking forward to the audiobook because the narrator, Will Watt, also narrated 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall, which is one of my all time favourite audiobook performances. His performance in Waiting for the Flood is also fantastic, and I'm so happy I got to listen to it.

I really like Waiting for the Flood. It's a pretty melancholic sweet story, and one I would absolutely love to listen to in audio format on a rainy day. Edwin spends a lot of his time in the story grieving over the relationship he had with his ex Marius. Adam, Edwin's love interest, is a ray of sunshine though, and every conversation they have is lovely. My only complaint with this story when I read it before this new rerelease was that the ending is a bit too abrupt for me, but this edition with Marius's story, Chasing the Light, and the Aftermath epilogue solve that problem for me.

I really loved Leo and Marius's romance. It's a great second-chances kind of a story - not in that it's a second-chance romance for them (they're complete strangers), but in the fact that Leo is starting his life over, and Marius has been dwelling in his own misery for so long that meeting Leo helps him realise he doesn't HAVE to be miserable if he doesn't want to be.

The last part of this story sees Edwin and Marius interacting with each other and clearing the air a bit of the resentment they both hold after their breakup, and GOD this segment gave me a good cry. I really loved this and it ties both stories together beautifully.

And finally, the epilogue, which is incredibly sweet, told from Edwin's perspective as he and Adam are on holiday and go to visit Marius on Leo's boat. They don't meet Leo, but as they leave they turn to see Marius and Leo interacting, and it's absolutely adorable. It's such a wonderful ending for both couples in this book.

I've read "Waiting for the Flood" in physical form and absolutely loved it. And I think the audio was even better. Will Watt does such a good job narrating and capturing the emotion in this story. It's a shorter story than most of Alexis Hall's other work, especially the rest of the Spires series, but it doesn't lack in heart or in the romantic build up between Edwin and Adam.
This is easily a cozy comfort audiobook.

Normally I love Hall’s work, but I couldn’t get into this one. The tone was just too dark for me. It feels more like literary fiction than romance. I enjoyed the audiobook narration.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this audiobook ARC.

I’ve listened to a few books narrated by this narrator and they were all great. In fact, I think this narrator was the best thing about reading these two novellas (which needed better sign posting, as an aside, as it was confusing when the book switched).

I’ve loved many of Hall’s books (huge fan of Something Fabulous), but unfortunately I did not enjoy Waiting for the Flood. It was one of the most pretentious books I’ve read. There is an air of pretentiousness in Hall’s other books, but this one was on another level. The writing was loaded with metaphors on metaphors, and there was constant and extreme use of unnecessarily complex language. I knew this was in part due to the lead character’s work, but unfortunately it made the experience a slog. I don’t mind dense and verbose fiction, but this felt like the author was trying to prove something at the expense of the reader experience. If I had been reading a physical copy I would have DNFed. I only finished the audiobook because of the narrator’s ability to breathe the right life and style into the text. I didn’t buy into the Insta-love. And I didn’t like either of the leads.

Chasing the Light was a bonus that I wasn’t expecting. It was marginally better than Waiting for the Flood, but the novella length failed to set up a realistic timeframe for the romance.

Throughout both, it was very off-putting having the exes constantly thinking of each other. It created a sense of dread/concern for the new relationships that were being built.

In short: not for me, but the narrator got me through.

Heartfelt and a bit depressing, this was a combination of starting over after a breakup and moving on, heavily influenced with some dark, mental health struggles. I didn't love this one as much as the first book in the series and found the dual novella format a bit hard to keep straight when things switched POVs but overall it was a spicy, moving MM love story featuring two sides of a breakup. Recommended for fans of authors like Timothy Janovksi and good on audio. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy of this reissue which included recipes!

Waiting For The Flood by Alexis Hall (audiobook narrated by Will Watt)
☀️☀️☀️⛅ (3.5 stars)

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC audiobook!

I'll admit I was a bit confused when I reached the 30% mark and the story completely changed! Now I realise this is a combination of two novellas - but only the first is described or named, which I find misleading - I'd prefer the title and description to reflect the two stories being distributed together.

Now for the stories themselves:
Waiting For The Flood is the titular story. I liked Edwin as a narrator and the romance, albeit rushed, was sweet. The supporting characters both added humour and depth, but ultimately the length of this was my biggest problem - I wanted more! The story ended just as the plot started progressing into interesting territory.

Chasing The Light is the second story told here, following Edwin's ex Marius through his own romance. I found the length of this story better to spread out the romance, which was still rushed but somehow more believable to me contextually. Where I felt it lacked a bit was the depth of characterisation - Marius has interesting backstory components that weren't explored enough for me to totally connect to him as a character, but the overall shape and style of this novella was definitely enjoyable.

Aftermath helped to converge the two MCs in a more resolved fashion - this had more depth than I'd expected for its length, which was appreciated.

Will Watt's narration was impressive and appealing in both stories, especially so in Edwin's dialogue where he added a lot to his emotional response to stuttering.



"This is the story of my life: standing on the edge of things and worrying when I'm supposed to just walk through them."

I'm so glad these books are getting republished.

This is on par this Hall's other works of the genre. This could work great for readers who enjoyed his other contemporary queer romance works. I haven't read all of their published work, but I'm slowly working on it!

The mc is clearly Hall's character, with distinct characterization, angst and "self-hate", while still feeling original and different than their other mcs. This time around I personally wasn't that invested in the mc and his relationship' but it's mostly a right-time-and-place issue and not something against the novel.

Great narrations! The delivery managed to convey the mc's emotions very clearly, although I wish the audio quality was a bit better so even the softer word were easier for me to pick up when the audiobook was sped up.

The bonus material was a nice touch!

Thank you Netgalley and dreamscape media for the alc. My opinions are my own. Alexis hall is a fabulous story teller and this is my new favorite book by them. Great narration definitely recommend this book to those that read mm romances.