The Geography of Happiness - Audiobook

🎧 Audiobook Review 🎧
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️️⭐️(⭐️️)
Performance: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️️
Story: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Geography of Happiness is the fourth and final book in the MacKenzie Country series and now Spencer finally gets his story.
He meets Terry from Painted Bay. Some will already know Terry, I haven't read the Painted Bay series yet but will do so soon. Terry is at Miller Station with his daughter Hannah when they have their first encounter with Spencer. I already knew Spencer, he's loving, friendly, likeable and he's a handsome vet. Plus, he himself is amazed at his reaction to meeting Terry for the first time. The chemistry is definitely there, but when it comes to the two of them, it's a slow burn romance. This is partly due to the distance between their homes, but it's also due to Terry's relationship as a father to his daughter Hannah, who has special needs. Terry is very protective when it comes to his daughter and this relationship takes up quite a lot of space, so Terry and Spencer's relationship almost gets a bit of a raw deal.
Of course I was happy to see the other couples in the series again, the author did a good job. In general, I think the author's writing style is wonderful.
The story is entertaining and emotional. The landscape and the scenes are superbly described and I think it's almost a bit of a pity that this is the last volume in the series.

I've been looking forward to this audiobook and I have to say that Gary Furlong's performance was once again absolutely fantastic! He gave each character a fitting voice and I was able to tell them all apart very well. Gary Furlong's narration was very lively and entertaining, so it was a pleasure to listen to the story of Spencer, Terry and Hannah.
I highly recommend the entire MacKenzie Country series!

Another beautiful book in the Mackenzie series. Though in this one the impressive scenery is not as predominant as in the previous ones, the serene, freezing landscape is still one of the actors in the story. As Terry is from Painted Bay, we also get to revisit with our favourite couples from there, so this book is actually filled with beloved (if annoying, according to Terry and Spencer) faces.
Terry might be the one resisting the idea more, having it in his mind that his needs don’t matter and that he has to put everyone’s needs (especially his daughter Hannah’s) first and that he does not have time or anything to invest in a relationship, but it’s just because he’s so scared of opening up his heart. Spencer has his own motives to run scared from relationships, but it’s clear quite from the start that what these two men have with each other is not something that can be ignored or dismissed.
Well, this time Jay Hogan put me in a rough spot: I was certainly rooting for Terry and Spencer to end up and settle together, but where? What did I love more and wished they ended up living? Painted Bay or the Mackenzie? In the end, as Terry said, the geography didn’t matter, only that they love each other and are there for each other.

Edited 3/27/25 to add my comments on the audiobook.
Audiobook Review:
Overall – 5
Performance – 5
Story – 5

In my original review of the eBook, I said this story didn’t hit me as hard emotionally as some of Jay’s other books. I don’t know where my mind was at that time because listening to Gary Furlong’s performance of the audiobook had my eyes leaking many times. The Geography of Happiness is a wonderfully emotional story and I loved it all over again when I listened to it.

Original review:
★彡 5 STARS 彡★

I haven’t read a Jay Hogan book yet that I haven’t loved and The Geography of Happiness is no exception. I’ve said it more than once: Jay’s descriptive writing allowed me to visualize the setting for the Mackenzie Country series and has made me want to visit there.

While this book didn’t hit my emotions as hard as the previous books in this series, Jay still managed to make my eyes leak more than once (a sure sign that I loved it). I so much enjoyed visiting again with Judah, from Off Balance in her Painted Bay series, as well as a few other characters from that series. Having said that, you absolutely don’t need to have read Off Balance to enjoy this new book. TBH, it’s been 4.5 years since I read Off Balance so I didn’t remember all of the details from that story, and I didn’t need to.

The Geography of Happiness is a book where there’s an instant connection between the two MCs but then has the slowest burn before anything spicy happens between Terry and Spencer. While the story deals with the serious subject of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis which affects Terry’s daughter Hannah, there are also light-hearted moments like this one where Terry, who’s from a warner climate, takes a dip in the lake on the Miller Station:

[I gulped some air and then dived under the water, pumping my arms and legs to jump-start some circulation. And when the blessed numbness finally kicked in, I pushed off the bottom and swam the fastest twenty-five metres in the history of the world before beating a hasty retreat back to the shore, cursing and stumbling over the uneven stones with my blue balls lodged somewhere around my armpits; my skin a charming shade of what-the-fuck-are-you-doing corpse white; and a jump-the-queue fast ticket to hypothermia.]

If you enjoy slow-burn romance that includes wonderful characters and very cutes dogs I can heartily recommend The Geography of Happiness.

An advanced copy of this book was provided to me at my request; my review was voluntary and not influenced by the author.