Vespertine cover art

Vespertine

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Vespertine

By: Leta Blake, Indra Vaughn
Narrated by: Michael Ferraiuolo
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Can a priest and a rock star obey love's call?

Seventeen years ago, Jasper Hendricks and Nicholas Blumfeld's childhood friendship turned into a secret, blissful love affair. They spent several idyllic months together until Jasper's calling to the Catholic priesthood became impossible to ignore. Left floundering, Nicky followed his own trajectory into rock stardom, but he never stopped looking back.

Today, Jasper pushes boundaries as an out, gay priest, working hard to help vulnerable LGBTQ youth. He's determined to bring change to the church and the world. Respected, admired, and settled in his skin, Jasper has long ignored his loneliness.

As Nico Blue, guitarist and songwriter for the band Vespertine, Nicky owns the hearts of millions. He and his bandmates have toured the world, lighting their fans on fire with their music. Numbed by drugs and fueled by simmering anger, Nicky feels completely alone. When Vespertine is forced to get sober, Nicky returns home to where it all started.

Jasper and Nicky's careers have ruled their lives since they parted as teens. When they come face to face again, they must choose between the past's lingering ghosts or the promise of a new future.

©2015 Leta Blake (P)2019 Leta Blake Literature & Fiction Romance Heartfelt

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Pictures of You cover art
Training Season & Training Complex cover art
Confetti Hearts cover art
The Lost Fiancé Twist cover art
Patchwork Paradise cover art
Smoky Mountain Dreams cover art
Love Always, Wild cover art
Small Change cover art
Mr. Frosty Pants: A Gay Christmas Romance cover art
Falling in Reverse cover art
Renovating the Model cover art
The New Guy cover art
Sworn Enemy cover art
Devil's Mark cover art
The Alpha and His King cover art
The Sceptic cover art
All stars
Most relevant

Listener received this title free

Vespertine was the very first book I ever read read by Leta Blake, and despite her Heat of Love series being some of my favourite books and audiobooks, Vespertine has always been number 1 contemporary book of all time and have longed for it to be made into an audiobook.
At last here it is, and it didn’t disappoint! Made all the more emotional and enjoyable by the narration of Michael Ferraiuolo.
The characters are well developed with Jasper (Jazz), a catholic priest and co-ordinator of a halfway house for LGBTQ youth and his boyhood friend Nicky (Nico Blue), a famous songwriter/guitarist from the rock band Vespertine, who has come home to recover from years of self destructive sex and drug addiction.
Not being religious myself I found the authors handled Jasper’s faith in a ‘reader friendly’ way, as it was never preaching and he respected those that didn’t hold his belief such as Nicky.
There are difficult subjects handled and addressed such as drug addiction, they are handled with sensitivity and the relationship between Jazz and Nicky was a beautiful loving relationship between two human beings in love and not just developed to titillate.
I can’t recommend this highly enough.

Vespertine - Leta Blake at her best!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
if there's a story that would turn you away from the dark path of drug addiction this would help to know you could be addicted for life. Good story of love winning through. Love this story and the only problem was it kept me listening till two am, I had to know the end.

Addiction heartbrake and love

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Two best friends who chose completely different paths in life get back together. Nico is a star drowned in drugs and dangerous behavior. He goes back home to get better and finds his one true love dress in clergy. This is an interesting book, respectful of beliefs although it is a gay romance. Their worlds collide and true love wins, not without some devilish temptations and lots of praying. I loved both characters. The good in their hearts and how they struggle to make good choices. Very well written and, of course with Mr Ferraiuolo, awesomely narrated.

The rocker and the priest...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

This is a great book. Heavy on the angst and my heart, I was a mess at points listening to this but I trusted the authors to get me to the HEA. These amazing broken characters came together to give a relationship that had UST in spades.
Glorious.

Broken

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Listener received this title free

5 Hungover Stars!

I bought this book on July 2016 and I hadn't had the chance to read it, so when offered the chance to review the audiobook, which is narrated by Michael Ferraiuolo, who is one of my favorite narrators ever, I jumped at the chance and I also kind of roped one of my co-bloggers into reading it with me.

Mari: My next audiobook has the potential to crush me and it has great reviews, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Tracy: Okay. I have no clue what I want to read. Everything is so blah.

Mari: I'm so sorry. ... You could read Vespertine with me and we can cry together. LOL *Copies blurb for Vespertine on chat window*

Tracy: Wow, that sounds awesome.

But then she said she was going to re-read another favorite and we left it at that. Fast forward to the next day:

Tracy: Is this book supposed to have a happy ending. He’s a priest?!

Mari: Yes and yes.

Mari: omg, I'm just starting Nico's part and damn, this is so painful. This book is going to crush us, isn't it?

Tracy: I think so

I could go on and on, I have two days filled with us going back and forth about this book. We pretty much agreed on what we love (Nicky and his parents) and what or rather who we didn't like as much (Jasper).

Nicky's story broke my heart. Pretty much from when he was abandoned in a dumpster to when we first met him and seeing what drugs have done to him to finding out that things started going from bad to worse for Nicky after Jasper suddenly decided to end their romantic relationship and become a priest. I wanted to cuddle him and make it better and tell him how proud I was that he was determined to fight against his addiction. I wanted all kind of wonderful things for him, because I felt he deserved it after he'd gone through so much. And then we have Jasper, who I (and Tracy) wanted to punch or slap or scream at during most of the book. His holier-than-thou attitude certainly didn't help matters and I think Nicky summed up perfectly what I thought of him:

He still looked like a halo was smeared all over him. It wasn't fair. He was a smug, self-righteous, asshole who'd made choices based on bullshit and ruined their fucking lives for it.

While I didn't dislike Jasper as much the last 30% of the book, I found it difficult to completely let go of my resentment that his half-assed apology to Nicky for believing his mother over what he knew about Nicky, and for not talking things through with him before leaving him to follow his calling. I was really angry over this, mostly because of this: 

Mari: Omg, this: So, Jasper is all, well, I'm sorry you're angry, and I'm sorry I didn't talk to you, but following my calling wasn't all that bad for me.

Then Nicky, well, it was for me, I'm a junkie and a whore and I can't even make decent music any longer. I'm mostly paraphrasing here, but you get the gist.

Tracy: Yes. Poor Nicky

Mari: and Nicky says this and my heart is breaking all over the place:

I'd give that all up. I'd give every last bit of it up for you, but you never felt the same. So who isn't able to love, Jasper? Maybe your mom had the wrong boy.

Tracy: Yes!!! He speaks the truth

After that, I was expecting more than just Nicky brushing it off and forgiving Jasper. I was waiting for Jasper to make a huge grand gesture, which I guess he sort of did, even if it wasn't as grand as I would have liked, but okay, I guess it could've been as bad as what I expected, which thankfully didn't happen. 

One thing I can't deny is Nicky's love for Jasper, and while it took me a long time to believe Jasper really loved Nicky as he deserved to be loved, I ended up thinking he did and that they actually had a shot at their HEA. They were undeniably hot together and their chemistry and the UST were out of this world, so there's that. 

I loved Nicky's parents and Ramona, they were just amazing. I loved Lizzie and Jason, too. They were all great supporting characters. I didn't like Mrs. Wells and how judgmental she was of Nicky, although I guess she got better in the end. And of course, I hated Jasper's mother until almost the end of the book, when she had a bit of a turnaround and I actually cheered a bit when Jasper finally told her off. 

While there were a few things I didn't love *cough Jasper cough*, there were a lot of things that I did. Leta Blake and Indra Vaughn are a force to be reckoned with when writing together and they made me feel so much for Nicky. Never mind that Michael's performance was masterful and the depth of the emotions he brought forth with his narration is something I'm not likely to forget any time soon. Definitely a must-read. 

ETA: While I had initially rated this book 4.5 Stars, mostly because of my dislike of Jasper, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this book for the last two days to the point that I had to pick one of my favorite go-to reads for when this happens and I'm still hung on Nicky and Jasper's story, so the new rating reflects that. *sighs* 

Amazing!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews