I’m over at Dear Author with a review of A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone. Super hot, super funny and super sweet all at once. Recommended.
Tag: contemporary (Page 11 of 118)
The Best Man Problem by Mariah Ankenman, narrated by Charlotte North. Didn’t love the conflict at the end but otherwise a fun listen with great narration.
I’m a big fan of Charlotte North’s narrations and this led me to try a new-to-me author so I can get more of her in my ears. The Best Man Problem is book two in the Mile High Happiness series but can be read as a stand alone with no problems at all.
Lilly Walsh and her two BFFs run Mile High Happiness, a wedding planning business in Denver. (I admit I don’t know much about the wedding planning business but the setup of Mile High Happiness seemed a little unusual to me in that it seems that Lilly does the actual wedding planning and the other two women run other aspects of the business.) The book starts with what I assume is the wedding of the couple who were the protagonists in book one. Lilly is a bridesmaid for her best friend and has a hot one-night-stand with a handsome man she meets in the hotel bar after the event. It’s unusual for her (not that it matters if it wasn’t) but Lilly had an amazing time and can’t stop thinking about the man she only knows as Lincoln. From their conversation in the bar, she believes he’s in town for business and isn’t staying so she doesn’t think there is any chance a relationship could come of it.
Then Lilly’s next clients come in and introduce their best man – and you guessed it: it’s Lincoln! Not only is he the best man but he’s moved to Denver after a messy divorce (two years ago) and in fact there is no barrier to a long term relationship for he and Lilly except for two things: Lilly has a strict “no dating a member of the wedding party” rule and Lincoln is soured on relationships and happy-ever-afters following the implosion of his marriage. Still, the attraction between Lilly and Lincoln is intense and they keep being thrown into one another’s orbit. Add to that a matchmaking bride and BFFs who don’t mind meddling and, as the wedding draws near, the couple are rethinking their attitudes.
I enjoyed the banter and the chemistry between the love interests and I liked the humour of the story and the general feel-good vibe of it. What I didn’t love is the conflict near the end. Lilly’s rule about not dating a member of the wedding party is as a result of a lesson hard learned and when she tells Lincoln about it, after the wedding and they’re free to explore things with each other, his reaction is pretty terrible. Lincoln’s ex-wife was a cheating cheater who cheated and he clearly has some work to do to put it behind him and be able to move on. As we all know, just because one relationship ends doesn’t mean they all do. The way he took his ex-wife’s behaviours out on Lilly was not okay with me. And, I didn’t really see him doing the work of processing his feelings so that I had confidence he wouldn’t massively overreact again. Lilly was altogether too forgiving in my view.
Still, overall, I did like both Lilly and Lincoln and I wasn’t unhappy they ended up together. It’s just that I’d have liked Lincoln to have either not freaked out the way he did or, having done so, made better reparations than a grand gesture. The man needed therapy!
Charlotte North’s narration was, of course, a delight and that made the story all the more enjoyable. Ms. North has a lovely tone and cadence to her voice generally which makes it pleasing to hear but she also delivers on character voices, emotion and humour. Her comedic timing is very good. I especially liked here that she had a distinct voice for all three of the ladies of Mile High Happiness.
The only thing I don’t love about Ms. North’s narration is a personal pet peeve when it comes to audiobooks. When there’s reference to a chuckle or a cough or similar, I want to either hear it in the dialogue or hear it described in words – but not both. She will do the “he coughed” and then make a coughing noise. Do not like. Like I said, this is a personal pet peeve and probably plenty of other listeners could not care less about it.
Most of The Best Man Problem was a lot of fun, though not without touching on some heavier topics (the bride Lilly is working with is a cancer survivor, cheating ex-partners on both sides and a problematic parental relationship) and the narration was very good. Lincoln showed his feet of clay near the end though and didn’t quite manage to convince me – though the epilogue some months later did help a little.
Grade: B-
Thank You For Listening by Julia Whelan, narrated by Julia Whelan. A delight for my ears.
Julia Whelan has long been one of my very favourite narrators. I love the way she presents characters, her emotion, her style, and, at base, I just like her voice. It’s very pleasing to my ear. She’s a talented actress who brings those skills to her performances as well and that combination is just killer. Any romance narrated by Julia Whelan will get my attention and so, as soon as I established that Thank You For Listening does in fact have a HEA, I was all grabby hands.
Sewanee (pronounced “Swanny”) Chester is an actress who lost her career when she also lost an eye in an accident seven years before the book begins. She turned to audiobook narration, at first in romance, under the pseudonym, Sarah Westholme. But Swan, as she most commonly goes by, doesn’t believe in love and happy ever afters and got out of romance and into general fiction, using her real name.
While at a book convention in Las Vegas, she meets “the rake” (the chapters have titles) and they have one hot night together. She uses the alias, Alice, on the basis of “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” and only knows Nick by his first name. His Irish charm is winning though and Swan keeps thinking about him when she returns to LA.
Swan’s beloved grandmother has dementia and is an assisted living facility. She will soon need more care and that is going to cost a lot of money she doesn’t have, so when a fantastic offer is made to revive Sarah Westholme one more time for a duet narration with the fan favourite, Brock McKnight, Swan says yes.
Brock is famously secretive about his true identity (think someone like Sebastian York – although Brock is emphatically NOT York – more on this later) but his voice has apparently melted panties all over the USA and probably parts of the rest of the world too. For myself, I don’t think of narrators quite that way. I do appreciate a sexy voice (I mean, who doesn’t?) but I don’t then sexualise the narrator. Apparently there are a lot of (mainly) women who do. There’s a whole world over on Facebook I’m only peripherally involved in. Brock is uncomfortable with the way he’s been sexualised by his fandom and doesn’t really love audiobooks or romance but he’s good at it and it’s a living. Brock has his reasons for the way he feels which I won’t go into here because spoilers but I admit I had mixed feelings about both narrators in the novel not liking romance. To be honest, I couldn’t help but wonder…
Which brings me to that “more on that later” I mentioned earlier. Right at the end of the audio is an author’s note chapter titled “on Autobiography” where Ms. Whelan talks about how the book came to be and specifically says that Swan is not her (even though they do share some commonalities, which she details) and that Brock is not based on any narrator from real life. Brock is a work of fiction and so is Swan. I was relieved to hear that Ms. Whelan loves her job. I’m really glad she included that chapter because as she mentions at the beginning of it, the nature of her actual job and the characters in the book mean there will inevitably be questions about just how fictional the story is.
Some of the book is nonetheless fairly meta – discussion about not outing a narrator’s pseudonym for example (don’t do that) and about some of the more rabid areas of the romance fandom are true, and the nuts and bolts of audiobook narrating are rooted in reality. Because of that mix of real and fictional, it was, I think, especially important for her to be clear and I’m glad she was.
Back to the book. As Sarah and Brock begin to record their duet narration for what is a serial to be released weekly in eight parts, they start to trade texts and emails and build a connection outside of work. It’s flirty and fun and sexy. They grow closer and eventually they decide to meet. In person. In real life. This is a BIG deal. Both are nervous.
For the listener there are many questions. Brock’s voice is not Irish so he can’t be Nick, so who is the HEA going to be with? Will there be a love triangle? Is Brock good-looking or does he just have a sexy voice? What will Swan think of him when they actually meet? Where’s Nick? Is he coming back or was Nick kind of a breaking of a seal which enabled Swan to open herself to Brock? Where, exactly was this promised HEA coming from? So many questions!
There are also family issues with Swan’s father and grandmother, unresolved issues related to Swan’s accident and her grief about it, the possibility of acting again with her best friend and fellow actor, Adaku. I have to mention that I fell a little in love with Swan’s mother’s new partner, Stu. He was so funny and sweet. I laughed hard at the text messages he sent.
Thank You For Listening is a hybrid of women’s fiction and contemporary romance but there is definitely a romance and a very satisfying one too. In some ways, it is two books, smushed together; there are particular sections which are very romance-y and others which are not. As for heat, there’s not a lot of on-page sex but what there is brings some steam. I didn’t feel robbed.
The narration, of course, is stellar. I very quickly cared about the characters and Julia Whelan’s vocal performance only added to my enjoyment. Because Ms. Whelan also wrote the book, she knew the characters inside out and that had to be an advantage when she was performing them.
Audio narration is acting and the best narrators do more than just read us a story. There’s a bit of discussion in the novel about AI maybe eventually being a significant player in audiobook narration and I cannot tell you how vehemently I rejected the idea. But, as the novel points out, there is an entire generation of listeners who may not know the difference. How sad that would be for them.
Grade: A
Bet On It by Jodie Slaughter, narrated by Angel Pean. Much heavier in tone than I expected.
I’m usually really good at ignoring a cover image and not falling for the “illustrated cover equals romantic comedy” trap but with Bet On It I slipped and fell in. To be fair, there is a content note right in the beginning saying that the book deals with mental illness, which I knew already from the blurb:
The first time Aja Owens encounters the man of her dreams, she’s having a panic attack in the frozen foods section of the Piggly Wiggly. The second time, he’s being introduced to her as her favorite bingo buddy’s semi-estranged grandson. From there, all it takes is one game for her to realize that he’s definitely going to be a problem. And if there’s anything she already has a surplus of, it’s problems.
In Walker Abbott’s mind, there are only two worthwhile things in Greenbelt, South Carolina. The peach cobbler at his old favorite diner and his ailing grandmother. Dragging himself back after more than a decade away, he’s counting down the days until Gram heals and he can get back to his real life. Far away from the trauma inside of those city limits. Just when he thinks his plan is solid, enter Aja to shake everything up.
A hastily made bingo-based sex pact is supposed to keep this…thing between them from getting out of hand. Especially when submitting to their feelings means disrupting their carefully balanced lives. But emotions are just like bingo callers—they refuse to be ignored.
but I really wasn’t expecting the book to be as heavy in tone as it was. After all, there’s a sex pact! Those expectations affected my experience of the book. Dear AudioGals reader, if you do not have the same expectation going in, this book may well work for you much better than it did for me.
The mental health representation in the book is excellent. It’s accurate and sympathetic. And detailed. At times it felt more like a primer for how to be friends with someone with a mental illness than a romance novel. The focus on mental illness and mental health took up a lot of real estate in the novel which I also wasn’t expecting.
There is a strong focus on Aja making friends in her new town, which was incredibly important to her but it, too, took up a lot of space in the story which wasn’t time she was with Walker. I love strong female friendships, but I really love a lot of the main characters together and given a choice I’ll pick the latter most of the time. This is very much a personal preference so YMMV.
There were some laughs for me in the book (the reference to an intervention for example) but they were few and far between.
More than anything else though, it took a long time for anything to happen and there was a lot of detail about the things that did, which only served to slow the pace down. I found myself getting bored and interrupting the book to listen to other things instead. Always a bad sign.
I’ve read and listened to plenty of novels with great mental health rep which were also moving, entertaining, funny and/or otherwise very enjoyable. But Bet On It felt very dense to me (mostly because of that slowness factor) and there were too-few lighter moments to break things up. I had been hoping for lots of snappy banter; more zing and sizzle, less internal monologuing.
The sex was scorching hot though. Ms. Slaughter sure knows how to write a sex scene.
The narration was good but not good enough to get me over the hurdle of the slow pace of the story and its density. The character voices were well differentiated. I particularly liked Miss May’s characterisation.
I’m honestly not sure if Ms. Pean’s pacing was just a little slow or if it was entirely the story but either way, I found myself impatient for things to move faster.
I liked the accents used for the various characters and the differentiation given to them. I would certainly listen to Ms. Pean again.
I’d also listen or read more from Jodie Slaughter but I might do a bit more research first so that my expectations were better calibrated beforehand.
Grade: C
Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan, narrated by Hillary Huber. I was worried about a bait-and-switch there for a while but everything turned out okay in the end!
Nora Goes Off Script is fairly simple in its premise. A woman who writes a screenplay and the production uses part of her house for some of the filming. The lead actor asks to stay on for reasons and offers to pay an exorbitant rate per day for the privilege. She could use the money so says yes and while he’s staying in her “tea house”, they fall in love. (The road to true love never runs smooth of course, so there’s a bit more to it than that.)
Nora usually writes scripts for The Romance Channel and she uses a fairly similar formula so there’s something a bit meta about it all – something which the author and Nora lean into over the course of the book. I didn’t take it as a dunk on romance; the formula works for a reason. But with all that foreshadowing about how romances usually work, it stands to reason that there’d be a plot twist here.
In fact, for quite a while I wondered how it was going to work out. For a reasonable amount of time in the latter half/third of the book I didn’t think much of Leo Vance and did not see how a HEA could happen that I could accept – at least, not with him. But then I’d look at how much I had left of the listen and started to stress about whether there’d be time for a believable romance for Nora with someone else. I wondered if this was a “women’s fiction” book mislabelled as a romance; I wondered if it was a romance at all (yes, I went to some dark places!). I wondered if there’d be a bait and switch and a new love interest would turn up in the last chapter. I wondered whether I’d need to throw my iPod across the room.
I’m here to tell you that the book is not mislabelled. The romance is ultimately very satisfying and I did not see what I’ll call the plot twist coming. (I’m calling it that because I don’t want to give spoilers away not because that’s necessarily the best term for it.) I ended up enjoying the book more because I didn’t know how it was going to end so I don’t want to ruin it for others.
Nora Hamilton is a divorced mother of two. She’s been pretty much the sole parent even before her husband, Ben, left her. He was a jerk who wanted everyone to do everything for him and who thought the world revolved around him. To process her feelings, she writes a script, based on the breakdown of her marriage. It’s most definitely not a romance and her agent shops it to a major studio which snaps it up. Big Hollywood actors are cast and they want to use the tea house on her rural property to film some pivotal scenes. Leo Vance plays the “Ben” character – although in the movie The Tea House, his name is Trevor. Leo is clearly struggling with something while he’s there filming but seems to find a measure of peace in the sunrise. In the words of Nora’s 8-year-old daughter, Bernadette, the sun “comes up here”. Of course it comes up everywhere every day but there is something special about Laurel Ridge, New York, and their house in particular. Leo clearly sees it so he makes Nora an offer she can’t refuse; he will pay her a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week.
Arthur, Nora’s 10-year-old son, has been cast as Fagin in the school musical Oliver! and as Leo begins to learn the rhythms of Laurel Ridge and Nora’s regular routine, he finds himself helping Arthur run lines and then agreeing to stay until opening night three weeks away.
Nora, Arthur and Bernadette all fall in love with Leo. He’s gorgeous and funny and he’s self-deprecating in a way that’s unexpected for a such a big star. I did have a little trouble believing he didn’t really know how to go grocery shopping (surely there was a time before fame for him?) but it was amusing anyway.
It’s hard to imagine Leo actually staying in Laurel Ridge though. Nora has a very strict routine, built to keep her life running in all the ways and its equally hard to imagine Nora changing her life to be with Leo.
There’s far more about Nora than anyone else in the story which is to be expected given that it’s told in her first person (present tense) perspective.
When things inevitably fall apart (because of course) there’s a large portion of the book and quite a bit of time (months and months of time) where it’s just Nora and the kids. The longer this section went on the more worried I got. And this was also where I didn’t like Leo much. I had reasons.
The narration by Hillary Huber is very good. She gives Nora a cynical, somewhat jaded edge which was in keeping with the text but turned up a few notches. The cadence of the performance is a little different; sometimes it felt more like Ms. Huber was reading a list but this worked as well. Nora is kind of like that.
I liked Ms. Huber’s male character voices (although they mostly sounded the same, with Martin, the director of The Tea House, being the notable exception) and her kid voices were solid as well.
There were some moments I laughed out loud, mostly because of Nora’s dry wit and, rendered in Ms. Huber’s tone, I think it worked even better for me than it would have on the page.
Ordinarily in a romance I prefer to spend more time with the love interests together and, as a hero-centric listener, I prefer a lot more of the hero. Here, it was sometimes difficult for me to tell who that actually was or even if there was one. But the structure of the story required it and in the end it paid off for me.
Grade: B
The Bodyguard by Katherine Center, narrated by Patty Murin. Fantastic narration and a funny contemporary romance – but note some heavier topics in there including parental death, death of a sibling and cancer. But if those things aren’t dealbreakers, this one comes with a big recommend from me.
I suppose The Bodyguard would be categorised by many as a “romcom” but, funny as it is (and it really is) I shy away from the term. For starters, it suggests light and fluffy and the very first thing that happens in this book is the female lead’s mother’s death. While that part isn’t on page; the story begins the evening of the funeral.
The male lead character’s own mother is dealing with breast cancer (although she has an excellent result). There’s also reference, in the past, to domestic abuse (the heroine’s mother), alcoholism and death of a sibling (the hero’s brother). Those are all heavy things. While I wouldn’t describe this book as depressing, the topics covered are far too serious for the term “romcom” to sit well with me.
Instead, it’s a very funny contemporary romance, with low heat (that’s fine – it really didn’t need it) with the main characters facing some big issues over the course of the book.
Hannah Brooks is an Executive Protection Agent (aka bodyguard). She travels the world from her Houston base, providing protection services to the wealthy and sometimes famous. Up until the day after her mother’s funeral, she was dating a co-worker, Robbie. But he dumps her (he’s a real piece of work) and within the space of a month, Hannah has lost her mother, her boyfriend and her best friend (Robbie dates her next).
Hannah is not generally a warm and fuzzy type. She’s focused, mainly on work. She describes herself as a “shark” who needs to keep moving. When she’s still there are too many hard things to think about and she’d really rather not.
The agency Hannah works for has picked up a new celebrity client; Jack Stapleton. Jack is a famous Hollywood actor who has been reclusive for the past few years since the death of his younger brother, Drew, in a car accident. There are rumours, unsubstantiated and well quashed by Jack’s publicist, that he was driving drunk and that is what caused the accident. He’s been living quietly in North Dakota but comes home to be with his mother after she gets a breast cancer diagnosis. His mother wanted Jack to be with her as she faces surgery and whatever treatment is needed afterwards.
Jack is estranged from his older brother, Hank, and this causes extra problems because Hank is the ranch manager at the family farm.
Hannah is assigned as the primary agent for Jack’s protection while he is in Houston. It’s her opportunity to land the plum assignment of opening the London branch. She’s competing with Robbie and only one of them can succeed. She’s determined it will be her.
There are some suspenseful moments in the book but this is not a romantic suspense. In fact, my main criticism of the story is that Hannah doesn’t get enough opportunity to show her professional competence and skill. Instead, Hannah ends up pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend in order not to alarm Jack’s family and in particular his mother, who does not need any extra stress. Because reasons, Jack and Hannah end up staying at the family farm for a few weeks so the pretence becomes 24/7 and ongoing rather than only for occasional visits.
Hannah, who has been so alone (she and her alcoholic mother were not close) falls for Jack’s parents who have the kind of marriage she thought only appeared on TV. They are loving and lovely and she is made welcome.
But it is the relationship between Hannah and Jack that is the big draw for this book. Given the nature of Hannah’s role, they are forced to spend lots of time together and their connection is delightful.
There were many times I laughed out loud while listening; especially the “mad cat face” scene.
Jack, who has not laughed very much in the past few years, finds himself laughing at least once every day because Hannah delights him. Hannah is not a Hollywood starlet. She’s “ordinary looking”, some might even say “plain”. To Jack, Hannah is “real”.
Their banter sizzles but they do more than trade bon mots. They help each other deal with their respective griefs. They take care of one another in various ways. They become close and, inevitably, Hannah falls for him. Apart from being gorgeous, Jack is, it turns out, a really nice guy.
The story is told from Hannah’s first person (past tense) point of view and her obvious concern is that Jack is an actor and it can be difficult to know what’s real and what’s pretend. Hannah finds it hard to imagine Jack would want to date her in reality. So do many others in Hannah’s sphere.
We listeners know better of course.
The narration is superb. It’s my first experience with Patty Murin but it won’t be my last. She has fantastic comedic timing, great pacing and tone and also delivers the pathos of the story with skill.
At one stage I thought that Ms. Murin might be a pseudonym for Cristina Panfilio (another favourite of mine) because they sound so similar. (They’re not the same person; a simple Google search shows me that – which is the only reason it gets mentioned at all here. It’s not cool to out people – don’t do it.) So, they’re not the same person but they could be narration twins. There is a very similar style of delivery and the same things I love about Ms. Panfilio’s narration are what shone out to me in Ms. Murin’s performance. In other words, they’re both excellent voice actors.
I’m convinced Ms. Murin’s narration was at least 50% of the reason I laughed as much as I did and she was also probably responsible for at least half of the other emotions I felt throughout the novel. Hannah is a great character, vulnerable, fierce, competent in some things (her job – though this was more told than shown unfortunately) and woefully unskilled in others – navigating personal relationships for example. And Jack is wonderful too. He’s far more than just a pretty face but of course he is completely gorgeous. He sees through Hannah’s guard to the woman beneath and recognises her for the gem she is.
The narration is just excellent and the story is a lot of fun – just watch out for the potential landmines of those heavier topics – but otherwise this book is a big recommend from me.
Grade: A
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