Author: Julia Whelan
Year published: 2022
Category: Adult fiction (romance)
Pages: 432 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): USA (NV, CA, NY) and Italy
Summary: For Sewanee Chester, being an audiobook narrator is a long way from her old dreams, but the days of being a star on film sets are long behind her. She’s found success and satisfaction from the inside of a sound booth and it allows her to care for her beloved, ailing grandmother. When she arrives in Las Vegas last-minute for a book convention, Sewanee unexpectedly spends a whirlwind night with a charming stranger.
On her return home, Sewanee discovers one of the world’s most beloved romance novelists wanted her to perform her last book—with Brock McNight, the industry’s hottest, most secretive voice. Sewanee doesn’t buy what romance novels are selling—not after her own dreams were tragically cut short—and she stopped narrating them years ago. But her admiration of the late author, and the opportunity to get her grandmother more help, makes her decision for her.
As Sewanee begins work on the book, resurrecting her old romance pseudonym, she and Brock forge a real connection, hidden behind the comfort of anonymity. Soon, she is dreaming again, but secrets are revealed, and the realities of life come crashing down around her once more.
If she can learn to risk everything for desires she has long buried, she will discover a world of intimacy and acceptance she never believed would be hers.
Review: This audiobook was recommended to me and I am so glad I am listening to it. The narrator is the author and she does a great job with the voices and accents of various characters; I always knew who was speaking.
This is a good romance: I liked both main characters and that we get to know both of them, their back stories, and what they are feeling and doing in the present. There is domestic and international travel and an interesting array of events at which the main characters interact. There are no slow moments where I felt that I was getting filler.
Yes, there is sex, but not tons of it. There's more innuendo and suggestion.
I am supportive of the thrown together by work and mistaken identity tropes that, of course, lead to a happy ending. I am all about the happy ending. I expect it, I want it, I would be angry if I didn't get it. One of the fun things about the main characters being romance book narrators is that they reference the tropes, the characters, etc. Book thoughts within a book are fun.
And there is a great Afterword. The author, who is also the narrator, talks about what is biographical, what isn't, what it's like to narrate books, etc. Super fun.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Bookish--main character is a audiobook narrator
- Literary Escapes--Nevada
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