3.5⭐️ 3.5🌶️ 5🎧

Producer: Dark Star

Narrators: Angelina Rocca + Troy Duran

Narration type: Duet 

Standard length: 8:33 

Listening speed: 1.7x

Listened via: BookFunnel

Tropes: romantic suspense, royal, age gap, billionaire

📖 This story has such an interesting premise with a royal princess leading a double life! Sophia Loredan and her friends are vigilantes leading back to their formative years when they witnessed the wealthy elite get away with something no one should. Sophia has had a long time crush on Russian billionaire bad boy, Viktor Popov, also a collector of secrets. While on a mission, Sophia can’t help but notice that Viktor has taken an interest in her too. They fall quickly into a series of hot night together, but Sophia has to dance around her obligations to the crown and her secret work with her friends. 

The spice was hot, and Viktor was a dominant alpha but I found myself wanting more tender moments between the two. He did a lot behind the scenes that showed he cared about her, but I craved the relationship building moments between them. The side characters were an interesting bunch and I think the series has real promise as the crew takes on more marks. I did find the pacing to be a bit challenging in parts, slow in some places and then moving quickly in others that I was hoping for more in. The third person POV may have been a factor in taking me out of the scene a bit in parts. Overall it was a fun start to a series that was unlike anything I’d read before!

🎧 The narration was truly fantastic! This was done in duet style with Troy Duran reading all male lines throughout and the Viktor POV narration, while Angelina Rocca read all the female lines throughout and the  Sophia POV narration. Troy and Angelina are absolutely fantastic and sounded so good together! They were cast very well for these parts and I could listen to them both all day every day! Angelina has a smooth and natural cadence to her voice that she packs a lot of emotion into. Troy had a rich, deep voice that he adds slight accents to for the role and it always sounds fantastic!

As a side note, I’m convinced that listening to third person POV is easier for me than eyeball reading third person POV — so if you’ve struggled with it before I would definitely give audio a try. 

4.5⭐️ 3.5🌶️ 5🎧

Narrators: Andi Arndt + Joe Arden

Narration type: Dual 

Standard length: 10:47

Listening speed: 1.7x

Tropes: small town, single dad, billionaire, enemies to lovers, grumpy/sunshine, nanny

⇦ 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘱𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘲𝘶𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴 + 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴

📖 I really enjoy a grumpy billionaire, add a bad boy vibe with a sprinkle of broken and I’m done for. Caleb Greyson was just delicious. Paisley was recovering from a bad relationship and figuring out how to stand on her own again, but she was wild, fierce, and independent and wouldn’t let anyone push her around, not even a hot billionaire that she really wanted a job from. Those two pushed all of each others buttons and it was really fun! Enemies to lovers always burns hot and their chemistry was fire. Paisley was absolutely adorable with Evelyn, bonding with her immediately and advocating for her always. Caleb struggled to see any good in himself, and for a long time only focused on one goal. Paisley, being the strong and pushy little spitfire she is, kept the faith in him when he didn’t have it in himself, even when his past came back to haunt them. The suspense element and the way she unraveled the details from the past was very well done! My only tiny minor complaint, if you can even call it that, is that Evelyn is constantly called “the child” throughout the book and I kept feeling like I was watching the Mandalorian. 

🎧 Andi Arndt is my absolute favorite female narrator! I love the tone of her voice and her speech patterns always feel incredibly natural. Additionally, one thing I absolutely love about her narration is that I can always tell when someone is talking versus an internal monologue, she slightly changes the pitch of her voice. She was also a great fit for Paisley! She brought the fierceness and passion that our FMC always shows. And Joe Arden voiced Caleb. He was perfect for our broody, broken billionaire. Joe has a voice I could listen to for days on end, and frankly I probably have! In this particular audio he showed nice range of emotion and I thought he did an excellent job voicing little Evelyn too! I know that it be tough for some of the male narrators to hit those young childlike voices, but he nailed it. 

4⭐️ 3🌶️ 4.5🎧

Production: One Night Stand Studios

Narrators: Charlotte North + Sebastian York

Narration type: Dual 

Standard length: 8:42

Listening speed: 1.7x

Listened via: Audible

Tropes: small town, single dad, football coach, grumpy/sunshine, nanny, neighbors

⇦ 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘱𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴

📖 Outtatowner, Michigan is a quirky small town with some hilarious traditions and larger than life personality. I could totally picture this town, the people in it with their long standing family feuds and absurd nicknames. Lena made me giggle to myself multiple times while listening to this one. Now for the main characters! The meet cute is definitely one I won’t forget — it’s not often you meet your future partner at a funeral where they are getting paid to cry! Lark Butler, as a struggling actress, takes on paid funeral gigs to cry for the dead. She ends up deciding to stick around in this quirky little town and is claimed as a Sullivan (remember that family feud thing). Wyatt Sullivan, a single dad and college football coach, happens to need an assistant and nanny and Lark just so happens to be living in a cabin right next door. Lark doesn’t expect to fall for his daughter Penny, and for the grumpy coach. Wyatt doesn’t expect to fall for the energetic, full of sunshine woman next door. They were absolute fire once they finally let themselves go. The chemistry was delicious! 

🎧 This was dual narration with Sebastian York and Charlotte North narrating. I’ve listened to Sebastian York many times and always enjoy his work. He has a deep voice and very natural speech patterns. His narration while voicing Wyatt was perfection! I didn’t love his narration of Penny — I know it can be hard for men with deep voices to pull off young children. It wasn’t distracting or poor narration, but this is the only portion that wasn’t top notch in my opinion. Charlotte North is a great pick for Lark! She brought the perfect energy and sunshine voice vibe to the role. Her voice has clarity but feels very warm at the same time. The narration overall was wonderful and brought the whole story to life!