Tag Archives: 4 mikes

ARC — The Space Between — Sarah Ready

“Okay, I’m ready. (…) Tell me what happened in the space between when I was gone and when I was there.”

Author: Sarah Ready
Narrator: Rachel F. Hirsch, James Fouhey

Genre: Romance, New Adult
Actual Rating: 5 stars
Narration: 4 mikes
Spicy Meter: 1 fire emoji
Content Warnings: Discusses parental death, robbery, and substance abuse and addiction. Details someone dying of cancer, cheating, and a motorcycle crash. Contains sexual content.

“The Space Between” follows two new yorkers that simply couldn’t be more different. Jace Morgan is an aspiring musician from the Bronx while Andrea Leighton-Hughes is a wealthy Upper East Sider that was immediately drawn to this musician playing at a park. Their connection is instant and their love is palpable, so why do people keep getting in the way? Following them through 13 years of miscommunication and a lot of time apart, this book will have you rooting for true love through and through.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT be bamboozled by a pretty cover. This book deals with pretty heavy subjects, in true Sarah Ready fashion as it seems.

Now the question is: have I been devastated yet again by another Sarah Ready book? Well yes, yes I have. This shouldn’t even surprise me at this point but holy did this book break me. Between miscommunications and downright bad luck and bad timing and bad things happening to good people—I was beyond broken. This book will be sticking with me for a while.

I would highly recommend this read if you’re a sucker for first loves and aren’t too afraid of sad things happening in romance novels.

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ARC provided by NetGalley and W. W. Crown in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: July 25, 2023

Josh and Gemma Make a Baby — Sarah Ready — Josh and Gemma #1

“When you realize you love someone and that you want to spend the rest of forever with them, you want forever to start right now.”

Author: Sarah Ready
Narrators: Erin Mallon

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 4 stars
Narration: 4 mikes
Spicy Meter: 3 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses infertility, IVF, miscarriages, and parental death, and contains fat shaming. Contains explicit sexual content.

“Josh and Gemma Make a Baby” follows Gemma Jacobs as she decides to take her life and future in her own hands and have the baby she’s always dreamed of—by herself. Well, sort of. In comes Josh Lewenthal, her older brother’s best friend and a family friend since pretty much forever. Josh is easygoing and overall a good person, and was Gemma’s crush when she was younger, but those days are over. He would be the perfect donor/anonymous baby daddy. He could be as involved (or not) as he’d like, and, most importantly, he’s agreed to do it.

Erin Mallon did a great job at narrating this book. I loved her male voices and she sounded just how I imagined Gemma’s voice to be. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for other books narrated by her.

This book made me feel all the feels—it made me laugh and cry and it surprised me in so many ways. It was comical in a sitcom kind of way. In a way that showed that this story was highly improbable and yet so so relatable. I loved aaaall the side characters. From Gemma’s family to the IVF support group, this book had some A+ side vibes.

This is the first book by Sarah Ready that I’ve ever read and now I feel a need to go over her whole backlog. Her writing was fluid and engaging and I could not stop wondering where this story was going. This was the happiest of happily ever afters.

With a sort of childhood friends-to-lovers trope going on and some very serious double pining, you’ll love “Josh and Gemma Make a Baby” if you’ve enjoyed books where one of the main characters has secretly always been in love with the other main character. Just beware that this book brings along many serious topics like infertility and miscarrying after IVF.

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“I guess loving is accepting that it’s about giving and never about taking. If you expect something in return, then love becomes a transaction and it’s not love anymore.”

So This Is Christmas — Jenny Holiday — Christmas in Eldovia #3

Author: Jenny Holiday
Narrator: Cynthia Farrell

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 3.5 stars
Narration: 4 mikes
Spicy Meter: 3 fire emojis (it was all so awkward)
Content Warnings: Discusses homophobia, physical and emotional abuse, gambling addictions, chronic illness disabilities, and parental abandonment. Contains explicit sexual content.

“So This Is Christmas” follows Cara Delaney, a management consultant that is sent to Eldovia to fix the financial crises the country is currently facing due to their declining watch business, and Matteo Benz, the royal consultant of the King of Eldovia. Mr. Benz is set on making life as uncomfortable as possible for the visiting American, but little did he know that his stubbornness could lead to admiration, and perhaps even love.

The audiobook I listened to for this read was alright at best. I enjoyed the story more than the narration, and I didn’t even enjoy the story that much.

Apparently this is the last book in the series, which sucks because this definitely was not the conclusion I was looking for. It can’t really be called a royalty romance anymore, if you ask me—which would’ve been okay, had the two main characters had any true chemistry at all.

This book was more holiday-centric than “Duke, Actually”, which was nice, but I just could not get myself to like this pairing. I think Matteo and Cara were just chaste and in close proximity, and that’s what led to their hook ups. Also, their first kiss happened literally out of nowhere, it was plain out weird (and I know they felt weird about it too, but it still doesn’t justify it. Out in the wild that would be called assault, for real).

And finally, what kind of conclusion was that? This book felt like it didn’t have a real ending. I finished listening to this audiobook and was left wondering what the hell had just happened.

I think maybe just stick to the first two books in this series. “So This Is Christmas”, in my opinion, isn’t worth your time.

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ARC — Mistakes Were Made — Meryl Wilsner

“I want to go scuba diving with you. (…) Like, the ocean is huge and terrifying and unknown, but if you want to go scuba diving, I want to. I want to make you happy or do the things that make you happy with you.”

Author: Meryl Wilsner
Narrated By: Jeremy Carlisle Parker, Quinn Riley, and Stephanie Németh-Parker.

Genre: Romance, LGBTQIA+
Actual Rating: 4 stars
Spicy Meter: 4 stars
Narration: 4 mikes
Content Warnings: Discusses divorce and big age-difference relationship. Includes very explicit sexual content.

“Mistakes Were Made” follows Cassie Klein, a STEM senior university student hoping to be a grad student in aeronautic engineering, after she hooks up with a hot older woman called Erin at a bar… an older woman that ends up being the mom of one of her close friends. But Cassie didn’t know Erin was her friend’s mom when they met. She just knew she was pulled towards Erin, and she wanted to be close to her—and close to her she was. Being an ode to secret relationships, this book brings you all the rush you can need for the foreseeable future.

This book comes in as steamy as they get, right from the start. It is fast-paced, although perhaps a bit unrealistic—hence the 4 stars I gave it. The writing and the narration was amazing, although I grew a bit tired of Erin’s voice by the end, it felt too sophisticated for its own good.

I also feel bad for pointing this out, but I think it simply can’t be ignored: the age difference was weird. Really weird. It’s almost unnatural how people accepted it in the end. I would not be okay with my mom dating my friend—my friend who is 20 years her junior. I know Cassie swears it isn’t mommy issues with her attraction to Erin, but girl… those were some hella big mommy issues right there, even if she refused to see it.

All in all, I would still recommend this book. It’s entertaining and exciting, and actually pretty sweet. If you like books with secret relationships and with very big age differences—and that end with a happily ever after anyways—then “Mistakes Were Made” is for you.

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ARC provided by NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, and published by St. Martin’s Griffin, in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: October 11, 2022