Audible audiobook
Authors: Penelope Ward and Vi Keeland
Narrators: Maxine Mitchell and Zachary Webber
When Billie finds out by accident that her boyfriend is a cheating liar, she invites all the women he’s been cheating on her with to a party at her tattoo shop to “celebrate his birthday”. Things go sour for obvious reasons and she ends up going ballistic in front of a handsome stranger who happens to be her landlord. Colby Lennon and his three best friends c-own the build and he lives there. He and Billie strike up a friendship. Colby is immediately taken by Bill, but she’s not in a place to start dating, so he proposes a series of “undates”. Colby also comes with a precious three year old who answers by the name of Saylor and is the apple of her dad’s eye. When Bill and Colby are finally settling into a nice, comfortable relationship, Colby’s past comes back to haunt him with a vengeance.
This review will be a little spoilery because nowhere in the blurb is it mentioned that Colby is a single dad and his relationship with his daughter is a major plot point in this book. I have no idea why the authors opted for not mentioning, since it’s a trope a lot of people seem to enjoy.
The book is… okay. The hardships the couple goes through are obviously the ones you’d expect in a book involving a single parent. This one has the added twist of who Saylor’s mom is how she fits into the picture, but the whole thing with that had some “legal” plot holes that left me going “Wait? What? Really?”
It has a beautiful HEA and all that jazz, but, seriously, it feels like I’ve read this book before. I loved the side characters and I hope they get more unique stories though, especially Holden.
Narration: One more instance when narration saves the day. Zachary Webber (and his kids’ voices) and Maxine Mitchell can do no wrong in my book and made this a fun listen.
Possible triggers: child abandonment, cheating (not MCs), blackmail, illegal immigration issues
