Hearts Reclaimed

I like the twist of the trope second chance romance. Normally I find authors write about high school sweethearts who find their way back to each other. This one is after divorce and tragedy two people have a second chance at life with love. Very cute, I love how they tease each other lol.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This got off to a really fun start, and featured likable characters, and fresh start vibes. I was into it until things heated up. The steamy scenes were very clinical—probably the AI-sounding narration didn’t help this, but ultimately the writing is to blame. I thought maybe if these were removed from this book and it were just marketed as a clean/sweet romance, it’d work better because those awful spicy scenes really dragged it down.

However there wasn’t much chemistry between the leads—I got the impression there was supposed to be, as each indicates being attracted to the other, but some of their inner narratives are again, clinical. Not nearly as clinical as the steamy scenes so I think it could’ve worked if the steamy scenes weren’t a thing.

Though … some of it struck me as odd at times, for example: he doesn’t drink because he lost someone to drunk driving, but she still drinks around him, sometimes heavily, even expecting him to hang out in pubs with her. Seems disrespectful, yet he still thinks she’s this wonderful person. Just doesn’t fit for me.

Ultimately, not bad, per se, but not good by any means.

2.5 stars.

🎧 Audio:

Dual narration, both had great voices, but both sounded borderline robotic, rather than performing their respective roles. Overall sound quality was clear—it it werent for the bot-sounding narration, it’d be great.

Narration review: 5 stars! This is duet narration by Kai Kennicott and Wen Ross. Kai and Wen are terrific performers! Both have clear voices and are easy to understand. Kai voices all of the female characters and Wen voices all of the male characters. Duet narration is great. With traditional narration, it takes longer to get into the story while you adjust to the voices, but with duet narration, no adjustment is necessary. And Kai and Wen…. I’d listen to the phone book if they were duet reading it.

Story review- 4/5 stars

MMC/FMC- Scott and Ashlyn

POV- 3rd person

Genre- Contemporary Romance

Sub Genre- Small Town Romance

Heat- they do the thing and name the parts whilst using the P word.

Series- Y, book 1/6

Triggers- Language, Explicit Erotic Content, Mild Violence, Karaoke.

Tropes- New Kid In Town, Not Exactly Instalove, Widower, Tragic Past, Evil Ex

What I liked- Scott didn’t immediately get to a place where he could be immediately in love and together with Ashlyn, it was a journey. The author treated Scott’s journey with respect. And that erotic scene on the porch- so hot!

What I didn’t- The story got a little slow in parts.

Verdict- recommended.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.