Audiobook Review: Hard to Get by Laura Moher
Hard to Get
Series: Big Love from Galway #3
Author: Laura Moher
Narrators:
Michelle Price
Paul Bellantoni
Published: April 15, 2025
Audiobook: 9 hours 45 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: April 14-20, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
Single and determined to stay that way, Andi Salazar treasures her independence, her charming small town and the dedication to hard work she inherited from her beloved Gram. To blow off steam, she occasionally takes the stage as a voluptuous bombshell singer who can rev you up even as she breaks your heart with a song.
Big, blond math teacher Kevin Mahoney is fresh off a bad breakup when he moves to Galway, NC. The school year’s about to start, and he’s determined to find the real Kev, not the “vanilla” guy his ex-fiancée didn’t want to marry. When he sees Andi onstage and then collides with her in the hallway, he damn near bursts into flame, and their hot, sweet hookup leaves him wanting more.
The man is entirely too attractive though—too endearing—so Andi breaks it off with very firm “no” to a second date. But when their work brings them together again, Andi and Kevin slowly embark on a friendship instead. Andi’s beginning to trust a man for the first time in maybe ever. Kevin’s beginning to enjoy having opinions of his own– and squabbling about them with his new friend. Silently they both yearn for more, even though they realize friendship is safer. But then something unexpected turns their lives upside down in the best way possible.
Jessica’s Review:
I have listened to all three books in the Big Love from Galway series and have enjoyed them! These are romance books with plus size female main characters and male characters that you can’t help but falling for! These books also have spice with open door scenes, yet the books also deal with serious issues. In Hard to Get, the issue dealt with is domestic violence.
Andi and Kevin are both dealing with their own personal issues and going on their own journeys: Kevin has moved away and is starting over in a new location far from home after his fiancé decided she did not want to marry him. Andi is independent woman with a family history that still greatly affects her today.
I identified with Andi as she is independent and has built up her own walls due to her family past. Having gone through a divorce last year, in those ways I am similar to Andi, though you would never see me taking the stage and singing like she does!
We do have a spicy beginning, but after a while it does get toned down as the characters journey moves toward friendship and then its progression through the rest of the novel. I don’t have to have open door scenes, but Moher can write them!
Kevin was just… like Angus in Curves for Days, I just adored and crushed over him! I really enjoyed their journey even though Andi frustrated me at times. Once the reader and Kevin learns her backstory, we understand her issues.
The issue of domestic violence is throughout the story as Andi works at a domestic violence shelter. She even goes to the local high school football team and gives a presentation that strongly affects everyone in the room. Andi is meant to do this job!
The narrators Paul Bellantoni and Michelle Price have been the narrators for all three Galway books. I did have some trouble with the second book because of this as Bellantoni’s voice was Angus for me, but fortunately I did not have this issue with my third trip to Galway! Both Bellantoni and Price were fabulous! They really brought these characters to life and delivered on all the emotions these characters had! And Bellantoni’s voice is just… let’s just say I really enjoy his voice!
I will definitely we looking at any future novels that Moher will be writing.
Many thanks to the publisher Dreamscape Media for granting me a copy to listen to and review for all three books in the Galway series!
ALC Review: The Love Haters by Katherine Center
The Love Haters
Author: Katherine Center
Narrator: Patti Murin
To Be Published: May 20, 2025
Audiobook: 10 hours 33 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 31-April 6, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 3.5 stars
Book Description:
It’s a thin line between love and love-hating.
Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West.
The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but fakes it that she can.
Plus: Cole is Hutch’s brother. And they don’t get along. Next stop paradise!
But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good-looking man she has ever seen . . . but also a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful Aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two.
Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last.
Jessica’s Review:
The Love Haters is far from my favorite book written by Center, but I did still enjoy it! It’s a rom com and will make for a great summer beach read, especially if you are vacationing in the Florida Keys this year! I’ve never been to Key West, but now I would surely like to go!
We have Katie Vaughn who is at a crossroads jobwise: Take a job in Key West featuring a Coast Guard hero who saved Jennifer Aniston’s dog (Yes, that Jennifer Aniston!) or risk getting fired. The catch is: Katie can’t swim. Being this is a romcom, of course Katie takes the job. And chaos in many forms appears throughout the story! With chances of being fired still popping up throughout the novel
The Coast Guard hero Hutch is her boss’s brother and Katie’s type. Katie meets Aunt Rue and a Great Dane named George Bailey (Yes, that George Bailey!) Aunt Rue and George Bailey enhance the story and at times steal the show! And Aunt Rue has some friends, so it’s like The Golden Girls at times!
There is some seriousness to the novel: Katie has body image issues. Seemingly like all women, but Katie’s tends to be worse due to her stepmother and a previous relationship where the media was all over Katie. Over the course of the novel, we see Katie go through a transformation with her body issues.
Katie’s body issues did seem to overshadow at times, but we get some potential romance and coast guard training in as well! Hutch was a ‘bit dreamy’ too. You can tell the Center did some research on Coast Guard training. Did she go through training like Katie did???? I enjoyed the ending and this is a fun read.
Patti Murin is the narrator. She is one I will listen to and she delivers on her narration every time!
Many thanks to the publisher Macmillan Audio for granting me an alc to listen to and review! I enjoyed it!
Pre-Order Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Book Review: Wed to the Lich by Layla Fae
Wed to the Lich
Series: Arranged Monster Mates #8
Author: Layla Fae
Published: September 13, 2023
Paperback: 208 pages
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: January 19- February 5, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars
Book Description:
Liches are almost gone, only a handful of us left. I must marry to keep my race from extinction, yet how? No living female will ever stoop so low as to marry a lich. People fear us. They say we are the harbingers of death, bad luck, rot and decomposition.
In one last bid to carry out my duty, I request a wife through the Temple. She turns out to be a neglected, sickly thing with trembling hands and downcast eyes, seeking an arranged marriage out of despair.
And she’s perfect. Her blushes burn hot, her voice rings with feeling, and her kisses taste like summer. She is life personified, all warmth, light, and sweetness, and I crave her like darkness craves the sun.
But will she sacrifice her warm, beating heart to a creature of death like me?
The Temple, a matchmaking service for monsters, shifters, and aliens, is open for service.
Arranged Monster Mates is a series of novellas written by your favorite paranormal and sci-fi romance Eden Ember, Layla Fae, and Cara Wylde.
Each of these steamy stories has it a possessive male, a heroine ready to sacrifice herself to the beast, plenty of spice, and a happily ever after to curl your toes!
Jessica’s Review:
Some friends and I all decided to swap books and annotate them in 2024 with the intention that everyone gets their books back by Christmas, and these annotated books would be our gifts to each other. Sadly, none of us got our books back by Christmas, but we really tried! Wed to the Lich was one friend’s choice and I would have never picked it up otherwise! I most likely would have not ever heard of it. But I can proudly say that I did read it! I am working on going outside of my usually genres, and we will see what I enjoy versus what I don’t enjoy as much.
Wed to the Lich is an arranged marriage book between and human (May) and an undead monster (Virgil). My thought when I picked up the book is “WHAT is a Lich?” We get both Virgil and May’s point of views in this novel. Both of them are damaged individuals, Virgil is lonely as he is one of the last Lich’s and May suffers severely from Anorexia. In fact they could both be dying from their issues.
At times Virgil was sweet yet possessive and at times kind of creepy. At one point he was watching May sleep and my annotation I wrote mentioned something to do with him being stalkerish like Edward Cullen!
Wed to the Lich is the eighth book in the arranged monster mates series, and I did not read the others. I don’t think you really need to read them unless you want to. All of the books deal with a monster who is searching for a mate who is human.
The book is smutty, and not for me. At times it would be sweet, then Virgil went smutty talking/thinking. It just doesn’t work for me. I’m fine with ‘fade to black’/ closed door romances. Wed to the Lich isn’t that.
There are some serious issues as May is dealing with Anorexia due to the way her former guardian treated her, who was just terrible! You really hate that woman. There is verbal abuse from the guardian. And be forewarned, there is an animal death. It is May seeing how Virgil eats, but it won’t be pleasant to some.
I did enjoy the epilogue, as it ended the story. This is a short novel, just over 200 pages. If you are into smutty monster romances then this series will be for you. I read it and went outside of my box of my usual thrillers/ YA, I did it for my friend! I was the last to read her choice, so I was able to send her book back to her.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK