An Advanced Listening Copy Review of Switched by Sarah Ready
Switched
Series: Ghosted #2
Author: Sarah Ready
Narrators:
Kelsey Navarro Foster
James Anderson Foster
To Be Published: February 20, 2024
Audiobook: 10 hours 12 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: February 2-12, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 4.5 stars
Book Description:
For Serena Otaki, free-spirited Californian, life is simple. She loves smashing atoms at The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. She loves Star Trek, spicy tofu, and her cat, Captain Purrk. She loves her messy (slob-fest) apartment, her chaotic brand of organizing, and staying permanently, happily unattached.
Life is perfect. She has one true love—physics.
Loving a man isn’t in her future.
For Henry Joules, uptight Brit, life is simple. He loves making analog black holes, drinking piping hot tea, and organizing his pencil tray. He loves his family, red meat, and obsessively cleaning his spotless apartment.
Life is perfect. He has many loves—physics, family, friends. He can’t wait to find the woman of his dreams.
Love and marriage are in his future.
One perfect night Serena and Henry meet. Sparks fly, particles collide, the universe comes to a halt, and…
It was a mistake.
They’re too different.
It won’t work.
Love isn’t in their future.
Until an electric storm causes an unexpected event at the particle collider and suddenly—they’ve switched.
Serena is in Henry’s body.
Henry is in Serena’s body.
And both life and love are suddenly very, very complicated.
Jessica’s Review:
Wow, Jessica listened to another romance novel and really enjoyed it! This is the second in the Ghosted series. It isn’t necessary to have read Ghosted before this one because Jillian and Daniel’s story is mentioned in Switched, but I really do recommend it! Their story also continues since Switched happens after Ghosted. So far in this series we have extremely smart FMCs (female main characters) with STEM careers, that are also nerdy but adorable. It’s great to have strong female characters with this type of career!
To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in the book until Serena and Henry switched bodies. I think it was a ‘me’ thing with some things going on in my life. But once that switch happened the book took off for me.
Switched is very entertaining and hilarious at times. We see what happens when you are not just in another person’s body, but someone of the opposite gender! Both Serena and Henry have experiences as the opposite sex. And really, we do see that women really are the stronger gender! Full on hilarity ensues, I just don’t want to say what as a minor spoiler. We do have a small amount of spice that I could have done without. Remember…. I’ve figured out that I seem to be a ‘fade to black’/ ‘behind closed door’ romance reader.
Here are some of the tropes we have in Switched:
Fake Dating
One Night Stand
Forced Proximity
We have two narrators: Kelsey Navarro Foster and James Anderson Foster, who are married in ‘real life’! Kelsey did a fabulous job! She really captured everything with the characters down to the ‘bad English accent’ with Serena attempting to be Henry. James only narrated for one chapter, and for that I was thankful as his voice for this chapter did not work for me.
Sarah Ready is an author I discovered last year and Switched is the third book I have listened to from her, and I have enjoyed them all! She’s an author I plan to read/listen to more. And with a third book in the Ghosted series coming out in July, I am ready for another book from her! And for one who doesn’t really read much romance, that is saying something! And let me just say that the covers of the books in this series… It’s very tempting for me to want physical copies of them because they are just… Gorgeous!
Many thanks to the publisher for having these audiobooks available to listen to and reviewing!
Pre-Order Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Audiobook Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Fourth Wing
Series: The Empyrean #1
Author: Rebecca Yarros
Narrators:
Rebecca Soler
Teddy Hamilton
Published: May 2, 2023
Audiobook: 20 hours 43 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: November 15-27, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Audiobook Description:
Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
Jessica’s Review:
Fourth Wing has been the book of the year, and it is outside of my normal genres, so I wasn’t really interested in reading it. I had also heard the narration was terrible, so it had two strikes against it. Then I heard that the narration was redone and well… there are dragons in it… so I decided to go for it, the second book in the series had been released so I was thinking that I wont have to wait for it then if I enjoyed this one! Big mistake: After I had started Fourth Wing, my dear fellow book friends informed me that there are supposed to be 5 books in this series! NOOOOO! I had thought it was just two! Oh well….
My main interest in listening to it was the dragons, and they were so worth it! I love these dragons!! It almost seems like the author didn’t really know what type of genre she wanted because the characters at time seemed like horny teenagers, but this is aimed for adults. I guess the horny teenagers part is because these candidates don’t know if they will even make it through school. And some don’t! We get lots of death.
There is a lot of chemistry between Violet and Xaden. Do they want each other or not? DO they hate each other or not? We do get some spicy scenes. A little bit too spicy for me! I apparently like the closed door/ fade to black romance/ sweet romance stories/ and don’t need much details. We do get details aplenty here!
We have lots of action and again: DRAGONS!! I also liked Violet. She starts out weak but does grow over the course of the novel. I can’t wait to see what happens with her next. And then we have that ending!
I had no issues with the narration, like I previously said they must have redone it and fixed all the previous issues. There are two narrators, but mainly it is Rebecca Soler doing her job. She portrayed Violet well.
I did enjoy Fourth Wing, but don’t see how people are going crazy over this book and paying extreme amounts of money for that rare first edition with the dragon sprayed edges. There are some gorgeous editions that are out there now with special book boxes. I’ll definitely listen to the second one sometime soon and then I guess I will have to wait for the next three books to be written and come out just like everyone else!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Audiobook Review: Forget Me Not by Julie Soto
Forget Me Not
Author: Julie Soto
Narrators:
Callie Dalton
Teddy Hamilton
Published: July 11, 2023
Audiobook: 9 hours 15 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: November 9-14, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 2 stars
Book Description:
An ambitious wedding planner must work with her grumpy florist ex, whose heart she broke, on the most high-profile wedding of her career, in this spicy and emotional romance from popular fanfic author Julie Soto.
He loves me; he loves me not…
Ama Torres loves being a wedding planner. But with a mother who has been married more times than you can count on your fingers, Ama has decided that marriage is not the route for her. But weddings? Weddings are amazing. As a small business owner, she knows how to match her clients with the perfect vendor to give them the wedding of their dreams. Well, almost perfect…
Elliot hates being a florist, most of the time. When his father left him the flower shop, he considered it a burden, but he’s stuck with it. Just like how he’s stuck with the way he proposed to Ama, his main collaborator and girlfriend (or was she?) two years ago. But flowers have grown on him, just like Ama did. And flowers can’t run off and never speak to him again, like Ama did.
When Ama is hired to plan a celebrity wedding that will bring her business national exposure, there’s a catch: Elliot is already contracted to design the flowers. Things are not helped by the two brides, who see the obvious chemistry between Ama and Elliot and are determined to set them up, not knowing their complicated history. Add in a meddling ex-boss, and a reality TV film crew documenting every step of the wedding prep, and Ama and Elliot’s hearts are not only in jeopardy again, but this time, their livelihoods are too.
Jessica’s Review:
This much I can say: I love the cover!
But can I please forget Forget Me Not? This one started as a buddy read with my friend Beccie but she ended up DNFing (did not finish) it at 53%. I made it through the audiobook, but it was not for me. What kept me going was all the wedding planning: I found that interesting and wanted to know what was going to happen on the big day. That was the only reason I kept listening.
Ama and Elliot are our narrators with Ama narrating present day and Elliot in the past, where it seemed like he still was! Neither of them was likeable. And Teddy Hamilton’s narration/ voice of Elliot just rubbed me the wrong way! It made Elliot even less likeable. There was also no chemistry between the two, it was all about hooking up: There was no romance here! And I’ll just say this, those sex scenes were just too much detail for me! I was skipping through the track during them. Apparently, I need ‘sweet romances’ and fun ‘rom com’/ ‘chick lit’.
All I really know about these two characters:
Elliot is grumpy and supposedly heartbroken (but again there was no romance, just sex!). Oh yeah, he also has flower tattoos all over his body which makes him hot.
Ama loves donuts to an extreme. An extreme danger: If you are allergic to peanut butter, why do you still buy peanut butter donuts? Answer: Because they are a top seller. Really?!?!?! She also has a former boss who kept showing up. Is she trying to sabotage Ama or help her?
I’m not going to say anymore about this one other than Beccie and I seem to be in the minority here. Or are we? We both had similar thoughts on the book. I kept her up to date on what happened since I finished it. Maybe we will have better luck with another buddy read at another time!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK