Release Day Review: Fated by Sarah Ready
Fated
Series: Ghosted #3
Author: Sarah Ready
Narrator: Shakira Shute
Published: Today, July 16, 2024
Audiobook: 13 hours 36 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: May 30, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
She meets the man of her dreams in her dreams.
Fiona Abry excels at keeping busy, running her family’s Swiss watch company, and guarding her heart. She’s so busy she doesn’t have time for a vacation much less a love life.
But then she’s given a family heirloom rumored to let you dream your greatest desire.
Suddenly, Fiona is spending her nights on a tiny tropical island in a completely different life.
She’s married. She has two kids. She lives in a colorful cottage on the beach.
This dream life is so different from her hectic, busy life in the city that Fiona decides to live her dreams to the fullest.
Swimming in the turquoise sea. Picnics under palms. Star-gazing on the beach. It’s a slow, seductive dream life that conveniently stays in her dreams.
But after kisses and confessions and long nights on the beach, Fiona starts to fall hard for her dream husband and her dream life.
But what happens when opening yourself to love means falling for a life that isn’t real and a man who doesn’t exist?
Because in the end, it’s not fate, it’s just a dream.
Jessica’s Review:
This series: I am really enjoying it and I haven’t really been much of a romance reader! I am also becoming a Sarah Ready fan.
Now Ready brings us the third in the Ghosted series: Fated. Even though this is a series the books can be read as standalones. The connection for Fated to the others is that Fiona is the sister to Daniel, who was a focus in book one. It does seem like possibly that this story occurs before book one.
I did struggle with this one, but I wanted to continue it. Once it got to about 80% the direction of the story changed and I became fully and 1000% invested! It even makes me want to start the novel again at some point, because… well…. Spoilers, so I can’t say! Part of my issue may have been the narrator with her accent. I did check and there have been different narrators for each book in the series.
I really have enjoyed this series and was very excited to see that there is a fourth book coming out October 1: Titled Wished and I hope it lives up to the others in the series. Ms. Ready, it seems like you are trying to turn me into a romance reader, which is something since I have just gone through a divorce!
And I have to say: I REALLY LOVE these covers!!!
Many thanks to the publisher for granting me an alc to listen to and review! I’m hoping to be able to get a listen in on Wished!
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
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ALC Review: Ghosted by Sarah Ready
Ghosted
Author: Sarah Ready
Narrators:
Sarah Naughton
Rob Brinkman
To Be Published: September 25, 2023
Audiobook: 14 hours 3 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: August 17-24, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Audiobook Description:
Jillian Nejat is the only dating and relationship expert on the planet who is incapable of speaking to men. If they’re living, if they’re breathing, it’s game over.
With her bank account at zero, her career a dumpster fire, and her dating life in a ten-year slump, she moves into a tiny, dirt-cheap NYC apartment. Unfortunately, the apartment is already occupied: Daniel (no-last-name) is a sexy, shirtless, six-pack wielding heartthrob who is also…dead. He isn’t living. He isn’t breathing. He’s a ghost. He’s also the only man on the planet who Jillian can talk to.
Soon, Daniel’s convinced that it’s his afterlife mission to resurrect Jillian’s love life. He knows, if he helps her fall in love then he can move on. Jillian agrees. The last thing she needs is a Lothario ghost haunting her living room. But then, one practice date leads to another, one confession leads to more, and suddenly Jillian fears she’s falling for the one man she can never have.
Jessica’s Review:
This is another romance that I overall enjoyed! And I just didn’t know how it was going to end as we have so many turns! How could it be a HEA (Happy Ever After) when one is dead and a ghost and the other is alive? I didn’t know if we were going to have an ending like the movie Ghost or something else. I had some ideas in my head, and one went along the way the book did, with some differences! We definitely had character development with both Jillian and Daniel with part of it being Jillian not being able to talk to men at all. I wasn’t really a fan of that as it wasn’t really resolved other than she wasn’t able to talk to men then suddenly she was able to. That could have been left out with her just being extremely shy. It seems longer for a romance novel at just over 450 pages/ 14 hours for the audio, but it kept moving the whole time! Jillian is a huge Star Trek nerd and there were references throughout the novel, so if you know Star Trek at all, you will catch them. But if you don’t know a thing about Star Trek it will go over your head. The narrators (it is mainly Sarah Naughton narrating) did a very good job portraying the characters. There was some spicy to the story. I’d say a 2 out of 5 on the spice level. This is my second Sarah Ready novel I have listened to this year, and I think I will keep a lookout for her with other novels she writes!
Many thanks to the publisher for granting me an alc to listen to and review!
Pre-Order Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
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