Audiobook Review: Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
Best Offer Wins
Author: Marisa Kashino
Narrator: Cia Court
Published: November 25, 2025
Audiobook: 8 hours 38 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 29- April 2, 2026
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly humorous debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?
Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian — and in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track — Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend (with unbeatable, all-cash offers in hand).
A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged—but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The most unsettling part? You’ll root for her, even as you gasp in disbelief.
Dark, biting, and laugh-out-loud funny, Best Offer Wins is a propulsive debut and a razor-sharp exploration of class, ambition, and the modern housing crisis.
Jessica’s Review:
What a debut novel! Margo Miyake has a plan: The perfect marriage, the perfect house, and the perfect baby. Margo is quite the unhinged character! She lives in a cramped apartment with her husband Ian and finds out about a dream house in THE dream neighborhood in DC. They have been house hunting for 18 months and have lost 11 bidding wars. It’s already an extremely tough market, but being in DC makes it even more brutal. Realtors, watch out for Margo!
Best Offer Wins gives us an example of what this housing market can bring and how far one woman will go to get the house of her dreams once she sets her mind on having THIS house.
Margo is unlikeable in the way she approaches everything, determined at all costs to get this house. And the lengths she finds herself going… As a listener I was pulled in and wondered how far she will go to achieve her dream home. So many times I found myself saying, “All this for a house??!?!” I hope I never become as desperate as Margo when the time comes that I can afford a home to call my own. Just when you think Margo has reached the furthest she can go, she takes another step! Best Offer Wins is a shorter novel, about 8.5 hours on audio and the equivalent of around 280 pages for a physical novel, but it goes full steam the entire time!
The narrator Cia Court did a great job with her portrayal of Margo. For a debut, I am excited to see what Kashino brings us next!
Bound and determined to get this dream home, will Margo achieve her goal? You will have to read/ listen to this one to find out! And may the best offer win!
Audiobook Review: What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
What Alice Forgot
Author: Liane Moriarty
Narrator: Tamara Lovatt Smith
Published: May 1, 2010
Audiobook: 13 hours 32 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 15-23, 2026
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over…
Jessica’s Review:
Imagine this: You wake up in the hospital. Other than being unsure why you are there, you are thinking you are 29, have a happy marriage, and newly expecting your first child. And it is 1998. Then you are told it is actually 2008, you are 39 (No Way!?!?! That’s middle age!!!) with three children (Wait a minute..not one but three kids!?!?!), estranged from your sister, and in the middle of a divorce (WHAT!?!?). That’s what happens to Alice after she has a fall in the gym.
This is the basic premise of What Alice Forgot. The reader/listener goes on the journey with Alice to try and figure out the who, what, when, and whys over the forgotten last ten years. There are many mini mysteries that Alice must figure out, or does she even want to? This is a book about family misunderstandings, forgiveness, second chances, and love.
Can you imagine missing the last ten years of your life?!?! This was a book club read and called for a lot of discussions. The ten years that Alice forgot a lot happened in the world: She doesn’t even remember 9/11. And then all of the technological changes over that time including Y2K! Even going back from now in 2026 to back to 2016, I have gone through so many changes! It’s scary to think about.
I did have some issued with the narration. At times it was hard to distinguish differences in characters journals/homework, etc. I had to go back in my audiobook at the beginning of most chapters to figure out who or when the chapter was occurring. Maybe a second narrator or even just a change in her tone would have been helpful.
Other than the narration issues, I did enjoy this one!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
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ALC Review: We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune
We Burned So Bright
Author: TJ Klune
Narrator: Kirt Graves
To Be Published: April 28, 2026
Audiobook: 6 hours 25 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 24-27, 2026
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
The road stretched out before them. No other cars, just the headlights on the blacktop. Above, the cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky….
Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Together they’ve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.
Now, the world is ending for real. A wandering black hole is coming for Earth and in a month everything and everyone they’ve ever known will be gone.
Suddenly, after 40 years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They’re in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it’s all over.
On the road they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how—impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, and new friends.
And as the black hole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough.
Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?
Jessica’s Review:
This book will be in my Top 10 of 2026 and I cannot see anything beating it. We still have many months to go for 2026, but it really seems like We Burned So Bright will be my number one read this year. What would you find yourself doing if you only had a month left to live? There is no doubt about this fact as a black hole is coming towards Earth and the rest of our solar system, destroying everything in its path.
Our story focuses on Don and Rodney, husbands who have been together for over forty years. Now in their mid-70s, with the end of the world rapidly approaching they find themselves on a cross-country trip with a final destination in mind. They are determined to complete it before Earth and everything on it says its final goodbyes. Over the course of their journey, Don and Rodney come across a variety of people each facing their grief of the inevitable end in a variety of ways.
We Burned So Bright is a compelling heartbreakingly emotional read. I listened to an audio copy and the listener feels a sense of urgency: Will Don and Rodney reach their destination and goal before the end comes? The urgency increases as the novel progresses as it becomes even more apparent that this is in fact the end. The reason for their cross-country trip is slowly uncovered over the course of the novel and it is ultimately heartbreaking.
The narrator Kirt Graves is seemingly a perfect fit for this novel. He helps the listener experience everything the characters do and as the novel progresses, with Graves narration I could visually see what Don and Rodney experienced in my mind. This is the sign of a great narrator and superb writing by Klune.
The listener does get some LGBTQ history as we learn about Don and Rodney’s past through flashbacks of their long history together. Given they are a gay couple, the listener experiences what life was like for the two during the chaos of the time that they lived which includes the AIDS crisis. We Burned so Bright is a deeply touching novel that will stay with me for a while. Though I did not cry, I can see some readers/ listeners shedding some tears. For such a short read, it creates a lasting impact and everyone should read this one.
Many thank you to the publisher for granting me an advanced copy to listen to and review. I am going to have to purchase the Barnes and Noble Exclusive Edition, as I will have to have that version on my shelf of favorite novels.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble Exclusive Edition
