From the publisher:
I’ve got ninety-nine problems and my brother’s snarky, smart-mouthed best friend Sam is tangled up in every last one of them.
When it comes to firefighter Sam O’Shea, absence―and a regime of tactical avoidance―has been working for me just fiiiine. But when the audition of a lifetime falls in my pathetically broke lap, and he’s the only one who can help me land the job, I’m willing to make a deal with the devil if it means I can kickstart my career as a narrator for audio books.
The problem? We’d have to actually do the job. Together. And then we’re told it’s for an erotic romance. Narrating steamy lines in a tiny studio with a man who lights a fire under your skin? An occupational hazard. Accidentally inciting a town scandal when your erotic audiobook clips wind up on the radio? A crisis. And falling for the one man I promised my brother―and my heart―I wouldn’t touch?
A disaster―and temptation―I can’t resist.
https://amzn.to/3LEXzxx
Piper is the only girl among eleven children in her family, and of course she falls for her older brother’s best friend, Sam. They date for a couple of years in high school, but as Sam is getting ready to graduate, Piper decides the best thing she can do for him is to let him go away to college without her hindering his decision. She tells Sam she needs a break; he hears she is breaking up with him. A few days later she walks in on him making out with another girl.
Devastated doesn’t begin to cover how Piper feels. She gets angry, and when Sam is falling down drunk a few nights later, she videos his shameful evening and posts it all over social media. It’s embarrassing to him, but it’s not like it was a fake video or anything; it was all on him and he owns it. To her credit, Piper pulls the video down a few days later.
Piper’s family rallies around her, and even her older brother, Caleb, stops talking to his best friend. It takes six years for them to reconcile, and the only way they can is to avoid talking about Piper no matter what. Her whole family supports her and Sam becomes a pariah to them all.
Sam is a firefighter and is running for mayor of their small town. When he runs into Piper at the local bar, things start changing between them. She is still very angry with him, but he decides to help her out when she needs him. Piper is a voice actor, and her big break may be coming when she finds an open audition for a very successful audiobook company. The only catch is that it is a couples read; they want a man and a woman to audition as a team. Sam agrees to do it, much to Piper’s surprise, but she is desperate.
When they are hired to read the audiobook, they soon find out it is an erotic romance. Reading it together is stirring up all sorts of feelings that Piper wishes would go away. But the more they work together, the closer they get to getting back together. And when they are stranded in an old hotel with only one room available, they cross that line for good.
This is a second chance romance and a really good one. Sam and Piper’s lives are so intertwined that it somehow feels inevitable that they will work as a couple, despite all their problems – and more seem to pop up every day. This is a fun, sexy read from an author who is new to me, but I will definitely seek out more of her books. A perfect read to while away a lazy summer afternoon – don’t miss it!
5/2022 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
TALK FLIRTY TO ME by Livy Hart. Entangled: Embrace (May 30, 2022). ISBN: 978-1649373564. 300p.