"This impulsive decision leads to disastrous consequences."
That's from the book description, and honestly? It could be the tagline for my entire listening experience. I finished this one on my drive home after a particularly brutal night shift—two codes, a combative patient, and the coffee machine broke around 2 AM. I needed something light. Something predictable. Something that wouldn't require me to think.
Be careful what you wish for.
When You Want to Shake Some Sense Into the Protagonist
Look, I work with people making life-or-death decisions every single night. I've held the hands of patients who made one bad choice and ended up in my trauma bay. So maybe I'm not the target audience for a romance where the main character keeps making obviously terrible decisions and we're supposed to find it charming?
Christel starts an affair with her manager. Against company policy. In a new job. In a new country. And then—shocker—things go badly. I spent about three hours of this audiobook wanting to grab her by the shoulders and say "mija, what are you DOING?" My dashboard heard some things during this one, and none of them were about defibrillators for once.
The thing is, I've seen this setup work in other books. Redeeming Love gave me a protagonist who made mistakes but grew from them in ways that felt earned. The "messy protagonist learns from mistakes" arc can be genuinely satisfying. But there's a difference between a character who makes relatable bad decisions and one who just... keeps stepping on the same rake. By hour six, I was less invested in her happy ending and more curious about whether she'd ever develop pattern recognition.
Jane Fox Doing the Heavy Lifting
Here's what saved this from being a complete wash: Jane Fox's narration. She's got this warm, steady quality that made me keep listening even when I wanted to throw my phone out the car window. Her Danish accent for Christel felt natural without being cartoonish, and she handled the emotional beats with enough restraint that the melodrama didn't tip into soap opera territory.
I've listened to plenty of audiobooks where a weak narrator made a good book worse. This is the opposite problem—a capable narrator propping up a story that frustrated me. Fox made Christel sound thoughtful and conflicted even when her actions screamed otherwise. That's skill. That's the kind of performance that makes you finish a book you'd have DNF'd in print.
The pacing is fine for what it is—contemporary romance, nothing fancy with the production, just clean audio and consistent delivery. Same vibe I got from Freshman Fantasy: serviceable but forgettable background noise. Perfect for half-listening while you're doing something else.
The Ending You See Coming From Denmark
I'm not going to spoil it, but I will say this: if you've read more than three contemporary romances in your life, you know exactly how this ends. You probably know by hour two. Maybe hour one if you're paying attention.
Predictability isn't always a flaw. Sometimes you WANT comfort food. Sometimes you want to know the couple ends up together so you can just enjoy the journey. But "Lovestruck" doesn't give you enough interesting journey to make the predictable destination worth it. The Cambridge setting is underutilized—could have been any city, really. The supporting characters are sketched in but never fully colored. And the "twists and turns" promised in the description are more like gentle curves on a road you've driven a hundred times.
Carlos asked why I looked annoyed when I got home. I told him I was just tired. Didn't have the energy to explain that I'd spent my entire commute yelling at a fictional Danish woman about her life choices.
Who Should Queue This Up (And Who Should Skip)
If you want low-stakes, easy listening that requires zero emotional investment? This will do the job. If you're the type who finds messy protagonists endearing rather than frustrating? You'll probably enjoy Christel more than I did. If you're coming from "If I Fall" and want more of that world? This is a companion novel, so there's that.
But if you need to root for your protagonist? If predictable endings feel like a waste of your precious listening hours? If you're a night shift worker who just wants to decompress without getting irritated? Skip it. Pick something else.
Clocking Out: Save It for Background Noise
This is not a bad audiobook. It's just not a memorable one. Jane Fox deserves better material, and the 10+ hour runtime feels about three hours too long for the story being told. I finished it—that's more than I can say for some books—but I couldn't tell you a single scene that stuck with me.
Perfect for that post-shift decompression if you're too tired to care about plot. Not worth a credit when there are so many better romances out there competing for your time.
