Everyone and their Goodreads account warned me about the female narrator before I even hit play. I went in bracing for disappointment. Started this one during a 2 AM logo revision spiral — you know the kind where you've been staring at kerning for so long that the letters stop looking like letters? Diego was asleep on my keyboard, Frida was judging me from the bookshelf, and I needed something to pull me out of my own head.
This book didn't just pull me out. It grabbed me by the collar.
The Telenovela Energy My Abuela Trained Me For
Brother's best friend. Ten-year age gap. A man who used to call the heroine "kiddo" and then five years later can't stop looking at her in that dress. If this isn't a telenovela plot, I don't know what is — and I mean that as the highest possible compliment from someone who was raised on them. Abuela would have loved this one. She would have clutched her rosary at the spicy parts and then immediately asked me to rewind them.
The two-week arrangement premise gives the whole thing this ticking-clock urgency that I'm weak for. Iain's internal war with himself — wanting Holland, knowing he shouldn't, watching himself lose — this book felt like sitting too close to a bonfire. You know you're going to get burned. You don't move. The chemistry is chef's kiss, and I don't throw that around for every romance that crosses my headphones. There were stretches in the middle hours where I completely stopped working and just sat there gripping my stylus like it owed me money, because the tension was that suffocating. In a good way. In a very good way.
Stella Rhys writes wanting like it's a physical weight pressing down on your chest. Holland isn't just a younger woman pining — she's sharp, self-aware, and she walks into this thing with her eyes open. And Iain isn't playing the broody stoic older guy card without substance — he's funny, he's genuinely tortured about crossing this line, and it feels human rather than performative. The push-pull doesn't feel manufactured. It feels inevitable. Like gravity, but make it sexy and slightly devastating.
John Masterson's Voice Should Be a Controlled Substance
Okay. The narrators. Let's get into it because apparently the internet has Opinions with a capital O.
John Masterson as Iain? My heart. MY HEART. He's got this low, slightly rough quality that absolutely nails the "older man barely holding it together" energy. When Iain is being witty — and he's funny more often than I expected — Masterson's comedic timing lands so cleanly I actually laughed out loud during a bit that caught me off guard (Diego was NOT pleased about being startled off my lap). But when things shift into bonfire territory, his voice drops into this darker register that made me set my laptop down and stare at the wall for a second. He understands pacing. He understands when to let a silence just... sit there. The restraint in his delivery during the tension-heavy scenes is what sells the whole forbidden angle.
Now — Sarah Puckett. Here's where I diverge from the crowd. Is she operating at Masterson's level? Honestly, no. But I don't think she's supposed to be doing the same thing he is. Holland is younger, less sure of herself, discovering something new about who she is and who she wants. That specific texture of a woman figuring herself out in real time — uncertain and reaching — is something My Brilliant Friend does on an entirely different scale and in an entirely different world, and it wrecked me in a not-dissimilar place. Puckett brings this sweet, slightly breathy delivery with a sultry undertone that creeps in at exactly the right moments. I think the real issue is that Masterson is so good that anyone sharing an audiobook with him is going to look slightly dimmer by comparison. That's not a Puckett problem. That's a Masterson-is-unreasonably-talented problem.
Where she did lose me occasionally was in the heavier emotional beats. I wanted more crack in the voice, more edge — she stays in a comfortable zone when sometimes the scene is begging her to break out of it. Not a dealbreaker, but I noticed. And once you notice, you keep noticing.
Pour This Directly Into the Ears Of...
Anyone who loves forbidden-adjacent romance with real tension — not just "oh no we shouldn't" lip service but actual agonizing restraint that builds and builds until you can't take it. If age gap and brother's best friend are tropes that make you feral, the vibes are immaculate. If you need elaborate external conflict and plot twists to stay engaged, this isn't that story. The conflict here is internal. It's emotional. It's two people wanting each other and trying so hard to pretend they don't. For me, that's more than enough.
I didn't ugly-cry at this one — it's not that kind of book. It's more of a heart-racing, stay-up-way-past-2 AM, forget-you-have-a-client-deadline kind of listen. But there's real feeling underneath all the heat. The moments where Iain lets his guard slip? Where you hear in Masterson's delivery that this man is genuinely terrified of what he feels? Yeah. That landed in my chest and stayed there.
Listen at 1.0x. Let the tension build the way Rhys intended. This is a rainy Sunday book — blanket, locked door, phone on silent. You're going to want to pay attention.
