What happens when you know something is absolutely terrible for you but you want it anyway? Like, you know the ending, you know the tropes, you know exactly where this is going—and you press play at 9 AM while designing a wedding invitation suite and don't come up for air until 3 PM?
That was me with Richer Than Sin. Frida literally knocked my stylus off the desk twice trying to get my attention, and I just... kept listening.
The Voice in My Head (Literally Two of Them)
Okay, so here's the thing about Joe Arden and Erin Mallon together: it's like chocolate and sea salt. Shouldn't work, absolutely works. Joe's voice doing Lincoln? Velvet and honey with just enough gravel to make you forget you're supposed to be working. The man could read tax code and make it sound like a proposition. When he delivers those possessive, "she's mine" lines? My heart. MY HEART.
Erin Mallon gives Whitney this low, warm sassiness that made me want to be her friend and also maybe shake her a little. She's got range—the way she shifts between vulnerable Whitney and defensive Whitney and angry Whitney? Chef's kiss. Her male voices are surprisingly solid too, which—look, not every female narrator can pull that off without it getting weird.
But I gotta be honest. There were moments—maybe three or four scenes—where Erin's delivery got a little... sing-songy? Like the rhythm was too predictable and it pulled me out of the moment. It wasn't a dealbreaker, but I noticed it. You might not. Some listeners apparently hated it. I thought it was fine, just occasionally distracting when the scene needed to hit harder.
The Slow Burn That Made Me Feral
This book felt like being seventeen and sneaking out to meet someone your family would absolutely lose their minds over. The forbidden romance, the family feud, the "we can never be together but also I literally cannot stop thinking about you" energy? Immaculate vibes. Meghan March knows exactly what she's doing.
The timeline jumps between past and present threw me off at first—I was washing brushes and suddenly confused about when we were—but once I got the rhythm, it actually worked. You're piecing together what happened between Lincoln and Whitney alongside the present-day tension, and honestly? It made the emotional payoff bigger.
Because here's the gut-punch: Lincoln objected at her wedding. OBJECTED. AT HER WEDDING. And then she married the other guy anyway. The layers of hurt and betrayal and "what if" that creates? I was designing a logo and had to stop because my eyes were too blurry. Not full ugly-cry territory, but definitely misty. Definitely feeling things I wasn't prepared to feel on a Tuesday.
The chemistry is chef's kiss. The spice is... present. Very present. Beneath This Mask has similar heat levels if you're looking for more of that Meghan March intensity. If you're not into steamy content, this is not your book. There are f-bombs. There are scenes. My headphones stayed firmly in because I work from home and my cats don't need to hear that.
Who's Going to Love This (And Who Should Skip)
This is a rainy Sunday book. Or a "I need to feel something dramatic while doing mundane tasks" book. It's not reinventing the wheel—you've seen this Romeo and Juliet setup before—but sometimes you don't want reinvention. Sometimes you want the familiar wrapped in good narration and delivered with heat. Meghan March's Beneath These Shadows gave me that same delicious familiarity—different setting, same ability to make me lose track of time.
Abuela would have LOVED this one. She lived for telenovela drama, and this has that same energy. Rich families, forbidden love, someone objecting at a wedding? She would've been clutching her rosary and asking me to translate faster. Miss you, Abuela.
Skip if you need linear storytelling or get frustrated by timeline jumps—sample first. Same goes if sing-songy narration is a dealbreaker for you. But if you're a Meghan March fan, if you love dual narration, if you want to feel slightly unhinged about fictional people's romantic choices? You're gonna have a good time.
I'm already downloading book two. Don't look at me.
