Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

by Brynne Weaver (June 4, 2024) Thanks to @brynne_weaver @zandoprojects and @netgalley for the free audiobook! If you read Butcher & Blackbird, you know this is a <AHEM> unique series. If you enjoyed B&B, I think you’ll find the second book in the series equally entertaining. But, like the first book, please read the content warnings and be emotionally prepared to forego some more foods, just as you probably no longer eat cookies and cream ice cream (IYKYK).

Grumpy Lachlan Kane leads a double life. By day, he owns a boutique leather shop, and by night, he is a contract killer (he also helps his younger brother ID serial killers, but we know that from B&B). A year ago, he messed up a job and now sees no way out of the life of murderous that he wants to leave behind. Then Lark, the annoyingly sunshine, silver-spoon heiress, offers him a mutually beneficial way out – she’ll get him out of his contract, he’ll help find who is threatening her family, and they will save Butcher & Blackbird in the process. The only catch is that they will have to get married to make it work. As they navigate a fake marriage, they discover sides of the other they thought didn’t exist. Lachlan might be grumpy, but he is loyal and loves his family fiercely. Lark may be a sunshine indie singer, but darkness lurks within her and her family business.

Like B&B, this is a dark, violent, super spicy romance (although it is *slightly* tempered on both fronts from the first book). I adored the campiness of B&B, but this book, although it is still funny, puts more on the line. Lachlan and Lark are trying to save people they love while not being killed in the process, which makes the stakes feel higher and the tone a little more serious. A Little. I also thought this plot, which was teased at the end of the first book, worked well because, if you are like me, you may have found yourself thinking, ‘Don’t these actions have consequences?’ And here you see some consequences. At its core, this is a completely bingeable slow burn enemies-to-lovers, marriage of convenience that will cause you to never look at smoothies, beer, pizza, snow globes, or coffee tables(!!) quite the same way again. 

Samantha Brentmoor and Eric Nolan narrate the audiobook in a duet. It was my first book with either of them as narrators, and they were fantastic! Duet narration is my absolute favorite style for audiobooks, and this one was a duet narration of everything—even the content warnings. 

What books do you hope to read this summer?