{"id":54469,"date":"2020-09-05T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=54469"},"modified":"2020-09-04T08:45:30","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T12:45:30","slug":"audio-review-the-anti-boyfriend-by-penelope-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=54469","title":{"rendered":"Audio Review: The Anti-Boyfriend by Penelope Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 <\/b>Amazon\u00a0<\/a> |\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Apple Books\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0B&N<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Kobo\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Google Books<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Audible\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n

\r\n <\/div><\/div><\/b><\/h4>\n
\n

Review<\/b><\/h4>\n

4.5 stars!<\/b><\/p>\n

A fantastically fun, sweet and emotional standalone romance between a young single mother and the \u201cmanwhore-next-door\u201d, this slow-burning friends-to-lovers romance is full of chemistry and swoon, and completely captured my heart.<\/p>\n

Carys is a 24 year old single mother to a 6 month old baby girl. Like any mother of an infant, she cherishes her sleep, so when her manwhoring neighbour consistently wakes her up with his headboard-banging activities night after night, she decides to politely speak to him about his night-time habits.<\/p>\n

Deacon takes the news surprisingly well and, horrified that his overnight guests have disturbed his neighbour, he tries to make it up to her. It starts with coffee and conversation, and then when Deacon immediately calms Carys\u2019 screaming daughter one night, his apparent baby whispering skills enfolds him into their little family.<\/p>\n

Their conversations are funny, witty and flirtatious, and they slowly become an important part of each other\u2019s lives. They both acknowledge that there is an attraction there, but Deacon doesn\u2019t want a relationship, and he certainly doesn\u2019t want to be somebody\u2019s father, so they remain friends. Until they take things a step too far one night, and everything changes.<\/p>\n

I love these characters so much. They are smart, funny and sensible. They\u2019ve both faced hardships, but they\u2019ve pulled through and are making the best of their lives. Their friendship is wonderful and so entertaining, and those scenes of Deacon with little Sunny absolutely melted my heart.<\/p>\n

And their romance is so good! Ward strikes the perfect balance between humour and emotion to give us a book that had me laughing out loud at the teasing and banter between these two (their text messages in particular), and swooning over their slowly developing love story.<\/p>\n

But their road to love is not straightforward. Sure, the attraction and the feels are there, but it takes a little while for them to get on the same page, and we are treated to a deliciously teasing back and forth as they wrestle with everything that\u2019s building between them. And then when they decide to take that jump and go all in, it\u2019s just magic. Sexy, swoony and intense, but still loads of fun, even after all of that build-up, it still feels organic. It\u2019s such a beautiful love story.<\/p>\n

Knowing Ward\u2019s books, I was waiting for the twist that she likes to throw into her stories, and I actually thought this one was a little weak. It works to create drama, but didn\u2019t really feel believable to me, and I didn\u2019t think it was necessary. But, of course, the story ends well, and I finished this book with a happy smile on my face.<\/p>\n

Narrated by Andie Arndt and Sebastian York, this is just the kind of story that they do best, and I really enjoyed listening to this one.<\/p>\n

I loved it \u2013 4.5 stars.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n

About the Author<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Penelope Ward\u00a0is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance.<\/p>\n

She grew up in Boston with five older brothers and spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor. Penelope resides in Rhode Island with her husband, son, and beautiful daughter with autism.<\/p>\n

With over two million books sold, she is a 21-time New York Times bestseller and the author of over twenty novels. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and can be found in bookstores around the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FACEBOOK<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0WEBSITE<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0TWITTER<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0INSTAGRAM<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0GOODREADS<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0FB FAN GROUP<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out our\u00a0Penelope Ward Author Spotlight<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Amazon\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Apple Books\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0B&N\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Kobo\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Google Books\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Audible\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Paperback Review 4.5 stars! A fantastically fun, sweet and emotional standalone romance between a young single mother and the \u201cmanwhore-next-door\u201d, this slow-burning friends-to-lovers romance is full of chemistry and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":4.5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[454,25,9,1036,29],"tags":[132,48,76],"class_list":["post-54469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio-recommendation","category-friends-to-lovers","category-romance","category-single-parent","category-steamy","tag-penelope-ward","tag-review","tag-standalone"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/The-Anti-Boyfriend.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-eax","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}