Frosted by the Girl Next Door

By: Aurora Rey, Jaime Clevenger

Narrated by: Lula Larkin

Casey Stevens needs distance from her movie producer parents and her social media starlet ex-wife. When she lands in Rocky Springs with a bruised ego and a pile of cash, the quaint tourist town seems like the perfect place for a fresh start. But is it the right place to make her dream of owning a classy sex shop a reality?

Tara McCoy knows a thing or two about licking her wounds. She never wanted to move back home, but she’s making the most of it, turning her family’s sleepy bakery into a cupcake destination. The last thing she wants next door is some seedy sex store, even if it’s promoting self-care as much as sex. And especially if the new owner is drop-dead gorgeous.

With the busy holiday season heating up, neither can afford to be petty or lose a customer. But when their reluctant truce melts into a little bit of sugar and a whole lot of spice, will love prevail, or will their differences be too hot to handle?

©2024 Aurora Rey and Jaime Clevenger (P)2024 Bold Strokes Book Inc

Cute Story, Disappointing Narration

The storyline was sweet, light, and very easygoing — a genuinely cute and enjoyable listen. It’s the kind of story you can relax into without too much emotional heaviness.
Unfortunately, the narration significantly impacted my experience. The character voices felt exaggerated and inauthentic, almost like someone forcing different accents rather than naturally embodying the characters. Instead of enhancing the story, it became distracting.
The pacing was also off. I increased the playback speed, but even then, the pauses between lines felt too long and disrupted the flow. It made it harder to stay immersed in what could have been a charming audiobook.
Overall, I liked the story itself, but the narration made it difficult to fully enjoy the Audible version.

So much unnecessary conflict and lack of communication.

Spoiler-ish:

I love both of these writers separately but I struggled with this one. The lack of communication was so unnecessary. The third act conflict caused so much frustration, I was so close to not finishing this book. They’re both fantastic at writing spice but the story line was a bit weak. As a narrator Lula Larkin is good but she isn’t my absolute favorite. She’s not bad but with a frustrating storyline a different narrator could have kept me more interested. I was excited about this book but it was a bit of a disappointment. I wanted so badly to love it.

Socially Irresponsible Subplot

This is more of a rant than a full review because I think it’s really important to talk about this and I haven’t seen any other reviews addressing this. The main conflict comes when Casey’s ex starts badmouthing Casey’s parents (who are in the industry — producers maybe?) and wrongfully claims that Casey’s dad sexually assaulted her. And I’m so mad that anyone, especially in our community, would write any fiction that discredits the real women who have spoken up about sexual assault in Hollywood. Which it does! Anytime you write a fictional character who falsifies an assault it has an impact on the perceived credibility of anyone who speaks up on being assaulted. This feels incredibly careless and socially irresponsible to me. I was really disappointed.

Good book with a disappointing flaw

I enjoyed this book with the exception of one detail that kinda blows up the grand gesture… or at least took me out of the story for a long minute. It’s a completely avoidable inaccuracy that, while commonly misunderstood, is really disappointing considering that this book must have been read and edited by many people before publishing.

That means this is a spoiler. If you have not read or listened to this book yet, I have given you plenty of warning to move past this review.

The Twelve days of Christmas start on Christmas. Christmas Eve is not too late to start The Twelve Days of Christmas, in fact it’s a day early. January fifth is day twelve and January sixth is The Epiphany. I recognize that most American Christians don’t formally celebrate Three King’s Day, but it’s truly baffling to me that we’ve gotten it so wrong for so long and no one has questioned the significance of December fourteenth (or the thirteenth if you think day twelve is Christmas Eve). If you did, you’d figure out that the twelve days happen on and after Christmas.

I’m not a Christian. I was not raised a Christian. I have attended exactly zero Christmas services or even Sunday services in my 40 years on Earth. I’m certainly not asking people to celebrate religiously.

But let’s say you celebrate with a gift every day of The Advent and each of the twelve days preceding The Epiphany. You will give/receive more gifts. Accuracy here means more gifts. Be correct, get more stuff. Celebrate longer to chase away those Winter Blues.

Fun read

Enjoyable story and characters. Helped get me in to the holiday spirit. These are two of my favorite authors. I recommend it!