Book Stats:
- Advance Reader Copy (ARC) from NetGalley 🖤
- Book 1 of the Black Hollow Creek series
- Publication Date: 04/28/26
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Format: audiobook
- Narrator(s): Ri Paige & Hugo Locke
- Length of audiobook: 16 hours & 7 minutes
- Narrator POV: 1st person POV
- Also on Kindle Unlimited 🖤
Book Rating
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐/ 5
Spice: 🌶️🌶️/ 5
Summary & Review
This book has some wonderful tropes – Small town, age gap, morally grey MMC, cowboy romance, bad boy X preacher’s daughter, enemies-to-lovers, forced marriage, etc. There’s a lot going on there and I was ecstatic for that!
Prior to this book, I had never experienced narration by either of these narrators – Ri Paige or Hugo Locke. I had also never read a book by this author, J.L. Beck, before. So there were a lot of firsts that I was excited for. 🖤
Now, for the review 😉
First, the narration. I do think both narrators did a good job. Not as phenomenal as other narrators I’ve listened to, but definitely good. I had a difficult time with Ri’s voice for Saint, only because she sounded way older than the 18-19 year old girl she was portraying. I know that’s kind of unfair to say, since we all have unique voices and some may sound older/younger than they are, but it was just the first thing I noticed when I heard her narrate. It didn’t negatively impact the story for me, though.
As for the story itself, I know many other reviewers said it was dark and spicy, but I guess maybe I’ve read too many dark romances prior to this because I didn’t find it all that dark or spicy myself. There were definitely dark aspects to the book, such as barbaric traditions and a family who is abusive and would rather kill someone than accept their failures. But the story as a whole didn’t feel super dark to me. And there was a little bit of spice, though I found it kind of mild in comparison to other darker romance-type books.
I rated this one 3 stars because I felt it was a good book overall. Solid story, good narration, and interesting situations. I did feel like some parts of the story dragged and I started losing interest at times. Things did occasionally pick back up, and I was able to finish the story easily enough. However, the overall story just fell a little flat for me. I also didn’t particularly care for any of the characters. I kept thinking they’d grow on me or I’d be blown away by their growth/ character arc or something, but that never happened.
Based on other reviewers, though, I’m kind of the odd one out. 🤷🏻♀️ So definitely give this story a chance if you’re interested. 😊
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