Review: Thank You for Listening

Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.7 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

“Just giving you the last word.” 

Sewanee was an aspiring actress who found her way to being an audio book narrator, staring off in the romance genre. Becoming more cynical and losing the ability to believe in happily ever after, Sewanee left romance and started narrating different genres under her real name. When she gets the offer to return to romance and narrator the last story by the romance author who started her career, she finds she can't turn down the money because of how much it would help with taking care of her grandmother. The narrating job also comes with working with Brock McNight, a highly popular and mysterious male romance narrator. As Sewanee gets to know Brock more through their text message conversations, they start to develop a friendship that feels like it could lead to more. This all on the heels of a romance trope-y night in Las Vegas that included an only one hotel room, one night only offer, and mysterious hot stranger named Nick. Is hidden identities and second chance romance next? 

It was novel, having this strong a connection with someone she'd never seen. 

Thank you for Listening is a book that has been getting a lot of buzz and I was excited to dive in. I enjoyed how the longer page count, 400ish, gave the opportunity to the author to lay the ground work for her characters and story. I would say the first 28% was set-up, introducing readers to Sewanee, we meet her bestfriend Adaku who is finally getting her big break in acting, a journey that they started off together but an accident that caused the loss of one of Sewanee's eyes (it's revealed around 50% what happened) derailed her career. We also meet Mark who while also Sewanee's friend they work together in the audio book narrating business and BlahBlah, Sewanee's grandmother. A good chunk of the first half and middle is dedicated to Sewanee emotionally dealing with her grandmother's continuous slide into dementia. It brings up the fractured relationship she currently has with her father and how she feels he's putting the responsibility of BlahBlah's care on her and how her grandmother needs to move into a better care unit in her nursing home, hence Sewanee needing more money and deciding to return to romance book narrating. 

“Well, hello.” His voice came through her phone. 

And, also, simultaneously, across the night air. 

In the beginning, along with Sewanee's character set-up, we get her one night in Vegas with a mysterious Nick. The initial attraction, sexual tension, and by-play between the two delivered all the tingles but after Nick disappears the story leaned a lot into Sewanee's life issues and I started to feel like I was bait and switched into a women's fiction story. However, I kept thinking of the reviews I had read about the story and the tags of romance genre, just as I was about to adjust my thinking of what kind of story this was, the second half came in with the romance. We get a first surprise reveal of Nick being the nephew of the romance author, who passed away and the author who's book Sewanee is voice narrating and then at around 70%, if you're a frequent romance reader the obviously reveal of how Brock and Nick are connected. This reveal brings in more of Nick's character and we get his backstory to help flush him out. This is told in first person pov from Sewanee but it works and I thought the author pulled off having the reader feel like they knew and could “see” and “feel” Nick's character emotions and thinking, not something that is always apparent in first person pov romance. 

If everything was real, then why did she feel duped? 

With the identity reveals, Sewanee of course feels confused, has the emotional issues of dealing with her grandmother's continued deterioration, and the question of what she wants to pursue career wise in her life, so we get her running off to Italy to spend time with her mother. With so much focus on Sewanee and the issues she's dealing with, you can see where there's a strong women's fiction vibe and I would probably weigh the scales in that genre's favor but the romance does deliver, mostly because we do later get more on Nick, the number of romance check-list hits (rolled up sleeve forearm!), and the pretty fantastic chemistry between Sewanee and Nick. These two were definitely sweet and sexy. 

Some of the pacing and tone didn't always work for me, mostly because of how I didn't think it was a completely smooth transition between that first half/middle women's fiction and second half romance mish mash. This did have a full experience feel to it, in regards to journeying with Sewanee; if you like Kate Clayborn's stories you should definitely pick this up.

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