Romance Back-to-Back: Call Me Maybe + After the Fairy Tale

Here are two Audible Originals productions that I randomly discovered this month and absolutely loved:

Call Me Maybe (Love Lines, #1) by Cara Bastone – 5☕

Vera Hoffman has just days to make sure her website for her new Date-in-a-Box business launches. When the darn thing glitches, she calls her IT company and connects with Cal Kantola. An intense week of phone calls, DMs, voice messages, and texts ensue, and in between troubleshooting, these two start to develop feelings. But will their systems be compatible when they actually meet face-to-face? (via Goodreads)

If I have to look back, Call Me Maybe started my full-production-romances audiobook streak these past few days. I discovered this when I was trying to look for random short listens while I was doing the laundry one faithful weekend. This was a really fun, fully-cast production of a charming rom-com story. Call Me Maybe was the first book that I’ve read by Cara Bastone and, I have to say, I was really impressed. It was fun and feel-good, the story, circumstances and the characters were believable, and the writing simple and on-point – all contributed to a cute and highly entertaining story. I was honestly smiling all throughout – it’s just such a huge dose of sunshine.

Told through a series of phone calls, alternating POV texts and text messages, this is a charming story about finding love in the most unexpected of places. It also tackles things about restoring faith in your potential and claiming your successes and failures in life (love, love, love the sentiment of “maybe you’re not a quitter, maybe you’re a tryer“, proving that perspective really matters; even I was inspired, it almost felt like it was said directly to me) .

Ah, I really enjoyed listening to this. Plus, the narration in this book is just top-notch! Another brilliant production from Audible Originals. I just wish it could’ve been longer. Though I think it ended perfectly, I just wished the story continued because I really loved it so much.

Luckily though, a Book 2 in the Love Line series is coming out in a few days (April 22!), but focusing on another ship (which is a major spoiler to Book 1, so beware before looking at the blurb): Sweet Talk.

Rating:

After the Fairy Tale by Terrence Gray, Erin Day & Ian Thake – 4.5☕

When Amanda got a chance to take a shot at love on The Bridegroom – her favorite reality dating show – she jumped in headfirst. She never expected to win and end up engaged to her swoony Scottish suitor. Now she’s hiding out at her parent’s house in Nebraska and waiting for the show’s premiere, all while trying to keep her engagement to Liam top secret. But her real-life love story is about to take a turn she never expected….
When she’s reunited with her high school bestie, Josh, it’s impossible to deny that he’s grown into quite a catch. As they rekindle their friendship, something deeper begins to spark between them…or has it always been there? Now, Amanda has a life-altering decision to make. Will she find happily ever after with her sexy Scottish TV boyfriend or the sweet small-town guy who knows her better than anyone? (via Goodreads)

I know a lot people are divided in this audiobook but I really did enjoy it a lot. This was so cute! Perfect for fans of The Bachelor or any reality dating show for the matter, After the Fairy Tale has a unique angle and point of view to tell. This story focuses on Amanda, back at her parents’ place, while waiting out the premiere of The Bridegroom – which she actually won. Except no one knows about it yet, including about her engagement, because of the NDA.

This story was scripted exclusively for audio and performed by a full-cast, in full production (with music, etc.). It was a very interesting listening experience, that I’m not even sure if you could classify this strictly as a book since it was more of a radio drama. But anyway, technicalities aside, I really liked this story: which explored the behind-the-scenes of making and being involved in a reality show and the ups-and-downs, obviously, of the experience. It actually showed a scenario when you can be too caught up in the moment and then realize that you’ve viewed everything differently when you look back – which was the case for Amanda. That’s the reason I don’t really trust reality dating shows, lol, but I have to admit that it was audience-fodder so I can’t really blame studios for banking on them.

I honestly didn’t really feel the chemistry between Liam and Amanda so it’s maybe the reason I was so giddy when it looked like there is another man that she might end up with. It was fun and, at times, emotional. There were a couple of character choices for Amanda that I don’t really vibe with so I was a bit hesitant rating this a solid 5-star. The story was ok, but the production of this was very well done. Overall, though, it was a really great rom-com story to pass the time.