Audiobook Review - Nevermore Bookstore by Kerrigan Byrne & Cynthia St. Aubin

Nevermore Bookstore by Kerrigan Byrne & Cynthia St. Aubin

Nevermore Bookstore is a book that I've heard about through TikTok but I found it when I was, once again, looking for book narrated by Teddy Hamilton. I don't know what it is about him, but his voice is just perfect for romance novels. 

Cady Bloomquist has taken over Nevermore Bookstore after the previous owner, her aunt, died. Things have been tough for her lately, but something she always looks forward to are her calls on Thursday nights with "Fox". Fox always calls at the same time on Thursday night to place a book order, and to just talk (and sometimes flirt). Well, Roman Fawkes has been pining over Cady for a while, but knows that he could never give her the life she deserves. He lives as a hermit, living on a mountain, in a tent, in the woods. He has vowed to stay away from Cady, but one night when calling in his book order, someone breaks into Cady's bookstore. Helpless, Fawkes realizes that he's powerless to protect her. So he shows up on her door and introduces himself as Bob, and he ends up helping her around the bookstore. As he gets closer to her, he realizes that he may not be able to resist a life with Cady afterall.

Okay, now that I've got the summary out of the way, let's get into it. First of all, the cover is totally misleading. It's beautiful, but the characters on the cover look nothing like the way Fawkes and Cady were described. Fawkes is supposed to be this massive, ex-military hulk of a man. And Cady is supposed to be plus-sized. It's a nice cover, it's just not accurate.

I liked how Cady represented those with chronic pain. She has ankylosing spondylitis (which the female narrator pronounced as "Ankylosing Spondylititis" but I'll let that pass) that causes her to be in pain most of the time. I thought Cady was a strong female character, and I liked her. But now comes Fawkes. I'm really on the fence about his character. On one hand, I know this book is fictional so I can excuse his weirdness and think his protectiveness and dominance was swoon worthy. But on the other hand, he's a literal pervert. Like what kind of guy lives in the woods and uses binoculars to watch his love interest get off while they're on the phone together, and she doesn't know anyone's watching. But I also feel bad for him because he deals with PTSD and all these other issues. So I don't know how I feel about Fawkes. 

I thought the story of this book was interesting. I was expecting some more cozy mystery vibes, but although there was not too much, I still enjoyed this book. Also, why is this book labeled under paranormal? There was nothing paranormal going on at all. Overall, not the best read but still enjoyable.

Also sidenote, what was up with that random racist line? Cady literally compared her pubes to Colin Kaepernick's hair, like what the fuck?