Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: The Idiot
SERIES: Carver Brother
AUTHOR: Dianna Roman
NARRATORS: Liam DiCosimo & Tim Paige
PUBLISHER: Wild One Press LLC
LENGTH: 8 hours
RELEASE DATE: December 5, 2024
BLURB:
There’s no picking who you love…nor getting rid of them. Murphy Malone loves his orchard, his mother, and his dog. Life is great until he can’t stop thinking about what he’s missing—someone to share it all with. When he realizes that his love for his best friend, Jesse Carver, runs deeper than the bonds of friendship, it just makes things worse. The problem—Jesse Carver is the straightest man he’s ever known. Only time and distance can ease the ache, but what do you do when your loyal best friend follows you to the gay singles cruise you fled to in an attempt to escape your feelings? Tropes: idiots in love, awakening, friends to lovers, forced proximity
REVIEW:
Note: There is some timeline overlap in this story with the first book in this series, so there are spoilers here That being said, it works fine as a standalone.
Murphy Malone has a secret. A secret he’s kept from everyone except his family for his whole life. Even a secret from his best friend, Jesse Carver. But when Jesse drags Murph with him to stalk his brother because he’s brought a man home with him, well Murphy blurts out his secret to Jesse. He’s gay. Jesse is stunned. Not because he cares about anybody’s orientation one way or the other, but that Murph has been keeping a secret from him all these years. Murphy assumes that Jesse is keeping his distance for a few days after because he’s disgusted. But that’s not the reason. Jesse is just processing and feeling bad that he was so clueless and that he’s dragged his best friend to strip clubs for year without realizing that Murphy never paid attention to the girls!
Murphy decides he needs to get away after his mother points out a truth to him that he wasn’t prepared to face. He decides to go on a gay singles cruise. He’s being stalked by a guy he’s not really interested in but who should he see? Jesse! Jesse shows up to be his “wingman” and make sure he finds what he’s looking for. Too bad what he’s looking for is what he can’t have – Jesse!
When Murphy does ask Jesse to act like they are together to get rid of the guy who has been following him everywhere, he ends up getting a lot more than he bargained for. And when Jesse refuses to leave his room? Well things get really interesting. And the gay stuff? Jesse seems quite intrigued and far from disgusted. He’s still clueless though and Murphy’s educational lessons get a lot more “hands on” than either of them had counted on Oh and the nice grandpas who were helping Jesse with his seasickness? Yeah that wasn’t so innocent either
When they get home though, things get a bit murky. Are they together? Friends with benefits? What? The holidays make things awkward and Jesse has misread the situation. When Murphy confesses his true feelings, Jesse is speechless. Sort of? He needs reinforcements to help him figure out how to get his best friend back
Tim Paige and Liam DiCosimo are my favorite dual narrators! They have been the got to team especially for romance/comedy for the last few years. This is another prime example of why I look for their titles They way they perform these characters who are best friends is just so good. Both are so talented, but together they make an unbeatable team. Sort of like Jesse and Murph Jesse is completely adorkable and I loved how clueless he is – especially on the cruise with the nice “grandpas” that he completely misreads. Murphy’s dismay at realizing he’s been in love with his best friend? Perfection. I loved all the side characters here – Murph’s mom, Pete, Cam, the rest of the Carver family and the girls from the Dewdrop Everyone has their part of play in this little comedy of errors as these Jesse comes to the final realization that he loves his best friend too! I adored this audiobook and I think others will too. This rom-com is just fun, funny, steamy and hopeful. Such fun and I really hope there will be more books in this series Dianna Roman has written a really great series so far which I have thoroughly enjoyed. Highly recommended.
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