Reality in Check

A Sapphic Celebrity Ice Queen Romance (A South Downs Romance, Book 2)

By: Emily Banting

Narrated by: Angela Dawe

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

From the multi-award-winning, best-selling author of Broken Beyond Repair comes a new sapphic celebrity ice queen romance — listened to as a standalone or as the second book in the South Downs Romance series.

Sculptor Arte Tremaine is thrown into the hospitality industry when her beloved late grandmother bequeaths her and her sister a charming yet rundown country hotel with zero guests. Arte is determined to make a success of the business, despite her sister snapping at her heels to sell it and painful memories confronting her inside.

Charlotte Beaufort, heiress to a hotel empire, television celebrity, and self-confessed city woman, hits the countryside to film an episode of her reality television show, Hotel SOS, where she immediately clashes with the overwhelmed Arte and her inquisitive Labrador, Rodin.

Arte doesn’t take kindly to Charlotte’s attitude and frank opinions about her hotel, but when they are thrown together, she begins to realise not everything is as it seems with her attractive nemesis. As Arte begins to chip away at Charlotte's icy exterior, both women begin to realise dreams and reality rarely entwine and that, sometimes, our dreams are not even our own.

Can the artsy dreamer and ambitious heiress face the reality of their situations and discover their true paths? And if so, can those paths lead them toward true love?

©2023 Emily Banting (P)2024 Emily Banting

Delightful

Once again Emily delivers another fantastic book. A little bit enemies to friends. A little bit ice queen and quirky artist, and a very nice happily ever after.
There's even a visit from Bea, Sydney and Gertie from Broken Beyond Repair. And of course, Angela Dawe was amazing.

Pretty Good

Overall, I enjoyed listening to this novel and Angela Dawe always delivers. I personally found Arte to be quite petulant and, at times, I found it hard to root for her because of her attitude and how she responded Charlotte later in the book. She acted like someone much younger than 38 years old. In addition, I think that Banting was a bit heavy-handed when she pushed the life lessons and changes in character as overtly as she did in this particular novel. What I mean is that there are times when the reader can "see" the transformations (their obligations, happiness, legacy, growth, etc..) characters experience in novels. This book seemed to dwell on those lessons and it felt redundant, impressing upon the reader what the point was rather than allowing the reader to come by it on their own during the course of the novel. I don't regret listening to this book at all and will continue to download more from Banting in the future.

another good one

Dawe did an excellent job as narrator! And Emily wrote a great book with believable characters. Well worth the listen.

Loved it

I couldn’t let it off my hands and spent the whole day listening to this wonderful book and even more wonderful narration.

Enjoyable Romanic Storyline With Interesting Characters!

I enjoyed the different personalities of the main characters in this story and how they provided their individual perspectives to the reader. A very refreshing storyline and well written ebb and flow of feelings. The performance of the store as provided by Angela Dawe was smooth with the perfect tone.

One of the best

This book along with the 1st one in the series, has been 2 of the best books I have listened to. This series has easily became one of my favorite. Let's not forget Angela Dawe narrating brings them to life.

Narrator fantastic, story not so much

Angela dawe is incredible, as usual. The story was frustrating. The chemistry between the characters wasn’t believable. Arte wasn’t particularly likable, and I tried.