When Grumpy Met Sunshine

A Novel

By: Charlotte Stein

Narrated by: Emily Spowage

Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

A steamy, opposites-attract romance with undeniable chemistry between a grumpy retired footballer and his fabulous and very sunshine-y ghostwriter.

When grumpy ex-footballer Alfie Harding gets badgered into selling his memoirs, he knows he’s never going to be able to write them. He hates revealing a single thing about himself, is allergic to most emotions, and can’t imagine doing a good job of putting pen to paper.

And so in walks curvy, cheery, cute as heck ghostwriter Mabel Willicker, who knows just how to sunshine and sass her way into getting every little detail out of Alfie. They banter and bicker their way to writing his life story, both of them sure they’ll never be anything other than at odds.

But after their business arrangement is mistaken for a budding romance, the pair have to pretend to be an item for a public who’s ravenous for more of this Cinderella story. Or at least, it feels like it’s pretend—until each slow burn step in their fake relationship sparks a heat neither can control. Now they just have to decide: is this sizzling chemistry just for show? Or something so real it might just give them their fairytale ending?

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2024 Charlotte Stein (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“The queen of delicious pining returns! This book is a hilarious and modern Cinderella story that feels like eating warm chocolate cake. I loved the secretly sweet but grouchy hero, the fabulous yet relatable heroine, and the proper northern perspective. Charlotte Stein is a must-buy author.”—New York Times bestselling author Talia Hibbert

"Charlotte Stein is sui generis as an author in all the most delightful ways. Her romances are funny as hell, absurdly hot, full of sincere emotion, and overflowing with endless imagination—but best of all, her authorial voice is entirely unique. Her books are her, down to their bones, and there’s no mistaking her writing for anyone else’s. When Grumpy Met Sunshine is the perfect example of how she can take a simple, fun premise—surly footballer meets sunny ghost writer tackling his memoirs—and make it entirely her own, mining it for all its absurdity, humor, knee-melting heat, and heartache. In short: If you want to know why Stein’s work helped inspire me to begin writing, look no further than this book. I can’t wait for legions of new readers to discover her stories.”—Olivia Dade, author of Spoiler Alert

“This book had me grinning like a fool from the first chapter. I’ve read a lot of grumps but Alfie—who lists among his hobbies—not being spoken to—takes the cake as THE ULTIMATE grump—the most charming, most likely to have a gooey inner center, most gone for the glorious sunshine heroine from the jump. I hope romance readers are ready, because I don’t think anyone has ever delivered on a slow burn quite like this.”—Rosie Danan, bestselling author of The Roommate

welcome back!

I don't normally leave reviews, but Charlotte is such a good writer with an amazing voice. It is feel-good fantasy and brilliantly described heat.

Yes, even me!

I love a book that's funny honest and written in truth. This book made me fell hopeful to all things possible. it was well written and I thoroughly enjoyed it 😀.
Thank you.

cute

A cute summer romcom.
Might be better to read unsure but listening , all the online socials commentary was unpleasant to follow.
I fast forwarded a lot.
But the overall story was adorable.

adorkable

the ML type is my favorite... loved the story line it was so cute and 😏

Steamy, endearing story, awesome narrator.

This is my first charlotte stein and I wonder how the rest of her books could even top it! This was an amazing read, with a very particular brand of smut I thoroughly enjoyed.

I want to know what happens next

I loved these characters. What fun! Please write more about them! Thanks for giving them to us.

LOL good

I enjoyed everything about this listen.
I’m planning to purchase a physical copy and I gifted this audiobook to two other friends because I enjoyed it so much.

terrific story, consider opting for print vs audio

First, the book itself is sensational. Highly recommended. Charlotte Stein is great at zeroing in on the dynamic between the romantic leads and building up the tension between them. So much of chemistry in a romance comes down to what is going on in the protagonists' heads, and Stein is phenomenal at rendering every minute reaction -- physical, emotional, intellectual.

Readers who buy both audio and print may want to consider the latter for When Grumpy Met Sunshine, though. Emily Spowage's narration is very competent -- I didn't clock any mispronunciations or weird emphasis indicating she didn't quite catch the tone or meaning of what she was reading. However, she doesn't differentiate character voices at all. For some books and authors that wouldn't matter, but Charlotte Stein is *very* sparse in using speech tags. For me, that made it hard to track which protagonist was saying what at times (esp when protags were agreeing and/or sharing memories of similar childhood experiences), and I had to back up 30 seconds and relisten to figure it out. Eventually I switched to the ebook, where paragraph breaks and quotation marks do a lot of the lifting to make that clear. Again, the narration wasn't bad at all -- I just think it was a poor fit for Stein's writing style and I had to concentrate extra hard to follow along.

Good Storyline

Overall I loved the story, but some of the miscommunications had me yelling at the book and got maddeningly redundant towards the end.

I enjoyed the narrator’s voice in general, but she didn’t differentiate between character’s voices so when they had conversations I couldn’t tell which character was talking. Maybe better read the book vs listen to the audiobook for clarity’s sake.

Fun, Fun, Fun!

This book was so fun to read. The characters were flawed, funny, and felt so real. The dialogue was funny, witty, and so engaging that I didn’t want to put it down. I’ve never read a book by this author before, but by golly, I’m looking to see what else she has written. So, stinking adorable!