Jett & Leighton

On Cravenwood Block

By: A.D. Ellis

Narrated by: Oliver Young-Apstein

Jett is accustomed to people thinking he’s an intimidating, aloof loner. He doesn’t really mind, even though finding a special connection to someone would be nice. Opening his own tattoo shop on Cravenwood Block is a dream come true, but he isn’t prepared for the determined little ray of sunshine who walks through his door and turns his entire world upside down.

Leighton knows better than to let himself get involved with a straight guy again—been there, done that, got the t-shirt and some stylish baggage he’s been lugging around ever since. However, the moment he lays eyes on the new tattoo artist on the block, he can’t help the instant pull toward the man.

Meeting Leighton throws Jett for a curve. He’s forced to recognize he’s got a lot to learn about himself, and he quickly realizes he actually likes the man he’s uncovering. Leighton knows it’s dangerous to let his heart hold onto hope, but he can’t shake the feeling something good is just around the corner.

*Jett & Leighton: On Cravenwood Block is a steamy, opposites-attract, bisexual-awakening, roommates-to-lovers M/M romance featuring a sexy-as-sin tattoo artist and a fresh, flashy barista with a smile that lights up the room.*

©2022 A.D. Ellis (P)2024 A.D. Ellis

Loveddd it

I loved the book & Oliver’s narration was SO GOOD!!!!! Can’t wait for book 2 to be released :))

Great Gay Series Book 1 of Cravenwood Block

Cravenwood Block, named after the developer Robert Cravenwood, was established twenty five years prior within a city when the proposed plans were to demolish the buildings for a parking lot. Cravenwood saw the potential in renovation and revitalization of the area creating a community with a community near midtown.

Cravenwood Apartments Towers, better known as CAT A & B, have unique upper floor housing arrangements similar to dorm suites complete with 8 bedrooms. Tower A's Cravenwood employee residents are the focus of this series. Well developed relatable characters, Jett and Leighton are the first two of the eight roommates, featured in this book. The rest of the roommates are introduced in this book will be elaborated in the following books.

Leighton Cruise is the typical outgoing flirty, over the top gay barista at Craven a Cup who knows who is and makes no excuses for being himself. Knowing he was gay since seventh grade, positively supported by family and friends, Leighton has had his share of troubles with past relationships.

Jett Nelson is the latest arrival to block, tattoo artist establishing his newly acquired ownership of Craven Ink Designs on the Cravenwood Block. At twenty five, his closest relationship till now, has been with his grandfather with whom he lived since eighteen. Jett will be challenged to reassess his sexuality by Leighton's constant flirting.

Oliver Young-Apstein has a pleasant voice and cadence to listen to filled with emotional fluctuations. The only criticism I have is that he could do better in distinguishing the all male characters with different pitches or other nuances to denote the change of characters especially when interacting with one another. Definitely much better than listening to virtual voice narrated books, but not as great as the audible books where the narrators make clear distinctions for the various characters.

Good start to a great series

I often avoid shorter books that focus on only one couple because so many books waste so much time on silly misunderstandings that you don’t have time to enjoy the couple building a relationship or rush into things so quickly that it seems totally implausible and just doesn’t “feel” like a real relationship. This is a perfect example of a book that walks the line perfectly between taking time to build a relationship and not wasting time on unnecessary stuff. It’s nice that at times we move forward in time a week or two or something so you don’t feel like everything on page happened in such a short period of time that it’s implausible. I also really like the way this series does truly focus on one relationship per book but has a group that becomes so close over the course of the series that reading them together feels completely cohesive and allows you to enjoy the other characters in each book as the series progresses.

Jett and Leighton were wonderful MCs that I liked from the beginning and while the book didn’t have a lot of angst the characters had backstories that made them feel like real people with real issues. I also enjoyed the way Jett dealt with his sexuality and didn’t feel like the revelation that he was attracted to a man for the first time was no big deal. I also really liked Leighton. He really did consider his past relationship and didn’t just jump into things despite being the one who pushed Jett from the very beginning. I also liked that he considered how Jett was dealing with his attraction to a man and was sensitive to his feelings. The banter between the two was also very funny and I liked that throughout the rest of the series that Leighton would continue to use silly nicknames that Jett would immediately shoot down.

The narration was good with nice pacing and a pleasant reading voice. There were occasional times where a bit of background noise was there (traffic sounds) but it was so low that it didn’t detract. The one negative thing I would say about listening to the book is that the characters sometimes had inner dialogue with themselves in the middle of a conversation that made it a little confusing in the audiobook to know when they were speaking and when they were just thinking. Again it didn’t detract from the book enough to make it unpleasant to listen to.

In all I would definitely recommend this book and I would also recommend reading the whole series in order. I also wanted to say that after listening to the whole series I enjoyed that they overlapped in when they took place so even though the couples often started their relationships at the same time we get to see each develop from beginning to end not just start at the point in time that the last book ended.

Hurricane & Sweet Cheeks

I love hilariously persistent MCs. Leighton is so into Jett that Jett never really stood a chance against him (not that he wanted to). Their developing friendship before their romance was sweet though, and provided the best basis for their relationship.

Jett's awakening--no matter the label he eventually settles on--was really delightful to experience. Both MCs had special moments of clarity in their relationship, and I loved watching each of them fumble over the feelings that matched one another before they even knew or understood they were on the same page.

Leighton is Jett's little hurricane, and is amusingly mentioned as so several times throughout the book. Jett's rejection of pretty much all of Leighton's attempted endearments was hysterical. You can't NOT smile when that's happening.

All of the Cravenwood Block characters are incredible, and I'm looking forward to experiencing all that A.D. Ellis can bring to the table.

Audiobook:
Audiobook narrator spoke so fast, I had to slow down the reading speed in order to understand what they were saying. Beyond that, Oliver Young-Apstein was a very pleasant voice to follow for Jett & Leighton's story. There were a few moments where I had to discern whose voice he was trying to betray at that time, but most of the time the characters were subtly different enough to follow.

I received an authorized copy of this story/audiobook and am volunteering my honest review.

Light and fun read

The audiobook was provided me by the author. (Thank you!)

Jett, a tattoo artist, is thought by most people to be an intimidating loner - well, Leighton isn't one of them and bursts into Jett's life like a hurricane. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and he's openly flirting with Jett from the minute he first saw him. The problem is that Jett is straight and Leigh has burned himself before, so he decides he has to do with friendship. The friendship soon turns into a friends with benefits relationship and…
There are no huge surprises in the story, it is clear to everyone that the guys are in love with each other and HEA is guaranteed. Sometimes I pick up certain books specifically for that reason. A light read can be good for a girl, especially after a particularly dark, gloomy and painful book.
I loved the other guys (each couple has their own book, yay!), I want friends like them too! Leighton's innuendos kept me smiling and I loved his many attempts at nicknames!
I especially liked the demi rep, Jett's road to his self-discovery was absolutely believable and understandable.
The whole book is a giant, soft blanket, in which the readers can wrap themselves in such a way that they want to stay in it until the end of the series (maybe even after finishing it). I really enjoyed this book!

The problem for me was the narrator.
A subjective opinion follows. Oliver Young-Apstein seems to have really only read the book; he didn't play with his voice, he had the same style, timbre, enthusiasm from start to finish. If I hadn't had the e-book in front of me, it would have been very difficult for me to believe that the sentences was not said by Jett, but by his grandfather. Because as Jett's voice, I think he was quite good. Leighton's parts, on the other hand, lacked playfulness, humor, smiles... It was as if he really only fulfilled his duty by reading ~250 pages, but he didn't really bring any life into it. It was as if he was bored or just wanted to get over it all... (It was also a bit disturbing that in the background it was like someone was nudging the microphone every few minutes - I have never experienced this before with other audiobooks.)

Overall, the book itself is really fun and lovable but I'll need time to get used to the narrator's style.

The narrator killed the story for me

I consistently became confused as to who was talking . He didn't change pace or tone between characters . Additionally he doesn't understand what a comma or a period does when reading.