My Not So Wicked Stepbrother

My Not So Wicked Series, Book 1

By: Jennifer Peel

Narrated by: Melissa Moran

Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

"Wickedly charming, flirty, and clever. This is the ultimate friends to lovers story. I loved it!" (Becky Monson, number-one best-selling author of the Spinster series)

"You'll want to crawl between the covers of this book and never leave." (Whitney Dineen, number-one best-selling author of Relatively Normal)

Loveless is more than a name, it's a curse.

I, Emma Loveless, have a destiny. It's not the greatest of destinies, but when you have a name like Loveless, what can you do? I'm cursed to always be the friend, never the girlfriend. Unless you count my love affair with Duncan Hines, Dr. Pepper, and the ever-lovable Pillsbury Doughboy. They've seen me through it all, but a girl needs more than refined sugar to curl up to every night. It doesn't help that I have a meddling, albeit wonderful, mother who can't help playing matchmaker. Thanks to her, I can say I've been on a date with a felon. Now she swears she's found the one for me, her new optometrist, Dr. Sawyer King. Meanwhile, I'm preparing for the inevitable restraining order. That is, until I meet the sexy doctor and have to admit my mother is right - love at first sight does exist.

Unfortunately, my last name means business. Not only do I find myself in the friend zone, but also the twilight zone. Only in my world would Mr. Right turn into my stepbrother. To top it off, he brings with him a wicked stepmother who will do anything to keep us apart. Despite all this my heart - or is that my mom? - keeps telling me Sawyer is the one. But what if true love isn't strong enough to interfere with my destiny? It'll be me and the Doughboy...for eternity.

©2019 Jennifer Peel (P)2019 Jennifer Peel

Amazing!!!!

This book is one of my absolute favorites! Melissa Moran's performance brought it to life in an incredible way. Best audiobook I have listened to!

Chick Lit with a bit of fun

3.5 stars
My Not So Wicked Stepbrother is really more chick lit than romantic comedy, but it is filled with wit and snark that keep things from getting too heavy. I wouldn't necessarily consider this pair as step-siblings, more like step-siblings twice removed, so if you're looking for a forbidden romance, you won't find that here. The story had its ups and downs for me, but one big up lay with the characters. Love them or hate them, and Jennifer Peel gives us some of both, they're certainly interesting. The romance is a very slow burn, and Emma's inability to see what was right in front of her nearly drove me to distraction. There is a bit too much focus on the mundane details of almost everything, which created some lags in the story, and it's a little more angsty than I care for in what I thought was going to be a lighthearted read. The biggest drawback for me was Emma's focus on fifteen extra pounds, and I do mean focus. It comes up a lot throughout the story, and just felt like a bit too much, especially in a body positive world. Regardless of that, the characters do shine, and that's not just our romantic couple. Even the secondary characters come to life in Peel's writing. Another excellent part of this one was the narration. Melissa Moran breathed that life into Jennifer Peel's terrific characters. She did an excellent job of conveying the emotion of the story, including the snark and at times, the silliness. Even though Moran's voice didn't go as deep as you'd expect for the men, she still did a great job of making each person distinct, and the story entertaining. In the end, this first in the My Not So Wicked series had it's pros and cons for me, but it was certainly worth the listen.

Love it

I seriously love everything about this book! The humor is one of a kind! I also enjoy the clean, and funny interactions! It’s the type of book that makes you giddy as well as heart sick all at the right times. It sucks you in!

Sweet Romance

This love story is like a warm blanket that you just want to wrap yourself in .
You might need chocolate and a glass of wine .
Great job ! Can't wait for book 2 .
The narrator did an amazing job ...
five stars ....

Forbidden Relationship Romance

I am such a sucker for the forbidden romance trope books so when I learned that this was a potential step-sibling relationship I was ready to jump into the story. A light-hearted romantic comedy was just what I was looking for, the perfect fluffy read to get sucked into.
There were so many times that I felt like my heart was breaking for Emma and I wished that I had a copy of the physical book so I could cheat and make sure that there was a happy ending because to be completely truthful I felt like my heart was breaking for Emma most of the book. I know the book is listed as a romantic comedy but I found almost none of it funny. The story pulled out the big guns with the emotional buttons, be it the death and depression from the loss of a loved one, unrequited love, and family drama, but on occasion I felt like I wanted to cry for the Emma and all the awful that was piled on her. That being said I enjoyed the story a lot, it was heartfelt and pulled me in and I rooted hard for a Emma/Sawyer love match in the worst of ways.

There were two reasons why I gave the book 4 stars instead of five. Firstly, the continuous mentioning of Emma's weight. I am in full support of her being a full figured woman, but at times it felt like her weight/squishy thighs/round stomach/eating habits was thrown in my face at every turn and occasionally it seemed to define her- she was the overweight female friend. I wanted her to own her body and looks, but instead she was so wishy washy- one minute saying how she loved who she was and the next hating herself and choices. A few mentions would have been ok, but it was too self deprecating for me to get behind. Second reason was the ending. Yes it was the HEA that I expected, but there was a lot of chaos and upheaval in the last part of the book and the happy wrap up felt a little rushed and was maybe only 20 minutes of the almost 7 hour book.

I absolutely loved the narrator, Melissa's performance was spot on. She did a fantastic job of bringing Emma to life, making her into a real person that I empathized with as well as creating new voices for the other characters as well. I would listen to her narrator more audiobooks in the future. Overall I really enjoyed this entire experience and I would love to listen to the next standalone romance in the My Not So Wicked series featuring the side character Shelby who was hysterical in this book.

loved this book couldn't stop listening

I heard this book 3 times I loved it can't wait for more books to come out

Stepbrother

I love a story whose heroine is not model-perfect, yet everyone around her tells her she’s beautiful. No one has the perfect family, or perfect friends, or a perfect life. But anyone can be happy. Self-confidence and knowing who you are, are 2 key factors. Happiness is a condition we can always have, even when life is unkind. Love and concern for others is the jumping-off point. Emma & Sawyer! Yay!❤️

Fun, fun, fun!!!

Clever writing and lots of LOL moments throughout! I don’t love the title of this book, but everything else is great. I’ll be looking for other books by Peel. She’s hilarious!

Emma was my girl loved her

The opening had me all over Emma. I just loved her. She was so real, so down to earth, so herself. That was very important to the story for me. If she was being fake and trying to be something she was not would have taken away. I could visualize Zooey Deschanel as Emma very easily. She would most certainly work. As for Sawyer, I think what cemented it for me was the way he did not hold back with Emma on their first contact. That was just delicious.
The story was full of fun, funny, hilarious moments. The cast of characters all given and taking. Many of them were just taking, but that lent to the air of what was being build around Emma and Sawyer. You fall in love with several background characters that still had important roles.

Narration provided by Melissa Moran and that was a familiar for me. She does a very good job giving us Emma's POV. She could do it all day long and I would not get tired of her.

*****
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Jennifer Peel. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Pleasantly surprised.

In all honesty I was not sure about this book at first given the title My not so wicked step-brother. I wasn't sure if it was going to be weird...I mean falling for your step-brother makes a challenging love story; however, given the back story of how they met and became step siblings as adults definitely made it less awkward. I mean there were still some awkward moments but the step brother title never suited their relationship. Also, I loved Emma's relationship with her mother and how much she cared for her family and even when she felt "Loveless". You could truly feel her pain from losing her mother, it was heartbreaking but yet comforting to feel her mother's presence throughout the story.