Smut

By: Karina Halle

Narrated by: Lidia Dornet, Shaun Grindell

Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

All Blake Crawford wants is to pass his creative writing course, get his university degree, and take over his dad's ailing family business. What Amanda Newland wants is to graduate at the top of her class, as well as finish her novel and prove to her family that writing is a respectful career.

What Blake and Amanda don't want is to be paired up with each other for their final project, but that's exactly what they both get when they're forced to collaborate on a writing piece. Since Amanda thinks Blake is an arrogant jerk (with a panty-melting smirk and British accent) and Blake thinks Amanda has a stick up her (tight, round) bottom, they fight tooth and nail. That is, until they discover they write well together. They also might find each other really attractive, but that's neither here nor there.

When their writing project turns out to be a success, the two of them decide to start up a secret partnership using a pen name, infiltrating the self-publishing market in the lucrative genre of erotica. Naturally, with so much heat and passion between the pages, it's not long before their dirty words become a dirty reality.

Contains mature themes.

©2016 Karina Halle (P)2016 Tantor

Good book

I liked the story. I thought the male narrator sounded a lot older but it didn’t bother me that much. However, I feel like it was a really drawn out story. Like it probably could have been a couple less hours and still have been a really good story. All In all I liked it!!

Pretty good

I just say this was a pretty good listen. The female narrator did an amazing job made all the emotions fit for the characters. The male narrator made the book not so good, it was at times comical when he was reading the real sexy stuff. His voice just wasn’t a good fit or it didn’t match how you’d think the character he was portraying would talk.

It was long...not the....

So, Blake and Amanda seems like a good pair. The beginning caught my attention. I had my moments with them, though, as I read on-liking them then, hating them...so, I was like they are okay with me, FINE. Lol I settled with them so called love. I just should realize by the title “Smut” how much of it. LOL most of the chapters after 60% of the book. Don’t get me wrong, it was hot...hot mess! Soon enough, I got bored with each chapter having a different sex scene. To the point I just skipped one or two chapters. Why I am surprised of it...Duh! Overall, Everything felt like it was trying waaaaaay too hard. Can you feel the love tonight? I guess I kinda did with them. It was fun and entertaining read. The audio narrators made it more vivid and so in that sense, I give it 3 stars. I don’t know without the audio if I can handle it. Eck.

Male narrator butchers it

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, but not the audio version. Lidia Dornet was fabulous, as always, but Shaun Grindell ruined the entire listening experience for me. I looked up his bio and it says that he grew up in England, but he sounds Australian in this audio version. (The character he is portraying is supposed to be British.) More annoying, however, is the homogenous cadence he uses -- every sentence has the exact same inflection. If I could have reached through my headset and punched him in the throat I would have. Aaargh!!! SO distracting!

What did you like best about this story?

Great "Cheetos for your brain" listen.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Lidia Dornet and Shaun Grindell ?

Lidia Dornet's performance of the male character was strong enough on it's own -- no need for a male narrator!

Any additional comments?

The tag line for the audio book should be "Death By Hemorrhaging Ear Drums".

Funny and sexy

the female narrator was great. totally felt emotions thru her words. male narrator, not so much. just didnt care for his style of narration.

Enjoyable read of enemies to lovers

I really enjoyed this book. It was a fun read of enemies to lovers type of genre. Blake and Amanda’s relationship starts off being put into a position that they have to work with each other, when they find one another annoying and within working with each other they begin to realize the other one isn’t so bad. When a chance to write again together comes up, I enjoyed the moments of tension between them that kept building up.
I think that Lidia Dornet does a good job with her female and male voices, there were times were she would make a long pause in the middle of the reading, but it didn’t detract to much from the story. Shaun Grindell’s narration was alright, his audio would sound far away sometimes. I have heard him before in The Pact, and I enjoyed his narration way more in that one.

Good book

Love Karina Halle books so far! This one was really good! I enjoyed the whole writer smut thingy!!!

Funny, sweet, and fucking hot :))

I have no idea how this reads on the page, but it was a great story to listen to. I LOL’d quite a bit. I really liked the gimmick of an erotic romance about a young pair of erotic romance writers. Lidia and Shaun did a great job. Their typecasting was spot on.

Sexy Sweet and Fun

Smut is my first Karina Halle book, and now I know why everyone loves her so much. Very sexy, sweet and fun with excellent narration, I loved how Smut gave a bit of an insiders look at self publishing and poked a little fun at it. Hopefully it was meant in the lighthearted way I took it and not the snarky way.

Amanda is a nerd. She is obsessed with writing and is absolutely in love with her creative writing class, thriving on any scraps of praise or encouragement the professor gives her. Blake's father owns a struggling bookstore. Blake is just trying to get through college and get his business degree so he can help save the store. He is a cocky manwhore with a British accent, and Amanda can't stand him. So of course, when they get their final assignment, they are paired together to write a novella.

"So it’s pretty easy to tell that my classmate in Writing 200, and my current writing partner, Amanda Newland, hates my bloody guts. And, for once, I have no (effing) idea why. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have some idea why. Because I don’t particularly like her either. It’s become something of a chicken or the egg situation. Her obvious dislike of me has led to my dislike of her, and my dislike of her has led to me, well, trying to get a rise out of her whenever I can."

Since they have to work together, as they get to know each other the hatred turns to respect. The respect turns to a flirtatious friendship. They realized that they work really well together. Amanda is a literary snob. She wants to write award-winning epic novels through all the right channels--getting an agent, hoping for years to get a deal, then traditionally publishing. Blake has another idea.

"Basically, from what I figure so far, if I make up a pen name, find a stock image of a shirtless roid monkey, and write a twenty to thirty thousand word novella about some kind of romantic or sexual endeavour, and put it up on Amazon for ninety-nine cents, I could stand to rake in some dough."

But he knows he can't do it alone, so this is the perfect opportunity for him to keep working with her after the semester ends.

"She’s a bit much to take at times and I’m certain she still thinks I’m the world’s biggest wanker— literally and figuratively— but I was getting used to her company. Writing with her was fun. Fighting with her was even more so. Maybe even hot. And hot is exactly what we need to bring to the table in order to rake in the dough."

Blake has done a LOT of research on what sells on Amazon, and there is a little poking fun at the bestselling book titles and blurbs.

"Riding Hard: a bad boy crime boss MC ménage forbidden second chance romance standalone"

So when they are writing all the hot scenes, you can imagine how hot it gets between them. The chemistry and sexual tension were through the roof!

"I'm tired of pretending that I don't want to do to her all the things we're talking about".


Likes:

•Light, sexy and fun, my perfect read.
•I love books that take place in the world of Indie publishing.
•I giggled out loud a few times.
•When they finally did the nasty, it was HOT.
•I loved her nerdy but funny personality.
•Blake's relationship with his stepbrother.
•Yum, a British accent.
•Unique storyline.
•There was no instalove, they worked through hatred first, and it was past 50% when things started ramping up between them.
•I love an enemies to lovers book.
•Good narration.

Dislikes:

•Poking fun at the indie romance genre was fine, but I hope this doesn't give people unrealistic expectations of getting a bestseller, and I hope readers and authors don't get insulted by it.
•Blake's narrator's voice wasn't quite as sexy as I wished.

The Down & Dirty:
I really enjoyed Smut by Karina Halle. It gently poked fun at the indie romance genre, but it wasn't nasty, it was true. I love an enemies to lovers romance and Smut filled the bill with nerdy times, banter, fun, laughter and sexy times. It was cool to read what an author goes through, and what happens behind the scenes of publishing a quick smutty novel. The narration was was pretty good, though his voice wasn't quite as sexy as I would have liked. Still, if you are looking for a fun, light, sexy and unique read that delves a bit into the mind of an author, Smut totally fits the bill.


Rating: 4.25 stars, 4.25 Heat, 4 Narration

The narrators are some of my faves!

5 Crazy Ass Must Read/Listen Stars!!!!!

I started out reading this but lately I've become an audiobook addict so I switched. Audible is my dealer and the narrators are my fix. Lidia Dornet is a favorite of mine and Shaun Grindell just made my faves list or should I say "fix list". I read a review below stating he sounded Australian. I don't know what kind of australians that reviewer has been around because Shaun is British and sounds nothing like an australian. That being said, on to the review.
I really enjoyed this. It was filled with sexual tension, dirty mouths, dirty words, hilarious moments (i.e. Fluffy. Bwahahaha.), heart break, and more. Lidia and Shaun did an amazing job bringing Amanda and Blake to life. There was never a moment that I lost concentration on the story because of their character changes.
This is my first Karina Hale read and most definitely will not be my last. I'll be doing a bit of Crazy Ass Stalking soon.