Room Mates

By: Kendall Ryan

Narrated by: Ava Erickson, Sebastian York, Jeremy York

Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

Life is smooth sailing until these new roomies find themselves stuck between a rock and a very hard place. Because lusting after the one person you shouldn't ever mess around with - your new roommate - is like cardinal rule number one. Get ready for four complete friends-to-lovers rom-com standalones.

The Room Mate - Her best friend's younger brother moves in, and despite being off-limits, he is oh so tempting.

The Play Mate - Her older brother's best friend becomes the financial backer to her lingerie company; then, these two office mates decide to become play mates. What's the worst that could happen?

The House Mate - He's the hot, single dad, and she's the new live-in nanny. This is swoon-worthy perfection if you like single dad romance!

The Soul Mate - The smoking-hot one-night stand she was never supposed to see again? She's pregnant, and he’s her hot doctor.

©2017 Kendall Ryan (P)2017 Kendall Ryan

Best Value! 4 books for 1 credit.

Room Mates: The Series by Kendall Ryan was one of the best uses of an audible credit ever! 4 standalone books for one credit! They even have different narrators. I enjoyed every one of these stories, and I’m going to do a quick review of each.

The Room Mate:
28 year old Paige’s best friend asks for a favor. Her younger brother, a med student, had his apartment destroyed by a crazy ex, not for the first time, and was evicted. He needs a place to stay and focus on just work until he starts his residency out of town in 2 months.

“My best friend’s little brother wasn’t so little anymore. And he’d just marched into my life, turning my girly bits into warm, aroused mush.”

When he claims that all women who sleep with him fall in love, Paige decides to prove that wrong. Famous last words, right?

“I didn’t have time for distractions, and I’d just promised myself there would be no more [effing] around. But all of that went out the window the second I laid eyes on Paige.”

He’s always had a crush on Paige, but she was 4 years older. But now, all bets are off.

The Room Mate was a cute, light, sweet, fun second chance romance. Not terribly unique or memorable, but it had likable characters, a sweet story, and was just a great escape.

The Narration:
Jeremy York and Ava Erickson did a great job narrating, but I must admit, I don’t find Jeremy York’s voice sexy, so I had a little trouble thinking of him as totally irresistible.
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The Play Mate:
This one is big brother’s best friend trope. 22 year old Evie has always had a crush on her 29 year old brother’s best friend. After one kind-of sexual experience, Evie decides she wants her first real sex to be with Smith. She engineers a whole way to sneak into his room and go for it! Honestly, if she were a guy and he a girl, it would be cause to arrest him, but the other way around doesn’t seem to be a problem. I kind of had a hard time with this, especially after this line:

“And come tomorrow night, he wouldn’t know what him him.
The feminist inside me beat on her chest and let out a battle cry.
I was doing this.
I would make Smith my bi**h.
And zero [effs] would be given.”

Well, the plan backfired - but then they start a job together! And after he had a little taste of her, he couldn’t get her out of his head.

“Somehow over the past couple of years, annoying Evie had morphed into curvy, hot-as-he!!, infiltrating-my-dreams Evie, and it was slowly killing me.”

There was some cute banter in The Play Mate, But I felt like what she did was a little rapey and that bugged me. Besides that, this was a cute brother’s best friend romance. Not very memorable, but entertaining.

The Narration:
Sebastian York and Ava Erickson narrated and I LOVED the narration. He was perfect for the part.
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The House Mate:
The House Mate was by far my favorite of the series, though I must admit, books with a kid really do it for me. 34 year old Max’s ex drops off a 1 year old baby that he didn’t know about and takes off. Max doesn’t know the first thing about babies, but he is immediately in love and wants the best for his baby.

Fresh off a bad relationship where her live-in boyfriend fired her and kicked her out of their place, Addison really needs a job, and getting off her best friend’s couch would help too. When she answers an ad for a nanny, she didn’t expect the dad to be a hot ex-army ranger.

“I should have closed the door in her face the second I saw her smoldering-hot curves.”

He would do anything for his new little girl, and the baby took to Addison immediately (though he’s army, did he not do a background check?), so he hires her on the spot and realizes he has to put his baby before his male parts, so he works hard to avoid temptation. But you know how that goes….

"No big deal. This was perfectly normal for a red-blooded male living with sex on a stick. The old nanny fantasy. In my dirty mind, Addison was the perfect sensual vixen, ripe for the taking. And in my mind was exactly where she’d have to stay."

Yeah sure…

The Narration:
Yay! Another SebYo! Great narration!
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The Soul Mate:
This one was cute! I like gyno books and this one couldn’t be more awkward. Imagine getting pregnant by a one night stand, going to the doctor to check on it, and the Doctor ‘recognizes’ you in an interesting way?

Bren does not want to get involved with anyone. AT ALL. She is a conservationist who works at the zoo, and she has her animals to love. She’s good with that. She’d rather not love at all than fall in love and lose that love.

Mason wants it all. He has been searching for the one-night-stand girl for weeks, sure she’s “the one”. He’s ready to settle down and start a life.

"What kind of man cooked a perfect steak, delivered prenatal vitamins to you at work, and then brought you to orgasm in five minutes flat? ”

I enjoyed the story a lot, but I didn’t love Bren. I found her too closed off and she just never talked to him. There was also a kind of big medical faux pas regarding some very overdue twins. Mason was amazing. Every girl's dream on paper, but maybe just a bit too perfect in practice.

The Narration:
The last one went back to Jeremy York again, and once again, I just don’t find him to have a very sexy voice, but he’s still a great narrator, and with the dirty talking in this book, he was a little sexier.

The Down and Dirty for the Series:
All four of these were cute, sweet, sexy and funny. They all used common tropes, so they weren’t hugely memorable, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Each of the novels are available separately, but it’s amazing to see them all together in one audiobook! Over 20 hours of listening makes this one of the best uses of a credit ever. If you are looking for a nice, light, fun listen that you don’t have to be 100% focused on because there aren’t any surprising plot twists to keep track of, this is VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I struggle with the rating, because the average of the stories is a 4, but the value is a 5!


Series Rating: 4 Stars, 4 Heat, 4 Narration

14 of 14 people found this review helpful

Four wonderful stories!

This audiobook includes four different books and each one was so entertaining! The books are only loosely related, so they each standalone. The narration was superb with three great narrators doing a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life. As always, Kendall Ryan’s stories are romantic with a touch of humor thrown in at times. I highly recommend this audiobook if you’re looking for something that cheers you and you don’t have time to listen to a long book. Each story is a couple hours long.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Great bundle!

The Room Mate –
This was my favorite of the four novels. I'm a sucker for the falling in love with your sibling's best friend trope. Added to that, Paige and Cannon become roommates courtesy of the latest crazy woman that caused Cannon to get kicked out of his apartment. Paige and Cannon grew up together as well and already had a shared history, another check mark on my list of favorite elements in a romance. I liked how they were finally able to find a great solution to what seemed to be a couple of huge stumbling blocks to their ability to give their attraction a chance to go the distance in a committed relationship. I loved the audiobook performances by Ava Erickson and especially Jeremy York on this one. Their excellent acting choices made this a delightful listen. I’m currently re-listening to it.

The Play Mate –
I’m not going to lie. I got a kick out of this one which was a gender flip of the previous falling in love with my best friend sibling's love story. This was a quick and entertaining take on it. Ava Erickson continued on as the female narrator and Sebastian York teamed up with her as the male narrator.

The House Mate –
I’ve recently read a couple of these fall in love with the nanny romances. This trio was adorable together. I was surprised there weren’t more consequences for his assistant’s meddling, but overall, I enjoyed the progression of their fall into love. That demon baby bath scene was too funny, loved it! And narrators Ava Erickson and Sebastian York made a good narrating team again.

The Soul Mate –
The premise for this one was the most unique out of the four novels. I wanted to hug Mason. In spite of what happened with his parents and Bren’s initial resistance to giving a relationship with him a chance, he never lost his belief that his soul mate was out there and was worth all his years of waiting to find her in Bren. And I enjoyed the repairing of Ava Erickson and Jeremy York as the narrating duo for this one.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

great 3some

enjoyed all the story development. Clever intros to the 3 stories. fun way to from book to book

good value

Okay...so the stories were a bit cliche but they were a nice bit of light entertainment. Sebastian York was as good as usual, but Jeremy York...sounds too much like Mr. Rodgers. it was hard to suspend disbelief when hearing Mr. Rodgers talking about his swollen, aching shaft thrusting. yeah...no. I mean...he's not bad at reading or performance, but damn. I just can't.

Sweet and Sexy

This was a great bundle. It flew by and the narrators were great. They were sexy but with a lot of heart. All the couples had great chemistry and they were relatively drama free. The only quibble I had was House Mates. I love it overall but the drama at the end seemed a bit contrived and unnecessary. Addison spent a good chunk of the book obsessed with her growing feelings for Max but concerned that it was just a booty call and that if things ended it would hurt baby Dylan but then the second Max professes his love to her and asks her to marry him (the most permanent offer of a relationship you can get) she freaks out. It made no sense. Still, it was a minor quibble and not enough to take away from my overall enjoyment. I really do like Lauren Blakely and getting 4 books for 1 was a real treat.

WOOHOO!!! What a BEAUTIFUL series😂.

I loved💘 it and highly recommend you to listen or read this series😉 of romance.....This means you!

Well if it is the nasty that you are looking for..

I prefer to listen to books that are on the longer side... So I jumped at this hours long collection of books the sexy bod on the cover should have been an indication to the simple plot written around the intimate scenes. Such a disappointment.

I made it through 20 minutes

I bought this because I'm obsessed with Sebastian York and he narrates 3 out of the 4 books in this series.
Sadly, he does not narrate the first.
Jeremy York has a weird, not-at-all-sexy voice. He sounds like a junior high science teacher, or like a woman trying to sound like a man. He might be okay narrating some other genre, but not romance.
I could have skipped ahead to the second book in the series, but Ava Erickson narrates the female parts in all four books. She'd probably be fine reading a YA romance like Twilight or something, but she sounds like a teenage girl.
Even if I'd been able to get to the second book, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy Sebastian York - who could seriously make the phone book sound sexy - because it would have felt like he was hot for a teenager.
I feel bad leaving such a bad review because the story might be good, but I couldn't listen to it. I'm promising myself that I will read one of these books on my Kindle and revise my star rating on the story accordingly.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Wonderfully Done!

I love anthologies. Audible Anthologies <3<3<3. Loved that all the voices across all the books were not the same. Made knowing and remembering that the story changed, so much easier. "I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Sweet, sexy collection

Four hot & sweet standalone stories. Best friend's brother; best friend's sister; new nanny & her hot boss; one night stand becomes forever-love. I loved 2 of the 3 narrators.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Perfect

These four books in the Room Mates series were really good and the three narrators were excellent.