The App Trap

By: Dan Calley

Narrated by: Dan Calley

When Danny’s mother is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, he finds himself in a race against time to fulfil her wish for him… to find a soul mate.

Danny’s quest for love soon steers him into unfamiliar territory, and before long he’s introduced to a powerful new addiction: Online dating.

But has he taken a wrong turn? Because neither serial dater Harry, nor fetish scene enthusiast Ben, seem like the type one brings home to mother, and time is quickly running out.

Will Danny find the love of his life, or is his chance of meeting the perfect man slipping away one date at a time?

The App Trap is a bittersweet journey into the world of the London dating circuit. You will laugh, you will cry, and you may never swipe again.

©2025 Mark Restuccia (P)2025 Mark Restuccia

Kissing lots of frogs on the way to finding HEA

This story is the first novel by the wonderful audiobook narrator Dan Calley. I love that he narrated his own book. His narration really made the humor stand out. I laughed out loud SO many times throughout this! It's short, quick read and I had a hard time putting it down because I kept wanting to hear about the next adventure. I will say that sometimes I wish there had been more differences in the voices for characters. Nonetheless, it was easy to follow along.

In this book, Danny decides to seek out a soulmate via dating apps. His poor mum is dying of cancer and he wants to be settled in order to fulfill her wish for him. Despite the very sad situation, this story is super funny as Danny encounters some very bizarre dates and has to navigate through some..interesting...situations. Throughout all the mishaps, Danny keeps trying and trying. In the end, though, Danny very much earns his HEA, though the sweet ending is tempered with bitter. I love that Danny has to kiss a heck of a lot of frogs before finding a prince, but I love that he has fun meanwhile. I enjoyed this very much!

App Dating

This was definitely a unique spin on what "dating" through apps is like. It was a humorous story, and I did find myself smiling at the ridiculousness of it all. This was my introduction to Dan Calley and thought the writing was good. I'm not usually a fan of when authors narrate their own books, but Dan Calley pulls it off. His voice helped me get into the story. It was an enjoyable ride.

Harry and Danny

Danny's dating problems had me howling. I was 💯 team Ben until the roommate situation. That was so messed up. Hilarious, but messed up. I would have never talked to Ben again. The guys dating 7000 people himself anyway. It's just hypocritical. Harry is perfect. The narration was amazing!

The dating comedy is hilarious

This book was unexpectedly good in audio form. I’ve continued to enjoy Dan Calley’s narration.

The story kinda wrapped up too quickly. It was enjoyable as a comedy of funny, dating stories, thus the HEA seemed rushed, even though it was the point of the whole thing. I think it was due to the timeline skips. Also it might have been too British humor, so anything that seemed like funny, I just chalked it up to British things that I didn’t get.

I look forward to more comedic stories from Dan.

This was different...

3.5/5 rounded to 4.
OK, so… this was a bit different from my usual MM romances. As it is, the romance part is quite limited and comes towards the end of the book. There is in fact, romance, in that Danny finally ends up with his own man, but it comes after the best part of the book describing (in hilarious and cringe-worthy detail) his (mis)adventures in the world of online dating.
The story is super funny for the most part, but the ending is totally not (seriously, no spoilers, but if you may want to skip the last chapter).
Dan’s performance as a narrator is great as usual, and though the book is not perfect in certain aspects, let’s not forget this is only his second book as an author.