The Ex Files

Ocean View, Book 1

By: Morgan Elizabeth

Narrated by: Moniqua Plante, Julian Durant

Cassandra Reynolds can see a red flag from a mile away.

As the owner of The Ex Files, a matchmaking service based in Ocean View, she dates men nearly every day of the week in order to vet them, assuring the matches she makes are perfectly informed and free of heartache.

With her job comes pitfalls, though: every man she meets is hiding something, trying to impress, and not showing his true colors. But when she has to attend her father's wedding, the man who once lived his own double life, she realizes after years of matchmaking, she has no date of her own to bring to the event.

His sisters want him to have the happily-ever-after their parents do.

When mechanic Luke Dawson helps a woman on the side of the road, he didn't think it would be the matchmaker his sisters set him up with. But just one date is all it takes for him to decide that he's not going for a match—he's interested in the matchmaker herself.

Now it's his job to convince her to give him a shot without scaring her off. But try after try, he's hitting obstacles in the form of rules she's crafted in order to protect herself.

Can he get past her walls and make her see they'd be a perfect match if she'd let herself fall?

©2022 Morgan Elizabeth (P)2023 Tantor

Everything Morgan writes I devour

Love everything about this book and the author! They always make me chuckle and wish I was in the stories

Story was great but the male narrator was all wrong

I really liked this book. The story line was good and the female lead was casted and written well. But why in the world would you cast this guy as your Luke?!?? He was totally wrong for the part. It kind of ruins the experience when an audiobook is casted poorly.

So good!

The thing I love most about Morgan’s writing is her men’s dedication to their women. She writes some of the most loving, sweet, adoring men, and it makes me want to live in her world forever. Luke and Cassie were absolutely precious. I loved watching Cassie learn to love herself and Luke, and his fierce protective of her was to die for. Loved this book! The audio was fabulous.

Hard to root for her

“You might know red flags, but I know green ones- and this man is a (fudging) Leprechaun!”
This is my second book by this author and she’s two for two where 100% of the flaws are on the FMC. Here, Cassandra is an insecure doormat who lets everyone walk all over her. She dieted to please the dad who cheated on her mom and had a whole secret life, attends her dad’s latest wedding even though he denied her a hotel room and insulted her at every turn, and she never once stood up for herself until her boyfriend of one week fought her battles first. She also lets her narcissistic mom be the perpetual martyr. Worse: she’s a man hater, so bitter that her career is about test-dating men to ensure women know all the red flags before they pair up with eyes wide open. As a result of all her neuroses, the entire book is her insistence on arbitrary rules against dating while she lets Luke sex her up and support her.

“No wonder I’m single. Both the uptight librarian and my inner sex fiend nod.”
This is also the second book where the guy is a possessive, super dirty talker from boo. Their very first sex scene is all “be good and lie here while your man eats you”’ kinda talk- it was jarring and crude.
Also, it was weird how possessive, controlling, and smitten he is from the moment they meet … but instead of red flags, she can’t help but like everything does.

Other random thoughts:
F bomb,, F bomb, C word, other C word, another C word… yeah, the cartoon cover art was misleading. The odd cadence of the female narrator, and gravelly, grandpa smoker’s voice of the male narrator didn’t help. Yet, there were things I liked. Despite all her dysfunctions, if I viewed this as an unrealistic sitcom,
I found some of the comedy. I liked Cassandra’s new friendship with book 2’s FMC Gabriela. And Luke’s relationships with his parents and sisters were great. If only the romance were more balanced, I could have better embraced the HEA.