The Right Kind of Wrong

By: PJ Trebelhorn

Narrated by: Paige McKinney

Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Quinn Burke loves being a bartender. She meets new women every night and has her choice of bed partners. That's fine with her because she isn't interested in anything serious after having her heart shattered 18 months ago.

Grace Everett is perfectly content owning a bookstore, but not so much in her personal life. She wants forever but hasn't had much luck with relationships. She's hoping the newest woman in her life will be the one.

When Quinn's mother falls ill, something shifts in the 20-year-old friendship for both women. Quinn struggles with old feelings for Grace, and Grace is seeing Quinn in a different light. They know falling for their best friend is wrong, but could it be the right kind of wrong?

©2017 PJ Trebelhorn (P)2017 Bold Strokes Books Inc

Almost Mediocre

This book reminded me how frustrated it has become to be a reader/listener of lesbian romance; why can't my people write a good romance novel? Normally a considerate reviewer would give a spoiler alert prior to writing all this but since there's not really all that much to spoil anyway.
Quinn and Grace have been the best of friends for 20 years, since the night that Quinn tried to pick up Grace, only to hear Grace tell her she needed a friend more than we needed a hookup. Unfortunately for them both Quinn can't seem to grasp the concept that things can, and often do change. The fact that practically everyone who spends more than 10 minutes around them sees it and shares it with them; somehow, as it so often happens in fiction they don't listen. Thus listeners waste a few hours waiting for the light bulb to go on for the two of them, because like far too many romances where this tired old plot line is trotted out the angst seems to last forever. This might have been good enough if not for one major flaw; for most of the book Quinn is unlikable. She is basically a selfish bitch, not good enough for Grace, totally self absorbed and needlessly cruel to her so called best friend. Then in a weird, convoluted, not very believable sequence she and Grace come together and a couple, three ridiculously cheezy scenes end a story that can't quite make it to mediocrity.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Don’t listen at bedtime

The book is a fine HEA romance. It feels like it could have been 75 to 100 pages shorter by cutting back on the characters’ hand wringing but it didn’t make the story unpleasant.
The narration however, is a whole other thing. I’m not sure if the producer slowed down the speed of speech if that is the narrator’s natural cadence, but the pace was positively soporific.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

better if you just bought the book

it was a good story although I got annoyed by Quinn at some point's it was still pretty good personally though I didnt like the voice acting it was monotone and didnt have much variety but I still got through the book easily enough

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Could Be Improved

The overall premise of the book is pretty standard. The writing isn't great, but isn't bad. I would call this an easy read/listen with a predictable plot. The listening experience could be significantly improved upon with a different narrator.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

This story made no sense

This book made no sense. I haven't finished it, and I doubt I will.. And I even have it on audible. I cannot stand Quinn. I'm sorry but you aren't bff with someone for 20 years, develop feelings for them and start being an ass to them, sleep with them and then have no communication, and act like you just slept with a girl for the first time and are freaking out. The thing about hooking up with a friend you've known for so long is there aren't all the stupid games you play in your twenties or new relationships. You know them so you aren't as afraid because you know they will never intentionally hurt you. There's trust already. And the thing about being in your 30+ is you also don't play games and project and are an ass for no reason cause you can't face your feelings? You communicate. This is high school and college stuff. I'm sorry but grace is way too good for quinn and puts up with stuff I don't think one would from your friend of two decades. Though her patience makes me love her and it's a shame such an awesome charter was wasted in this story. Quinn is stupid and immature and it makes her character very unlikable. Story would have been way better if grace hooked up with Callie. Quinn may have redeemed herself, I got to chapter 18 maybe, but I will never know I'm sure cause I can't push myself through.

I gave it 4 stars for being written well enough.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Torn on rating

Good Lord this book. I couldn't put it down. Great performance, lovable characters and told well. Ending seemed a little rushed and scattered, but still good. Otherwise, I loved it.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Happy Endiing

I love this book, I was rooting for them the whole read. Sometimes it take outside sources to point out what right in front of you.

Friends to Lovers: Hurts so good!

Narrator Paige McKinney infuses BFFs Quinn Burke and Grace Everett’s friends to lovers dilemma with all of the baggage of their twenty years together. Her warm performance reflects the mostly sure and satisfied women’s personalities, a blend of confusion and determination mixed in. When the two women first met, co-working at a grocery store, Grace was more interested in having at least one close friend than in having yet another girlfriend. Life has reached a phase, however, in which Grace is looking to settle down with a woman who meets at least some of her standards, someone in the ballpark of “good enough”. Besides a satisfying job owning and operating a bookstore, great friends, and loving grandparents, she doesn’t want for much. Quinn, for her part, enjoys tending bar, Sunday brunch with her mother and Grace, and, for the time being, avoiding potential heartbreak. The women’s relationship is a slow burn romance that neither wants to acknowledge. After all, doesn’t every pair of bosom buddies complete each other’s sentences? When Quinn’s mother suffers a major heart attack, it acts as the catalyst for resolving bad blood and buried desire.

The cast of family, friends, and lovers, is wonderfully portrayed. Beth, Quinn’s homophobic older sister comes across as extreme and ridiculous in her prejudices through McKinney’s narration. Through raised pitch and clipped haughtiness, McKinney leaves listeners with no doubts as to who Beth thinks has the moral high ground in the family. Meg, the other estranged sister, is voiced in softer tones as her relationship with her younger sisters, Quinn and Callie, evolves. And Callie, the baby of the family, says what she means and means what she says, the lack of hesitation and fierceness of her love reflected in her the narrator’s tone and pacing. Family, whether it is the one that the characters are born into or the ones they make over a lifetime, is everywhere and everything in this story.

***Review originally published on my blog, Omnivore Bibliosaur (jthompsonian.wordpress.com).

Irritating!

Omgoodness! This is one of the most irritating books I ever read in my life! I found myself frowning most of the book.