Wicked Bedmate

A Hero Club Novel

By: Jenika Snow, Hero Club

Narrated by: Alexander Cendese, CJ Bloom

Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Getting fired and humiliated in front of everyone at my newly acquired secretarial job at Morgan Financial Holdings wasn't how I'd seen my day going.

And then chaos - or maybe luck - ensued.

I was set up on a blind date, shocked that my former boss was giving me a month's severance, and had the perfect interview lined up.

Maybe things were looking up for me after all.

And although finding a man should have been on the bottom of my to-do list, I couldn't get Jason - the uber-sexy blind date - out of my head. Sexy and confident - or maybe arrogant - he had me yearning for more with just a smoldering look and a smirk of his lips.

But when a night of drinking led to getting in bed with him and having the wildest, most intense night of my life, I didn't know if I should ask to see him again or do the good old walk of shame.

And it was when I walked into my interview the next day and came face-to-face with my prospective employer that the reality of my situation sank in.

Because there, sitting across from me with that devilish smile on his face, that knowing

expression of what we’d done the night before, was the one and only Jason, my supposed one night stand.

Looked like my humiliation wasn't over just yet.

©2020 Jenika Snow and Cocky Hero Club, Inc. (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

I didn’t love it.

It was really hard to pay attention to. Some parts of the story held promise but it just didn’t hold my attention. The cover was the most intriguing part of the book for me.

A huge disappointment

Cliche and without any character development. I mean you don’t know much more about the hero and heroine than their jobs and that they want each other. At some point during the first date Lisa says they don’t share much personal information and really it’s true about the entire book. It is more a an outline of a story than an actual story.

Oh my ears!

Where the last book was very good, this one was really bad. Every possible chiche was used and the double standards were flying.

Her boss, who has already played with the h, tells another employee that fraternization is looked down on... what?

The sex was explicit and reminded me of a low budget porn with the H's words. I am also trying to figure out how the H can be 'hard as steel' for days after relieving himself several times... physiology says that ain't so! 🤔

From what I understand, Jenika is a good writer so I will look for another one of her stories to get a better grasp of her writing style.

Eye roll...

I felt like I was listening to a b rated teen movie. I swear it was 3 chapters of them making out and repeating the same thing over and over again. It was pretty annoying and I found myself rolling my eyes repeatedly. so it was ok. I have to say the hero club series just are really subpar.

Most awkward, cringeworthy, unsexy listen ever

This was a free listen under my Audible Escapes subscription and it still wasn’t worth the listen. I’ve never read or listened to a romance book that turned me off in so many ways- and I’ve consumed hundreds of books over the last 30 years. Where to begin to explain the suck factor?

The female narrator was okay for voicing Linda, even if she did remind me of Meg Ryan, but without the adorable inflections. Her voicing for Jason was not okay and conveyed no chemistry at all. She narrated for the first hour of this 3.5 hour novella, and I prayed for the male narrator to give me voices befitting the Wicked Bedmates title and the placement of this book in the Cocky Heroes Club. But, when the male narrator finally makes an appearance at the end of chapter 7, I had the briefest moment of pleasure with his sexy male voice... until within that chapter’s last two minutes his inner monologue throws out 4 F bombs and all sexiness was lost in unnecessarily crude writing. The nail in the narration coffin was his female voice: my nooky loving naughty bits shriveled every time he voiced Linda. The horror!

It wasn’t just the narration, however. The writing suffered in pacing, plot, and dialogue. Chapters 1-6 (a third of the novella) were dull and completely unnecessary. One sentence could have summarized those chapters: As Linda desperately seeks a secretarial job, she agrees to a blind date. Chapter 7 contains their meet-cute at a pub, only there’s no cute and no chemistry. Instead, Linda inexplicably gets drunk to the point of passing out (knowing she has a job interview the next morning) and Jason is thinking about how much he wants to F her (his use of F multiple times, not mine) from the minute they meet. Lovely.

When Linda shows for the interview, Jason is the Chief Financial Officer who is interviewing to find his secretary. That’s not a spoiler; this was the advertised plot twist from the book summary... and it took until halfway to the book to get there. Then, Jason announces they have chemistry but he’s hiring her because she’s qualified... and she believes him.

The novella jumps from one contrived, unbelievable interaction to another. We already had the big “I’m interviewing with my blind date” set up. What are the odds that shortly after being hired, they randomly meet in the wine aisle of a store? Or that she happens upon him at a random restaurant?

If the plot is going to be so eye rollingly bad, the dialogue had better be smart, sexy, and funny ... or at least smart or sexy or funny. But the dialogue was “I’ll make this good for you, Linda baby,” all kinds of 80’s cheesy dialogue wrong.

Continuing with the conflicting writing styles, Jason cusses like Bronn from Game of Thrones... which would be okay if his character was written as something other than a rich, refined CFO. The second time the male narrator voices Jason, in Ch10, there’s 3 Fx, 4 sh*ts, a damn, hell, and ass in two minutes. Talk about machine gun profanity to the brain.

My final complaint is the lazy writing, For such a short novella, it’s astounding how many times we hear the same words and phrases. You can get drunk taking a sip every time you hear how the corner of his lips quirked, she smoothed her hands down her skirt, or she gasped in shock every time Jason appears. Plus, the author really likes the words mound, globes, and cream (especially cream). Yeesh. Particularly when there is so little sex, so late in the book, there’s no excuse for sloppy redundancy.

I sometimes like profanity and explicit sex In my romance books, and I like the occasional romance with cocky, non-PC men if well written and narrated. For instance, if you want a well done book within this Cocky Heroes Club book list, get Cocksure Ace- it’s hot, funny, and smartly written... and bonus, the main female character is a formidable business woman. The only benefit of this book was to impress upon me the lesson of avoiding at all costs this author and the male narrator (unless he narrates a book with no female dialogue, like a biography ... I’d be down for that).

quick and sexy

This was a quick and steamy insta-love kinda novella. I am not much of an insta-love kinda reader, but that is kinda hard to avoid with a novella. So I wasn't bothered by that here. Jason and Linda have great chemistry from the get-go, and I can see how they could fall hard and fast. I did enjoy the story, and Linda's crazy good and bad luck. I listened to the audio and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Quick & Easy Listen

Heroine meets Hero on a blind date and embarrasses herself drinking too much. Next day goes on a job interview and her new boss is Jason, the guy from the night before. They have a pretty instant connection and he’s the type of guy that goes after what he wants!
This was a great listen if you need a pallet cleanser or something to listen to on a car ride or while doing daily chores. The narrators were enjoyable and the story was cute. For this being a shorter listen, the story was still well-rounded and wrapped up nicely.

very good

Loved it !! this story. the narrator is so fantastic it's like your really there!! good overall

Sweet Romance

Standalone with No Cliffhangers.
This is a sweet romance.
Her life is falling apart, the last thing she needs is a blind date. Boy oh boy did her life change fast after that date.
He is focused on his career, but he could see a new future with her in it.
He just had to convince her.

Good Jenika book, Cocky Hero Club

One of Jenika's few non-PNR (paranormal)/shifter romances. I picked this one because I've been wanting to try her books for a long time - I follow her and get her newsletter and have been very intrigued, but I'm completely not into PNR... I also love Penelope/Vi and the Cocky Hero Club concept, so figured this was perfect!

It was good - quite short, really - I think there could have been a lot more added to the story and the book lengthened and I would have enjoyed it more if it was expanded and more of the story and characters worked out. It went too fast! I didn't get to know the characters as much as I would have liked before it was over... It was an enjoyable story and well written, but it just went too quickly and you didn't get to know enough before it ended. If it had been expanded I think I would have liked it and rated it higher than 4-stars. But don't get me wrong - I liked it, I just think if there was more to it I would have really loved it! A solid 4-stars with what we had. Good/interesting plot!

Great narration (as always) from CJ Bloom, and a new male narrator (new to me), Alexander Cendese, who also did a very good job.