Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Stealing Her by Rachel Van Dyken
Narrator: Alexander Cendese, Lucy Rivers
Series: Covet #1
Published by Brilliance Audio on November 5, 2019
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Length: 8 hours, 8 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible
My estranged twin brother, Julian, was always the wonder boy - and soon-to-be CEO of our ruthless father's corporation. My mother and me? Left behind. Now, years after tearing our family apart, my father dares to ask "me" for a favor? Pretend to be Julian while he fights to survive a tragic accident. It can save the company. Nobody will be the wiser. It'll be our secret.
I can play Dad's favorite. I'll do anything for Julian. And for my mother, who'll want for nothing.
But this double life comes with a beauty of a hitch: my very real feelings for Julian's fiancée, Isobel. Not only am I betraying Julian, I'm deceiving a woman I love. She doesn't suspect a thing. As lies compound, lines are crossed and loyalties tested, all I can ask myself is. . .what have I done?
Because sooner or later something's got to give. There's no way I'm giving up Isobel. But once the truth is exposed, it might not be my choice at all.
Stealing Her is the first book in the new series, Covet by Rachel Van Dyken. I never know how I’m going to feel about a book where the brother or sister falls for the significant other of their sibling, let alone how that is going to work when it is twins. I was pleasantly surprised by the tone and plot of story; it worked in a way that made it easy to root for the Twin doing the stealing.
Bridge was the twin that looked after his brother, Julian until the messy divorce of their parents that spit the twins apart Parent Trap style. Bridge had to leave his life of luxury behind to live with his mom in a little apartment forgotten by his father. He and Julian had a falling out and haven’t spoken in years, but when Julian is in an accident and ends up in a coma, Bridge is tapped in to take his place and pretend to be him until he recovers. The catch, he can’t tell anyone, not even the fiancé Julian has.
The bother stealing the fiancé works for me just because Julian has been a dick to her for so long that she actually was breaking off the engagement the day he got into the accident. Sure, it is a little hard to believe Isobel didn’t catch on a bit earlier that the man in front of her was not Julian, even with the accident and all the bruising, but how many people have secret twins running around. Still it was fun to watch Bridge help put the spark of life back into Izzy after Julian ran her down for so many years.
I enjoyed the dynamic between Bridge and Isobel, they were learning to flirt all over again and gain footing towards their future. Bridge has the conflicting feelings he should in this situation and I was able to forgive him a lot due to the reasons he chose to jump into this mess in the first place. The pacing of the story was good and I liked that it took a while to get to the juicy stuff.
Isobel is a little bit of a victim for some reasons I won’t go into. She stayed with a man she should have left a long time ago, not realizing how bad it had gotten. She has some issues from her past with Julian that Bridge is able to help with. It was a little hard for me to love her because she stayed in a bad relationship for so long but the story is presented in a way that I rooted for her to take her life back and find happiness.
There is another subplot happening against the father that was interesting and gave the story a good bad guy to hate. You could see how manipulative and awful the man was that he would try to tear apart his family like he did in the story. I loved hating him.
Overall this was a fun romance that had a romantic interest I could really get behind even if he is stealing the girl the whole time. It is fun and flirty with some sass.
Narration:
The audio had a narrator for both Isobel and Bridge’s PoV. I did prefer the female narration a little more than the male but that was just because of a few of the female voices he did weren’t as strong. I listened to this at my usual 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip:
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Sounds like things could get complicated. And I love a good bad guy to loathe. LOL
It is fun to hate on a few characters. The Father was so easy to loathe and seethe at.
I like this author but I will say every situation set up in the books I have read is over-the-top wild.
I’ve only read one other book by her years ago and there were a couple of scenes that were just too much in that one. But for this it wasn’t too bad just the general premise is Daytime soap opera material.
I usually really enjoy her books!
This was only my second by her, but I could see reading more of her books. Her sense of humor and flare is fun.
Great review! I read one of her books forever ago. I remember enjoying it, but I can’t even remember which one it was. I need to try one of her books again.
I read the Consequences of Loving Colton like four or five years ago maybe. I liked it but there were a couple OTT scenes with the grandma that were just a little too much for me. I remember liking all the other humor in that book a ton though.
great review.
Thanks Sherry