Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
All Super-Heroes Need PR by Elizabeth Stephens Narrator: Dara Brown, Sean Bassett
Series: Supers in the City #1
Published by Brilliance Audio on May 27, 2025
Genres: Fantasy Romance
Length: 12 hours, 40 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible
Over two decades ago, forty-eight young, gifted superheroes fell to Earth and were eventually marketed as opposing heroes and villains. Now, one exceptionally gruff bad guy is looking to hop teams. Hello, PR director Vanessa Theriot.
His real name is Roland Casteel a.k.a. the Pyro. First, swap that with the less incinerating the Wyvern. Next, put him in spandex to highlight that near-godlike body. Finally, give that hero in training a heroine—if Vanessa will play the part in a pretend romance guaranteed to make the city swoon. She’s game. As shy as Vanessa is, it’s her job to be Roland’s very own Lois Lane. Who knew that fake dating would change their worlds?
But falling head over heels for real makes for a dangerous shift in the narrative. A monstrous supervillain is bringing out Roland’s bad side again. This time, it’s to save a woman who, against all the odds, is becoming the human love of his superhero life.
Imagine a deep voice proclaiming “In a world where forty-eight aliens fell to earth Superman style, emerging from pods as children, a balance of heroes and villains has been organized. Team hero has hired a little known PR team to rebrand one of the forty-eight from terrorizing Pyro into a new Hero, The Wyvern. But in order to keep him on team good he has a few stipulations, he wants the head of the PR team to be his Louis Lane.” That is the premise behind All Superheroes Need PR the first book in the new Supers in the City series.
Vanessa has a small but mighty PR firm and she has placed a bid to be the new force behind Pyro’s rebranding. But when the meeting with the Super doesn’t go well, she assumes all the work put into this campaign was for nothing. That shifts when the contract is hers with just a few stipulations. She will be the liaison between Pyro and public as well as any day to day. She never thought at the time that what he was really angling for was for her to play the Louis Lane to his Clark Kent. Vanessa has not had a lot of success with dating so maybe this will be great to fake date the superhero. That will help the rebranding go more smoothly…right? We all know what fake dating leads to here, and while it might be fake for Vanessa it is new fake for The Wyvern aka Roland.
It took me a little time to get into this story. Vanessa is so timid, shy and came across as weak in the beginning of the book. It was hard to buy into how she would have built a successful business on her own when she struggled to have a conversation outside of her family and immediate friend group. When we first meet Roland he too comes across as a jerk. While later we understand the visceral reaction he has to Vanessa, at the time he just seems a little mean. It isn’t until I got a peak into Vanessa’s past and she and Roland actually have a conversation that I started to have a better time in the story.
Vanessa’s adopted family was great and I loved how protective her brothers were of her. It was cute the way they all tried to protect her from the big bad superhero. The way they were willing to charge with her into danger also just really cool. I enjoyed how the parents kept the family close with weekend brunches and family dinners. Her mother was a force to be reckoned with the and swear jar was a fun touch.
The premise of this story ended up being very cool and different. There are reasons that alien children were sent to earth and when Roland finds his key and his purpose he will have to decide where his loyalties lie – to the home world that sent him there and the other alien children, or to the woman that he longs to protect. Because Roland wants it to be clear he is not a hero, but he will be Vanessa’s hero.
The beginning was a little struggle to get into as I didn’t connect with Vanessa right away. I also sometimes find that when you complain in books about social issues such as under representation of colored female authors or characters, make the majority of the side characters trans or gay and make a point of pointing out all the injustices in the world to some of those people, I, as a straight white woman, feel a little attacked. Those feelings really takes me out of the story if it doesn’t seem like something that is natural to flow of the story. Sometimes it feels like a checklist publishers put in that your story has to have 5 of these features. There are ways to do this that don’t take the reader out of the story; Craig Shaeffer does this really well with his Trans and alternate lifestyle characters.
This was a cute superhero love story when it focused on the story. There is a bit of insta-love but I accepted it in the context of what Vanessa ended up being to Roland. Very interesting concept to Superheroes and Villains basically being part of a corporation, getting regular paychecks and endorsement deals. I will definitely check out the next book in the series as overall I enjoy this world and some of the morally ambiguous heroes in it.
Narration:
Performance: ★★★★
Character Separation: ★★★★
Diction: ★★★★
Pacing/Flow: ★★★★
Sound Effects: None
Dara Brown and Sean Bassett are both new to me narrators. I thought they did a good job with the story narrators. Sean has a really deep voice that seemed to fit the Wyvern well and how I would expect him to sound. Dara brought some of Vanessa’s vulnerabilities to life and helped make it easy to understand her. I enjoyed both PoV narrations and how they performed all of the characters.
Listen to a clip:Â HERE
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Sounds like fun!
It was definitely a good time by the end.
How fun!!!!
Sometimes a good sorta-superhero book is exactly what you need in your life.