Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Castling the Rook by Emilia Finn Narrator: Dane Anderson, Audrey Obeyn
Series: Checkmate #3
Published by Brilliance Audio on December 16, 2025
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Length: 8 hours
Format: Audiobook
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible
Die a hero. Forever remain a hero. Junior, baby-faced, rookie – Riley Cruz has heard it all.The youngest police recruit in town, Riley is thirty-one years old, but is constantly overlooked because of his youthful features and habit to keep his mouth shut when everyone else is loud. But not everything is as it seems. Not everyone is as innocent as they appear. Recruited by big players in the law enforcement world and reluctantly thrust onto a team of agents that skirt the edge of what is legal, the innocent cop has to straddle a line between cops and agents, right and wrong, and might possess the darkest secrets of them all. Riley’s had his eyes on a certain raven-haired beauty since day one, but Andi Conner is a wild horse, apt to run at any moment, and scared of anything that requires more commitment than a one-night-stand. Riley has to juggle each portion of his life – cops, agents, Andi – and keep them all separate, but when it all blows up, he might just lose everything. Castling The Rook is part of a duet featuring Andi Conner and Riley Cruz. This is part one. Part two is titled Playing For Keeps.
After a few very long, intense and emotional reads Castling the Rook was supposed to be a fun pallet cleanser. It is the third book of the Checkmate series and can be read without reading books 1 and 2 but is a duology with the fourth book Playing for Keeps. Unusual in a series, so I was a little unprepared and shocked with where the book ended.
Andi is a bit wild. She isn’t good at emotional entanglements, but she is great at physical ones. Comfortable with one night stands and moving on, she was not ready for Riley, a Rookie cop with the baby face and a bit of a bad boy in the bedroom vibe. When she challenges him on his ‘experience’ at her sister’s wedding reception she is more than pleasantly surprised by his ability to rise to the occasion. Andi is determined to keep things casual; she doesn’t even live in the same state as Riley and should just see him when she is town. There is something about their chemistry that makes him someone who might just get in her heart if she isn’t careful.
Castling the Rook is my first Emilia Finn read and her writing, at least in this book, is a bit crass and gritty. The dirty talk in this was well, dirty and Andi’s very free feelings on sex made the dialogue pretty fun. There is some background cop work going on as Riley is dealing with trying to keep some undercover FBI alive and off the radar with his police brotheren. But the main focus is the relationship and romance. Can Riley play it cool enough to ensnare the woman he has been lusting after since he saw her at an engagement party? I enjoyed the romance ultimately.
Andi is so funny in all the ways she tries and kinda fails to avoid intimacy with Riley. He has her pegged 100% and is ready to play the game. She might have been hard to relate to if we didn’t also get to see her with her family, taking care of her niece and nephew and at her job. Those parts make her much more likable and give some context to why she might be protecting her heart a little too fiercely. By mid book I was rooting hard for the couple.
Since I didn’t realize this was a duology in the middle of a series, I was not really prepared for the ending. But I ultimately started to enjoy the writing style and romance aspects of the book and will be checking out more books in this series, starting with Playing for Keeps to make sure our couple gets there HEA.
Narration:
Performance: ★★★★
Character Separation: ★★★★
Diction: ★★★★
Pacing/Flow: ★★★★
Sound Effects: None
Dane Anderson and Audrey Obeyn are both new to me narrators but will be voice of the entire series. I liked Dane‘s timber and the strong voice he chose for Riley. He was able to capture the other characters well during his PoVs and I could tell them all apart. The heated moments between Riley and Andi were hot. Audrey Obeyn also did a good job with her narration. She doesn’t have a lot of titles under her belt yet, but I think that will change. She was able to make Andi both strong and a little vulnerable all at the same time. I liked the inner dialogue and voice she gave to Andi. I listened to the audio at my usual 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip:Â HERE
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How fun! I feel like I eyeballed book 1.
I also eyeballed book 1. I will go back and read it as I saw a small snippet of the couple from the first book and definitely want to see more of that story.