It Doesn’t Have to Be This Hard Audiobook By Christina Hovland cover art

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Hard

Mile High Heat, Book 1

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It Doesn’t Have to Be This Hard

By: Christina Hovland
Narrated by: Addison Barnes, Rupert Channing
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From USA Today best-selling author Christina Hovland comes a single parent, #DateMyCelebrityDad, forced proximity romance.

Divorce her Beverly Hills husband: check. Set the neighborhood dumpster on fire with her nightstand buddy: check. Her hunky celebrity chef neighbor rushes to her aid? Sigh. Check mate.

Emmaline Eaton is doing her best to avoid the attractive chef, but their daughters just became best friends.

Ethan Greene's culinary show and career are in shambles. He already has too much on his plate trying to figure out the single parent life when his daughter launches a trending hashtag of #DateMyCelebrityDad. Now, he’s getting all kinds of unwanted attention, so he calls in a favor from Emmaline. If she could just pretend to be his date until the social media mayhem dies down, that would be fabulous.

But when their kids play matchmaker, just how much heat can Ethan and Emmaline handle?

*Originally on preorder as Everything's Fine, Emmaline.

©2023 Christina Hovland (P)2023 Christina Hovland Romantic Comedy Funny Romance Literature & Fiction Comedy Chef
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This was a fun book from start to finish. Emmie is so awkward and adorable, and Ethan is swoony and sweet. Their instant and growing attraction was a joy to listen to, and all the side charactersreally added an extra dose of famliy comedy. The narration was fantastic, as well.

Good storytelling

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This book. The awkward. The laughs. The trying. The feels. I loved it all. I especially loved Em and Ethan in this adorkable fake relationship single parent romance of all the things. They are real, relatable people (and parents) who have flaws, but are really trying to just do their best as messy humans trying to raise equally messy tiny humans. This book definitely had me snort laughing quite a number of times. In fact, the meet cute at the beginning of the book which involved a vibrator, a dumpster fire, marshmallows and the fire department had me laughing hard enough to cry. This is not only a romcom though, it is just cleverly disguised as one. But the story will also give you all the swoony swoons while also pulling at your heartstrings with all the emotions. Em is a newly divorced single mom who has moved back to her home town and is determined to meet a normal, boring and non-sparkly guy after she settles in. Her new neighbor, single father Ethan, is a celebrity chef wanting to get a new tv show now that things are more settled with his daughter. He is the opposite of what Em is looking for. But a viral post made by Ethan’s daughter has him in need of a fake girlfriend and Em reluctantly agrees to play the part. Neither of the are looking for a relationship but feelings rarely stay in the box we try to keep them in and the journey to their HEA was fun and swoony to read. This well written story was delicious perfection and included witty dialogue, three dimensional characters who grow, and an engaging storyline. The book was filled with sweet moments, steamy scenes, real life issues, imperfect characters, painful pasts, laughs, messy families, supportive friends, cute pets, and all the swoony love. 4.5 stars.

Reading this book was swoony and roll on the floor laugh worthy but listening to the audiobook was next level romcom perfection. Addison Barnes and Rupert Channing did a phenomenal job narrating and breathing life into the story and the characters with enough change of inflection, tone and cadence to voice multiple characters quite convincingly. The audiobook gives the story and characters added dimension and the accent and the internal monologues were spot on.

Swoony, steamy and hilarious romance

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