What happens when an almost thirty-year-old virgin agrees to let her Scottish footballer best friend give her some lessons in seduction?
Lots of banter, awkwardness, jealousy, and heat.
Midfielder Maclay “Mac” Logan is a loud-mouthed, tattooed ginger content with focusing on football. But when an adorably-freckled seamstress comes barreling into his life, he finds Netflix-And-Bickering with her to be his new favorite pastime.
Freya Cook is used to being the invisible woman with a needle and thread, offering cheeky punchlines as she helps dress London’s finest. She’s plus-sized in body and spirit, and other than her friendship with Mac, talking to the opposite sex is one skill she never mastered.
However, after one innocent game of Never Have I Ever, Mac offers to play Love Coach for Freya.
What neither of them see coming are the feelings that develop when the clothes come off.
Now they’re both about to learn the biggest lesson of all: Don’t fall in love with your best friend.
| Title: | Blindsided |
| Author: | Amy Daws |
| Narrator(s): | Will Watt Charlotte Cole |
| Series: | Harris Brothers Spinoff |
| Pages / Length: | 305 / 10hrs 42ms |
| Category / Genre(s): | Contemporary Audiobook |
| Trope(s): | Friends to Lovers |
| Point of View: | First Person, Present Tense, Dual Viewpoint (H&h) |
| Narration Type: | Duet |
| Location: | London & Glasgow, UK |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 21st November, 2019 |
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Not for Scots
It took me exactly 2 months to listen to this 10 hour and 42 minute audiobook. That’s a loooooong time. If that tells you all you need to know, then you can stop reading now! However, even with that long time frame, every time I did pick up the book and listen again, I was right back into the story, so it was definitely memorable.
First to the narrators. Will Watt was terrific as Mac. His Scottish accent was authentically delicious and very easy to listen to. He was clear and performed with nuances that I’m sure the author would be delighted with. His English accent was just as decent although his South African turn was slightly dubious – but then I’m no expert and at least I identified it as what it was supposed to be!
Equally, Charlotte Cole as Freya played the character to a T. Her accent was something only a native could pull off and while it started to grate on me after a while (sorry!), it was on point and excellently performed. Her Scottish accent when speaking as Tilly (Mac’s sister) was, well, pretty bad, but it was very short so we can just gloss over that!
The narration is performed in duet – which means that the narrators interact in the story and read the lines said by their characters. I’m not partial to this style over dual narration – or vice versa – and I thought it worked well, sounded smooth and was easy to follow.
I’ve enjoyed Amy Daws’ writing before. She’s funny, silly, yet creates characters that you can both empathise with and relate to. To start with, I felt the same way about Freya. She was quirky, sure, but she was completely herself and that in some way was very admirable. As time went on she got a little bit irritating, in my opinion, and even got a little embarrassing, which I hate in a book. I never want cringe.
“I would strongly advise any British people, but especially Scottish people, to avoid this book.”
Mac again was a nice guy – funny, likeable and at times adorably clueless. I loved his complete acceptance of Freya and he couldn’t understand her hang-ups which was sweet. He definitely came down in my estimation as we got to the big fallout, however. He said some nasty, hurtful things that were borderline unforgivable and it made the flip and realisation of feelings slightly dubious to me.
Overall, Freya and Mac were a cute couple and it was a fun slow-burn from friends to lovers. There was just enough heat between the couple and enough banter to keep you chuckling.
And now for the ranty portion of my review. I would strongly advise any British people, but especially Scottish people, to avoid this book. It’s so horrifically obvious that the writer of our couple – who are both British (Freya is English and Mac is Scottish) is herself not from Britain. So, so, so many incorrect uses of our words, phrases and sayings; It jarred terribly. It got to the point that I realised I was listening to the book with a permanently scrunched face, just cringing by what had been said and anticipating the next clanger yet to come. Good God, it was bad. Like another reviewer pointed out – how hard would it be to get a real-life British person to read your book before publishing? But as it was, it was just more of that dreaded cringe that I hate.
I’m still going to read Amy Daws novels in the future, but I’m going to avoid any book with characters from Scotland, probably Britain as a whole. It’s such a shame as this would have been a cute story had it only been set in America with American characters. So not completely terrible, but it was definitely the narration and production that pulled this story up to 3 stars.
Amy Daws is an Amazon Top 25 bestselling author of sexy, contemporary romance novels. She enjoys writing love stories that take place in America, as well as across the pond in England. When Amy is not writing in a tire shop waiting room, she’s watching Gilmore Girls, or singing karaoke in the living room with her daughter while Daddy smiles awkwardly from a distance.
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