Clara’s Verdict
Two rival property developers are each promised the same oceanfront plot by the same elderly owner, and a provision in her will requires them to live in the house together for four months or forfeit it entirely. That is the whole book, and I mean that admiringly. Emma Chase has built a forced-proximity romance on the cleanest possible mechanism, and there is a craft in a setup this economical that romance readers will appreciate more than most.
The pleasure of a premise like this is that it removes every implausible obstacle in advance. Nobody has to invent reasons for these two to keep running into each other. The will does it for them. Damon Burke and Jade Buchanan are stuck in a crumbling beachfront mansion for a third of a year, and the only real question is how long the pretence of hostility survives the arrangement.
Seven hours and twenty two minutes, narrated by Sean Masters, published as an Audible Original in July 2026 and already among the titles selling strongly in the UK charts. Not a single listener has rated it yet, a point I return to honestly further down.
About the Audiobook
Chase is a New York Times bestselling writer and she knows exactly what this subgenre is for. The property is Block 42 Lot 17, the most coveted stretch of oceanfront in a town called Shore Haven, and its late owner, Clarabelle Spicket, appears to have committed it twice over, once to Damon and once to Jade. The copy describes that situation as awkward, which sets the tone of the entire book: light, knowing, and entirely unembarrassed about what it is doing.
The characterisation is drawn in broad and satisfying strokes. Damon is, in the publisher’s words, “the town’s coldest real estate shark” and Jade “its fiercest power player”, which is a fair description of two people whose defining trait is that they win. Putting a pair like that in a house neither can leave is an excellent comic engine, and Chase adds a third participant: the mansion itself, which the copy describes as determined to shove them into the same room and the same bed. Dilapidated houses that conspire are a well used device and they work because they let the plot do things the characters are not yet willing to do themselves.
Where the book earns its place is in the escalation the publisher describes, in which walls crumble at precisely the same rate as defences. The house and the relationship are given the same trajectory, and the four-month deadline gives the whole thing a shape a great deal of contemporary romance lacks. This is billed as red hot rather than sweet, so calibrate your expectations accordingly.
The Narration
Sean Masters carries this alone according to the credit, and that is the single most interesting production question here. A romance with two named leads and a rivalry at its centre is usually written in alternating perspectives, and the standard approach in contemporary romance is duet narration, with a separate performer for each point of view. This listing names one narrator for a two-hander.
I want to be careful, because narrator credits on audio listings are not always complete and I have seen plenty of duets where only the top-billed name appears. So this may be a solo reading and it may not. What I can tell you is what it means either way. If Masters is reading both parts, then Jade’s chapters depend entirely on his ability to shift register for a female lead every bit as ruthless as her rival, which is a real demand and the thing I would listen to the first hour for. If there is a second performer the listing has not named, the alternating structure will do its own work and the question disappears.
On Masters himself, the material plays to what I would call a recognisable strength. In my experience he suits the guarded, sardonic male lead who communicates chiefly through irritation, which is exactly what Damon is for the first half of this book. Seven hours is also a sensible length for a single voice in this genre, where I start to feel the strain of a single voice somewhere past the ten hour mark.
What Readers Say
There is nothing to report, and I would rather say so than manufacture a consensus. No ratings and no written reviews have been recorded against this release, which is entirely normal for an Audible Original in its first weeks and entirely unhelpful if you are trying to decide whether to spend an evening on it.
In place of listener testimony, let me offer my own reservations, which are the ones I would want raised if I were the one choosing. The first is the compressed timeline problem. Four months of enforced cohabitation is plenty of story, but seven hours is not a great deal of runtime in which to make an enemies-to-lovers arc feel earned rather than scheduled, and this subgenre lives or dies on whether the turn is credible.
The second is tone management. The copy signals comedy and it signals heat, and books promising both sometimes deliver two halves rather than one whole, with the jokes stopping abruptly the moment the bedroom door closes. Chase’s standing suggests she handles that transition better than most, but I can only tell you where I would be paying attention.
Who Should Listen?
Romance readers who like the enemies-to-lovers setup played at full volume will be well served here, particularly anyone who enjoys a professional rivalry rather than a personal grudge as the source of the friction. It is a good length for a weekend, it demands nothing of you, and the premise is clear enough that you will know inside ten minutes whether you are in.
Skip it if you prefer a slow burn or a low heat level, because the copy promises red hot rather than gentle. Skip it too if the absence of any listener feedback makes you uncomfortable about committing, since there is no shame at all in waiting a month for the reviews to arrive. Weighed against that, the premise is a strong one and the shape is right, and on those two things alone this looks a reasonable way to spend a Sunday.
