Clara’s Verdict
Heartbeats is a dual-author box set — T.B. Markinson’s Reservations of the Heart paired with Miranda MacLeod’s Hearts in Motion — and it represents, at nearly nineteen and a half hours, a generous package of sapphic medical romance. Both authors have devoted readerships in the genre, and this collaboration trades on those reputations sensibly: the two novellas complement each other without being interchangeable. If you’re already a fan of either writer, this is a comfortable listen. If you’re new to sapphic romance fiction and wondering where to start, it’s a reasonable entry point.
The medical setting gives both stories a structural tension that romance plots sometimes lack — decisions matter, lives are at stake, and the emotional vulnerabilities of the protagonists are amplified by professional pressure. It’s a well-worn formula, but Markinson and MacLeod deploy it with evident enthusiasm.
About the Audiobook
MacLeod’s Hearts in Motion opens the collection. When a young couple die in an accident, two aunts from opposite sides of the family become joint carers for their infant son. The premise is immediately engaging — grief, responsibility, and the peculiar intimacy of co-parenting a child with someone you didn’t choose to know. The romance that develops is earned rather than assumed, and MacLeod navigates the question of whether love can genuinely emerge from loss without being glib about it.
Markinson’s Reservations of the Heart follows Stella and Aurora — two women who each believe, for different reasons, that they’re done with relationships. The spark between them is immediate; the resistance is psychologically grounded rather than merely plotted. Both stories are, at their heart, about healing, and the medical backdrop serves that theme without becoming formulaic. The box set is published by I Heart SapphFic Press, which specialises in exactly this kind of warm, character-led LGBTQ+ romance fiction.
The Narration
Lori Prince narrates the full collection, and her performance is warm and assured. Sapphic romance fiction has a distinct tonal register — it needs a narrator who can handle emotional intimacy without sentimentality — and Prince manages this well. She differentiates the voices of the two stories clearly, which matters when you’re listening to nearly twenty hours of audio, and her pacing suits the episodic, emotionally driven structure of both novellas. An attentive and engaged reading throughout.
What Readers Say
Heartbeats holds an impressive 4.7 rating from 40 listeners on Audible. The reviews are brief but warm. Shazh76 from the UK called it « sweet » and said she « loved both of these books by two of my favourite authors. » Marcelina in Australia went further: « the best yet of these wonderful authors. » The high rating from a meaningful number of early listeners suggests a genuinely satisfied readership rather than a curated sampling.
Who Should Listen?
The obvious audience is anyone who enjoys sapphic romance fiction, particularly readers already familiar with T.B. Markinson or Miranda MacLeod. But the collection’s medical setting and its focus on healing from grief and past trauma give it broader appeal — listeners who enjoy emotionally intelligent women’s fiction will find plenty to appreciate here. At nearly twenty hours for two complete stories, it represents excellent value for a long commute, a holiday, or a weekend when you want to lose yourself in something warm and well-crafted.
Listen on Audible UK: Get Heartbeats on Audible UK. Also available on Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
