Audiobook Review: Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)

Author: Talia Hibbert

Narrator: Ione Butler

Audiobook Length: 10 hours 51 minutes

In USA Today bestselling author Talia Hibbert’s newest rom-com, the flightiest Brown sister crashes into the life of an uptight B&B owner and has him falling hard—literally.

Eve Brown is a certified hot mess. No matter how hard she strives to do right, her life always goes horribly wrong—so she’s given up trying. But when her personal brand of chaos ruins an expensive wedding (someone had to liberate those poor doves), her parents draw the line. It’s time for Eve to grow up and prove herself—even though she’s not entirely sure how…

Jacob Wayne is in control. Always. The bed and breakfast owner’s on a mission to dominate the hospitality industry—and he expects nothing less than perfection. So when a purple-haired tornado of a woman turns up out of the blue to interview for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car—supposedly by accident. Yeah, right.

Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen—and his spare bedroom. Jacob hates everything about it. Or rather, he should. Sunny, chaotic Eve is his natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else. Like Eve, the heat between them is impossible to ignore—and it’s melting Jacob’s frosty exterior.

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Act Your Age, Eve Brown is the third novel in the Brown Sisters trilogy where each novel follows one sister and their romance story. After her other two sisters have found love, it is now time for the story of Eve Brown, the 26-years-old youngest sister. Eve has a habit of constantly changing careers and her parents want her to grow up and settle down. When her parents cut off her trust fund, Eve takes a drive out of town to clear her head. This leads her to a countryside B&B, Castell Cottage, owned by Jacob Wayne, who happens to be looking for a chef. An unfortunate incident leads to Jacob breaking his arm and Eve agreeing to stay and help him at the B&B.

The “meet-cute” method used in this story was intriguing as it was unexpected when I began this story. While Eve and Jacob represent the typical sunshine/grump trope, I was pleasantly surprised that this was not their only defining characteristic. Eve is written as a neurodivergent plus-size POC, which was mentioned multiple times throughout the story, but felt like a natural part of her character instead of feeling forced. While she is privileged and has an outgoing and bubbly personality, she still suffers from her own insecurities. She was an interesting character, although she would be wearing if I knew her in real life. She may not be entirely for me, but I did enjoy the way she was written.

Jacob is on the autism spectrum who also is self-protective due to his past. Although he has a frostier exterior, he has his reasons and I enjoyed how it was written that he was not a jerk, but instead just in defensive mode. It was a nice distinction for his character. His relationship with Eve begins as a fun enemies story before they get to know each other towards lovers. This story does rely on the “close proximity” method for the two characters to get to know each other, which is one that I enjoy in novels. The one piece that was difficult to connect with is the timeline, which is a lot shorter than expected. As the two characters work/live in this B&B setting, there is the additional “bubble” issue as the two characters interact in this limited setting in a short time, so it was difficult to connect with them being a long-lasting couple if their setting expanded and time moved forward. Overall, this was a fun addition to the Brown Sisters trilogy. I enjoyed that while the stories followed the same outline, each of them was unique to each sister.