Lucas & Dean

On Cravenwood Block, Book 4

De: A.D. Ellis

Narrado por: Oliver Young-Apstein

Lucas would follow his best friend anywhere. Which is how he ended up bartending on Cravenwood Block. He's got a great place to live, an amazing found family, and his best friend by his side. Everything is perfect...until he realizes he's fallen for Dean.


An unexpected kiss rocks both men to the core and leads them on a journey of self-discovery. While on the way, they're forced to decide between their friendship of nearly thirty years and the potential for true love. Is there too much at stake or can the men keep their friendship intact while allowing themselves to fall in love?

*Lucas & Dean: On Cravenwood Block is a steamy, best-friends-to-lovers, sexual-awakening M/M romance featuring a bisexual bartender who keeps his feelings hidden because he can't imagine life without his best friend and a self-proclaimed straight doctor who never knew how much he'd enjoy kissing the man he's known his entire life.*

©2022,2024 A.D. Ellis (P)2024 A.D. Ellis

Great ending to the series

(Some of my review is based on the series so it’s the same as in other books from the series but everything specific to this book has been edited)

I often avoid shorter books that focus on only one couple because so many books waste so much time on silly misunderstandings that you don’t have time to enjoy the couple building a relationship or rush into things so quickly that it seems totally implausible and just doesn’t “feel” like a real relationship. The books in this series are perfect examples of books that walk the line perfectly between taking time to build a relationship and not wasting time on unnecessary stuff. It’s nice that at times we move forward in time a week or two or something so you don’t feel like everything on page happened in such a short period of time that it’s implausible. I also really like the way this series does truly focus on one relationship per book but has a group that becomes so close over the course of the series that reading them together feels completely cohesive and allows you to enjoy the other characters in each book as the series progresses.

This book had a slightly different feel to it than the other books in the series because Lucas and Dean have been lifelong friends that we first meet as they move into the apartment in Cravenwood rather than a couple who meets at the start of their book. There was a good balance between giving us their history and just letting things play out in the present. I think that the way that they both rediscovered one another as they added romance and sexual attraction to their relationship was really interesting and I liked that they both really struggled with what that meant for them. I also really liked the way they dealt with their families and decided that they didn’t want to get stuck in toxic family dynamics but leaned on the support they had. This was a great ending to the series as well in that in the end we saw how the entire family in the Cravenwood apartment was moving forward together.

The narration was good with nice pacing and a pleasant reading voice. There were occasional times where a bit of background noise was there (traffic sounds) but it was so low that it didn’t detract. The one negative thing I would say about listening to the book is that the characters sometimes had inner dialogue with themselves in the middle of a conversation that made it a little confusing in the audiobook to know when they were speaking and when they were just thinking. Again it didn’t detract from the book enough to make it unpleasant to listen to.

In all I would definitely recommend this book and I would also recommend reading the whole series in order. I also wanted to say that after listening to the whole series I enjoyed that they overlapped in when they took place so even though the couples often started their relationships at the same time we get to see each develop from beginning to end not just start at the point in time that the last book ended.

Best Friends Forever

A wonderful take on the best friends to lovers trope. Lucas & Dean have been side by side since they were babies/toddlers. They practically share one brain, except for the fact that Lucas is hiding his infatuation and love from his best friend. As their relationship unfolds, Dean begins to see what everyone else has been telling him they're seeing with he and Lucas' obvious connection.

I loved Lucas & Dean for that special connection that two friends can share. Their relationship was natural and intense all at once. I look forward to enjoying them again!

The Cravenwood crew are an amazing quad of couples. I loved each and every one of their stories! They all had different starting points/beginning tropes, but the plots fit well with the MCs in each, and flowed well into one another.

Audiobook Update:
Giving voice to Lucas & Dean, while also maintaining the rest of the Cravenwood crew is a challenge, but Oliver Young-Apstein does a fantastic job keeping the unique personalities and nuances from each character available and identifiable. Never a dull moment with the Cravenwood Block Crew.

I received an authorized copy of this story/audiobook and am volunteering my honest review.