Stealing Ronan

South River University, Book 1

By: Isabel Lucero

Narrated by: Declan Winters, Patrick Dubois

Stealing Ronan wasn’t the plan. I’d never imagined I’d steal a boyfriend from my sister, but when I saw him strutting to my couch with his perfect body, gorgeous face, and that mouth—God, that mouth, it was like he was plucked from my wettest dreams and brought into my life just for me.

Lusting after a straight guy who’s dating my sister is a problem in itself, but the bigger problem comes when he’s invited on a family trip with us for Christmas. Just as I thought I was doing a pretty good job ignoring his soft lips and curious gazes, we’re hit with a furious blizzard, leaving me and Ronan locked up together. Alone.

We’re only snowed in for two days, but things heat up quickly, because it turns out I’m not the only one with a fascination. This series is an interconnected stand-alone series, taking place in a fictional town in Michigan. They’re all gonna be hot quick stories that feature some of your favorite tropes.

©2021 Isabel Lucero (P)2023 Insatiable Press

Fantastic story!💜

Congratulations on Isabel Lucero’s first audiobook. I absolutely loved the depth of these characters. The chemistry was on fire and the sex was hot. But this story was much more. It was fun & romantic while also addressing the challenges of being gay both in and out of the closet. I both swooned and cried.
The narration was fantastic. Both narrators were a perfect blend and voiced each of the characters beautifully. Well done everyone.
This is book 1 with an HEA and can be read as a standalone!
I highly recommend this book.

Sisters Spotlight 💜

Cute book!

I suck at reviews, but here we go, lol
I thought this was very cute, with low angst.
It was intriguing, and the characters were relatible.
It's definitely worth the listen. I'm really hoping her other books come to Audible too.

Unlikeable protagonist

There's a scene about halfway through Stealing Ronan where the two protagonists are having a conversation--before they've gotten together (is that a spoiler?). Renzo, who up until now has come across as a cocky jerk, tells Ronan that he's everything he's looked for.

"What's everything you've looked for?"

The response: "Eyes to get lost in, a perfect mouth to [do something vulgar], an athletic body, a frame nearly as tall as mine..." then Renzo looks at Ronan's crotch and says "There might be a couple other things that are yet unknown, but... I have high hopes." A totally shallow answer which is predictable coming from a totally shallow character. But he continues: "Hmmm, I really hope you don't disappoint me, Ronan. I think I might find out soon," and this is where the character's heretofore tolerable superficiality becomes intolerable, because what's the implication here? That if Ronan's package doesn't measure up to Renzo's standards, he'll unceremoniously kick him to the curb? And this is a character and a romance I'm supposed to root for?

Ok I get it, this is a romance novel, so there's precisely zero chance that the word "huge" isn't going to be used to describe Ronan at one point. And this is all pretty typical tacky, bad romance novel dialogue, but I feel like this goes a bit too far and places Ronan firmly in the category of being just utterly contemptible. There's a difference between the normal romance novel trope of every guy just coincidentally happening to be large down there and the idea that anyone who happens to be average or small is unworthy of affection or love or sex, or even the other partner's time. And this is all compounded by the fact that Ronan isn't out yet--to ANYONE, and barely even to himself--so he's already in a vulnerable position. Imagine he, like 90% of the male population, isn't proportioned like a porn star. How is that going to make him feel? In any other book, by any competent author, Renzo would be an antagonist--a slimy jerk who the much nicer and less judgmental ACTUAL protagonist steals Ronan (who IS perfectly likeable) away from. I mean, imagine this were a straight romance and the male character said to the female: "I hope I'm not disappointed by your chest when I see it!" and then we're supposed to not hate him.

Full disclosure: I didn't finish the book. So maybe Renzo totally changes toward the end, but why should we even care? Even up until this point, the book wasn't great. It takes a really promising concept--a gay guy crushing on his sister's boyfriend--and bowdlerizes it to the point that it's unrecognizable. Because Ronan and Violet aren't even really dating, per se, and Violet doesn't really even have particularly strong feelings for him. He only comes on the "forced proximity trip" by default because Violet didn't want to offend her other friends by only inviting one of them. And Renzo and Ronan don't even do anything before Ronan comes clean because they wouldn't want to do that to Violet. Which is admirable, I guess, but it sort of irritates me that all the bite is taken out of the premise because the author thinks her audience couldn't handle it, which, to be fair, they probably couldn't. There's only one thing the book forgets to water down, and that's Renzo's completely unappealing lack of any depth whatsoever. It's an annoying situation where the book is both oversanitized and also sort of morally skeezy at the same time.

Not recommended. Run fast in the other direction, Ronan, this relationship is going nowhere.

Narrators are fantastic, for what it's worth.