Call Me Maybe and Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone

Call Me Maybe & Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone

Call Me Maybe Narrated by Luci Christian & Neil Hellegers

Sweet Talk Narrated by Lidia Dornet and Chris Brinkley

Romantic Comedy Made for Audio. Both can stand alone.

I listened to Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone right before Call Me Maybe, not realizing it was second in The Love Lines series. I loved Sweet Talk so much that I immediately looked for another by the author, and realized I had already bought the first, Call Me Maybe, but never listened! So lucky me, I jumped right in.

WARNING: Sweet Talk runs concurrently to Call Me Maybe, so it gives away a pretty big plot point from the first book. But it didn’t lessen my enjoyment at all. Still, read Call Me Maybe first if you can.

WARNING #2: There is NO SEX. The relationship was not in-person for most of the books. Again, I didn’t miss it.

WARNING #3: Your cheeks may hurt from smiling, and your teeth may hurt from the sweetness.

WARNING #4: They aren’t alpha males. They’re sweet and nerdy.

WARNING (or suggestion) #5: Listen with headphones. These books are made for audio and there are a lot of cool extraneous sounds that you would miss in a car or with one headphone in.

Siiiigh…despite all these warnings, the Love Lines Series may be my favorite books this year. I have a thing for books with texting/email/online chatting as the main communication for the couple. It’s what made me fall in love with Fifty Shades of Gray. It wasn’t the kinky fuckery, it was the email flirtation.

Call Me Maybe features Vera, a young woman who is starting her own business and getting ready for an expo in a few days. But her website, the main component of her business, has gone down and she’s been on hold for her website’s customer service for hours. When she finally gets the guy on the line, she won’t hang up until he fixes it. So begins an adorable flirtation.

Sweet Talk started with a wrong number text. This one was a little deeper than the first in that Jessie, the heroine, is a tattooed, boxing badass, and Eliot is a sweet, gentle, kind of nerdy guy. Jessie’s fear that he wouldn’t like the real her kept them physically apart, but they were together in every other way. I loved every single thing about Sweet Talk, and after listening to Call Me Maybe, I think I may go back and listen to it again.

I’m reviewing these fantastic audiobooks together because they are similar in that they feature the couple meeting over phone/text and not in person, and they are related to each other (the heroine in Call Me Maybe is the sister of the hero in Sweet Talk) and they both just had me smiling and feeling good the whole time. I usually do likes and dislikes here, but I had nothing I disliked about either book!

The Narration:

Narrated in a duet format, Call Me Maybe and Sweet Talk were both made for audio, so it feels very realistic with sound effects like typing, cars, people etc., like listening to a play. I absolutely LOVED the narrators for both books. They couldn’t have picked better narrators for each one, and I hope to hear more audiobooks from both. I’d like to hear Chris Brinkley some more adult romance, because wow…his voice is hot!

Since these books are made for audio, I’m not sure how they will translate to print, but I assume they would still be adorable.

The Down & Dirty:

If you like a sweet, light, meet-over-text/phone romance you will love the Love Lines Series by Cara Bastone. I know most of my readers prefer a little heat in their stories, but I never felt it lacking in any way, in fact, I almost feel like sex scenes would have taken away from the fun. I can happily say that these are two of my favorites for 2021, and I recommend them to any audiobook lover that likes a sweet romcom.