Taylor's Father by Penelope Ward | Audiobook Review • Ana's Attic Book Blog

Taylor’s Father by Penelope Ward

Narrated in Duet by Andi Arndt and Jason Clarke

Standalone Age Gap Romance

Thank you Penelope and Hambright for an early audiobook for review. This post contains affiliate links.

WOW. Obsessed! I didn’t expect to love Taylor’s Father by Penelope Ward as much as I did. Don’t ask me why. I should have known better. I like age gap romances, but seventeen years is a lot, especially when the FMC is only nineteen, so I was a bit worried going in. But I met my ex-husband at nineteen and he was twenty-seven, so I know a mature relationship is possible at that age.

Blaire’s best friend gifted her a week at his grandparents’ resort to help her heal from a bad breakup, and that’s where she meets Tate, the “hot dad” in the lobby. There’s an instant connection. Blaire is upfront about wanting a vacation fling, and Tate clearly wants her too, but he resists because of her age. They spend the week together, drawn to each other in a way that’s impossible to ignore, yet he never fully gives in because she’s the same age as his son. Tate is thirty-six to Blaire’s nineteen, and it’s a line he really resists crossing.

Considering Blaire’s lack of experience, she is bold, sassy, persistent, and has a surprisingly mature confidence. Tate is a tattooed veteran who missed much of his son’s childhood and carries a lot of regret about that. He knows he didn’t make his son, Taylor, the priority he should have, and that struggle adds depth to what could have just been a spicy age gap romance. With Blaire’s encouragement, he decides to keep trying to rebuild his relationship with his son, even when it’s uncomfortable and met with resistance. Their chemistry completely sucked me in, and I have to say this may have been Jason Clarke’s best performance I’ve ever heard.

Though they agree to only share first names and keep their personal lives separate, what they feel grows beyond something temporary, and Tate eventually gives in to the temptation. They fall for each other, but after the trip, they don’t reconnect.

“But what began with me being horny and bored on this trip, had turned into something completely different. I don’t want just anyone anymore. I wanted Tate. Only Tate. I couldn’t imagine wanting anyone else for a very long time….How do you go back to boys when you’ve fallen for a full fledged man?”

Four years later, they are shocked to see each other at Blaire’s best friend Taylor’s wedding. In the years apart, Tate followed Blaire’s advice and worked to rebuild his relationship with his son, Taylor. Now that things are finally on steadier ground between them, how does he tell him he’s fallen for his best friend?

There was something so magnetic about this book. It’s a fairly simple story with some common tropes but it just held me completely captive while I was listening and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

The Narration:

Jason Clarke and Andi Arndt are two of my favorite narrators, and in duet they are fantastic. I do have to call out Jason Clarke again. The longing and desperation he brings to Tate make this one of the strongest performances I’ve heard from him. It’s honestly hard to separate my love of the story from the narration because it added so much to the emotional immersion. I will note that the duet style felt slightly pieced together in a few scenes, and their emotional tones didn’t always perfectly match in conversation, causing some of Andi’s interjected lines to feel overacted. The narration was still phenomenal, but those few occasions brought it only from 5+++ stars for narration to 5.

This is where I normally do my likes and dislikes but honestly it was kind of the whole vibe and pace of Taylor’s Father I enjoyed the most. It was certainly spicy, hovering on the edge of erotica. But the last half of the book is where the emotions really kicked in. They started with great banter, but the angst and longing took over. It was so delicious, and it went on for the perfect amount of time.

I loved Taylor’s Father by Penelope Ward. If you are ever an audiobook listener, try it in audio for one of the best performances ever. Either way, I wholeheartedly recommend it if you don’t mind the age gap. Even if you do, I promise, Penelope made it work

Rating 4.75 stars, 3.75 heat