A review by friends2lovers
No Rest for the Wicked by Lauren Smith

adventurous emotional lighthearted medium-paced

3.0

A good, entertaining story, but not as romantic or steamy as I was in the mood for. Dom had more emotional and sexual tension with his childhood friend, Flynn, than with the heroine, Robbie. Maybe I’ve been reading too many M/M romances, but I was rooting for Dom and Flynn to get together romantically.  Or for all three to end up together in an M/M/F triad. Anyway, it was nice to see a hero with a tortured past who still values his friendship and bond with another man. 

This is my second time listening to an audiobook narrated by Cornell Collins. I enjoyed his narration here more than for K. J. Charles’ Band Sinister. I sped up the audio to 1.25x which helped with his slow-ish pacing. My main criticism of Collins' performance for this book is his inconsistent and wide-ranging volume. He would start out a sentence at a normal volume level, then gradually drop into a barely-audible whisper. There were also times where a change in pitch or tone would have been more appropriate than a change in volume. For example, using a higher pitch instead of a hushed voice for a female character; or a commanding tone instead of a loud, booming voice for a male character. Maybe if I had listened with noise-canceling earbuds this wouldn’t have been a problem. I listened to this in my car while driving and was constantly adjusting the volume knob up and down.

Overall a decent listening experience, but quite unmemorable. I am writing this review 3 weeks after finishing it, and there isn't much that stands out in my memory about the characters or story. However, I am still interested in reading the sequel, which is Flynn’s book. I hope his friendship with Dom is featured, and I'm crossing my fingers for more steam.

Endnotes: M/F historical romance, Georgian era (1740s), pirates, heroine disguised as a boy, traumatic past, forced proximity, 3rd-person dual POV, short novel (68k words), audiobook from Hoopla
Heat Index: 2/5 
2 full, on-page sex scenes. First scene is at 60% and moderately explicit. Second scene is mildly explicit. Some thoughts…I think one of the reasons I was disappointed in the steam for this book is that there is a little bit of kink-teasing. The heroine is lashed as punishment for disobeying the captain's (Dom's) orders. Though Dom doesn't administer the lashings himself, he holds onto her arms/hands the whole time and they experience a physical and emotional connection. She maybe even gets a little aroused? I hoped that would be explored a bit more in the bedroom, but it wasn't. And then, when they finally do the deed, it's vanilla and vague.
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