Uneasy Street
(A Sons of Scandal Romance #3)
By Becky Wade
Contemporary Romance, Clean and Wholesome
Audiobook, Paperback & eBook, Pages
February 14, 2025
Summary
Christy Award Hall of Fame Author
Once upon a time Max Cirillo and Sloane Madison were close friends and business partners. But when their business relationship imploded, so did the friendship.
Now, four years later, Max is a rich CEO. Sloane’s a not-so-rich etiquette expert who returns to Maine to serve as her niece’s temporary guardian and help the girl search for her birth father. Sloane and her niece move into a darling garage apartment but Sloane’s joy in their accommodations soon turns to horror when she realizes their apartment belongs to Max. Thanks to an unbreakable lease, she’s stuck living right next door to him.
Max pulled strings to bring Sloane into his orbit because he needs closure on what went wrong between them. Quickly, though, his scheming comes back to bite him. The world might view him as a cold-hearted rake, but this one woman has dangerous power over his emotions.
They’ll have no choice but to confront their history—and the undeniable spark between them—while living side by side on uneasy street.
Discover witty humor, rich emotion, banter, and charm within the pages of this sweet enemies-to-lovers romance!
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My Review
UNEASY STREET is one of those stories that reminded me just a bit of a modern-day retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It's an enemies to lovers trope with complex characters, plenty of chemistry, interesting subplots, and plenty of humor. Reminiscent of Kristan Higgins and Susan Elizabeth Phillips except on the clean side. Highly recommended to sweet contemporary romance fans!
Read this book if you like:
💚Enemies to lovers trope
💚Lovable, complex characters
💚Additional subplots
💚Great chemistry
💚A teenager to make things lively
💚Sweet romance
💚A family of brothers
💚Lots of humor and banter
💚Themes of reconciliation and forgiveness
I've enjoyed this series from the first book and have been looking forward to seeing how Max's story would turn out. This group of brothers, Max being the half-brother of an affair, brought a lot of complexities to the series. I would say Max foremost had a very complex background as the one who wasn't raised by his father and dealing with some serious media fallout. I admired the way he worked hard to succeed and not use his past as a crutch. It helped that he had a loving mother, two half-brother friends (one of which was his best friend), and a self-driven determination to make something of himself in spite of the situation. He also had Sloane for much of his journey. Of course, he had some issues as well that he had to work through, especially with realizing what Sloane meant to him and being willing to be vulnerable. I didn't love the manipulation he used and what it said about who he was, and at the same time, I had to laugh at the antagonism, banter and heat it created between him and Sloane.
Sloane also had a rough childhood and background and had dealt with some pretty hard things. Her copying strategies weren't developed to the point where she really needed them to be for what she faced. I felt like that was half of the problem between her and Max. They both didn't have good relationship examples or even healthy examples of two people being honest and working through problems together. Just like Max, Sloane was very self-driven and seemed to have a good moral compass. She was willing to be all in with her niece and fight for herself as she built up her business and went head to toe with Max. The two of them were opposites in a lot of ways, but also so alike in their priorities. And they were great together.
There was plenty going on in this story. I liked getting to see the other characters from the previous books. Ivy also added a level of cute entertainment, and I loved seeing both Sloane and Max interact with her. There were a couple of subplots to keep things interesting and tie up a few things. But I loved Max and Sloane the most, with all the humor, chemistry, and a few introspective moments that inspired.
A note about the audiobook version of this book. The leading man's voice was deep and felt consistent with his character. The leading woman's voice was a medium tone, so not too low or too high and felt consistent with her character as well. The other characters were also well done, except Ivy's voice felt a couple years younger than her character (more like my 13-year-old or younger than a 15-year-old). The inflections were well done, and I could hear the emotions come across. Definitely an enjoyable way to read this story.
In the end, was it what I wished for? This was a perfect read for sweet contemporary romance fans. I loved the characters, the emotional drive with all the feels, and the romance.
Content: Some references to affairs, but clean.
Source: I received a complimentary copy from the author, which did not require a positive review. All opinions are my own.
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