Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3) by Talia Hibbert
Contemporary romance published by Avon on March 9, 2021
Eve Brown is a certified hot mess. No matter how hard she strives to do right, her life always goes horribly wrong – so she’s given up trying. But when her personal brand of chaos ruins a wedding, her parents draw the line. It’s time for Eve to grow up and prove herself – even though she’s not entirely sure how…
Jacob Wayne is always in control. The uptight B&B owner expects nothing less than perfection from his employees, so when a purple-haired tornado of a woman applies for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car – supposedly by accident.
Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen – and his spare bedroom. Sunny, chaotic Eve is his natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else…
Act Your Age, Eve Brown is a great conclusion to The Brown Sisters trilogy (I reviewed Get a Life, Chloe Brown here and Take a Hint, Dani Brown here). This book delivers the same funny, sexy beats as the prior books in the series. Eve and Jacob quickly develop this beautiful relationship where they can be themselves with each other and not second guess how they’re coming across or put up a front. It’s just lovely (and super hot!).
(Note: Please read the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book for content warnings.)
Eve shows up at Jacob’s bed and breakfast and turns both their lives upside down for the better. Eve has been put on notice she needs to act more like an adult and keep a job after another job opportunity doesn’t pan out and she spontaneously interviews for a chef job. Through a series of events, she ends up working at Jacob’s bed and breakfast, liking it, and becoming friendly with and super attracted to Jacob.
Jacob is leery of the chaos he thinks Eve will bring to his business and his life but gets on board when his choices are limited. He quickly grows more and more comfortable with Eve and increasingly attracted to her despite how they met. He’s autistic and she isn’t put off by things he says or does that have ruined past relationships.
This story takes place over a fairly short amount of time so the relationship, individual revelations, and personal growth happen quickly. It’s not exactly insta-love so even if you’re not a fan of insta-love I believe you will like it. The fast pace works for this relationship and the fairly rapid personal growth makes sense to me—pieces were there before, just putting them together to form the picture. The sexual tension is present from basically when Eve and Jacob meet so when the sexy times start they are hot (fans self)!
The dark moment is literally just a moment—a few pages really—which I appreciated. That didn’t make it any less emotional—I teared up and had a lump in my throat for most of it but whew, I’m glad I wasn’t left hanging for long. I love that Eve and Jacob found their “person” in each other and were almost immediately gone for one another!
I highly recommend reading the first two books in the series before reading Act Your Age, Eve Brown. This could probably be read stand-alone but #1 the first two books are also fabulous and #2 the great Brown family moments in this book, while few, may not land like they would if you’ve read the first two books and I don’t want readers to miss out on the full Brown family experience!
Talia Hibbert is one of my newer favorite authors and I’m on board for whatever she wants to write. There are definitely some setups in this book for spinoffs (books for Mont and the twins, please!) but no matter what, I can’t wait to read whatever is next from Talia Hibbert! This trilogy is a great place to start if you’re just discovering Talia Hibbert but don’t miss out on her backlist of self-published titles too.
Grade: A-
You can buy a copy here.
I hear such good things about this series. I’m waiting for a sale of any of them.
This sounds like a fantastic book. I still need to read the others.
denise
Can’t wait to read this! Talia Hibbert is one of my faves.