No Strings by Lucy Bexley is a funny, sweet and poignant romance. It belongs in every romance collection especially if you love audiobooks.
Elsie Webb is the creator and main puppeteer on Fangly Heights, a kids TV show created for Haelstrom Media. She loves her job when it’s all about great content for kids and hates things like negotiating contracts, dealing with her terrible co-worker and challenging the status quo.
So when the owner of the media empire dies before she has had a chance to finalise contract negotiations Elsie is left with a looming contract deadline and a cash strapped bank account. She is unsure what the future holds for her and her terrible co-worker seems to be plotting to take over the show.
Jones Haelstrom flies to LA to deal with her father’s funeral having packed little more than an overnight bag. She is not planning on stepping in as CEO of her father’s media company and she is not planning on the fact that her stepmother will leave her young brother with her and disappear. But that’s exactly what happens.
Add to that the enticing puppeteer, Elsie, and the instant chemistry between them and Jones is not sure she can keep it all together.
She is trying to pick up the pieces of a life she didn’t want and take care of her young brother, finish contract negotiations and deal with a budding romance with Elsie. Can she handle it all and keep it casual with Elsie when there is such a deep connection there?
Writing Style
Luxy Bexley writes well. Her use of language, humour and character work intermingle flawlessly and create a real sense of the world.
I adored the side characters and the tiny twist at the end with the stop mother was a glorious thing to behold. Nicely done Bexley.
Narration
Tantor Audio produced a high quality audiobook with a flawless Abby Craden narration and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
If you want a sapphic romance audiobook to sell well then hire Abby Craden to narrate it. This is just a fact, and there is a reason for this. Craden is a masterful storyteller who enhances books by bringing the characters to life and amplifying emotions with her performance.
I will be honest, as much as I love Craden (which is a whole lot), I felt like the last Bexley audiobook was let down by Carden because the humour wasn’t delivered well. This flattened the story for me. So, going into this one I was hopeful that it would be different and I was so happy that it was. The humour was delivered well and I had several laugh out loud moments.
Pros
I loved it all. Can I just cheat and say that? The audiobook was really good. The story was heartfelt with characters that were flawed and perfectly imperfect and the balance of humour and drama was an eloquent push and pull.
Heads Up
No Strings by Lucy Bexley contains discussion of mental health issues. One of the main characters is bipolar. It was handled with sensitivity and there was a lovely kind of acceptance from the other character which helped but didn’t cure the mental health issues. I think this is far more realistic than a love conquers all approach.
If I were to nitpick I would cut one or two chapters to make the story just a little bit faster. Nothing was ever repeated but I didn’t feel like everything was needed. BUT, I am also very aware that I am an impatient soul and there are folks who will enjoy sinking into the book and revealing in all the glory.
The Conclusion
I adored the way Bexley balanced elements of humour with real world mental heath struggles. The result was realistic feeling characters that you wouldn’t be surprised to meet next door.
The story is so sweet and the character arcs are worth the journey.
I loved the audiobook and highly recommend it. Abby Craden is a legend and continues to be a beacon in the sapphic sector.
Absolutely get this one. It’s really worth it.
Excerpt from No Strings by Lucy Bexley
She did a quick safety check for an exit sign and locked eyes with a woman who was watching them with an amused expression on her face.
The woman’s gaze drifted over Jones appraisingly. Jones felt the heat of her green eyes like the sun on her skin. So maybe not amused. But interested?
Jones looked down at her weird funeral clothes. Okay, interest was unlikely. Maybe she was just sizing Jones up as the new boss. Jones straightened to her best boss height, which was just her real height, but more serious.
Jones watched as the woman raked her fingers through her shoulder-length brown hair, sweeping it to one side so that her curls shot out erratically. It was wavy in an uneven way that reminded Jones of finally letting her hair down at the end of the night. Sweet relief. The freedom of no one left to impress.
Though, if Jones was being honest, the woman had an air of not wanting to impress at all. It was nice. And the complete opposite of how she currently felt. So much of her life was people trying to win her over because of her last name and the reputation that came along with it. But this woman had her arms crossed, and she was openly staring. It was straight up subway etiquette. Her ripped coveralls weren’t artful, but well worn, almost like the holes hadn’t been there when she bought them. How novel. She had them unzipped to the waist with the arms knotted around her midriff, like she’d stopped midway through undressing. Coveralls should not be sexy. Everything about the woman was starting to feel deeply unfair to Jones. Her t-shirt had a weird pattern, black and purple and green. It reminded Jones of a bowling alley. An establishment she’d been invited to exactly once, and she’d promptly sprained her wrist. After that, Birdie had instituted a strict no sports birthday party and bat mitzvah rule, which was fine by her.
Was the OshKosh B’gosh woman on the crew for one of the shows? That would explain the giant hammer she was dragging behind her. It looked impossibly heavy. Jones wasn’t a gym person and had no real concept of weight, beyond the fact that her groceries were always too heavy to carry, which was why she got them delivered.
Stu had kept walking, content to let this woman struggle. How irresponsible. Well, that was a potential workplace injury risk Jones wasn’t willing to take the liability for. Not on her first day as interim CEO. Plus, if she offered her help, maybe she could do the impossible and make a friend here, instead of just meeting with weird leering men in bespoke suits.
“Can I help you with that?” Jones stepped toward the woman, before she realized she’d made up her mind. Anything to avoid a lawsuit.
“With what?”
“That, um, hammer? I don’t want you to get hurt.” That’s right. Jones was calm, logical. She had everything under control.
The woman’s voice tipped into laughter. “Sure,” she said, her eyes flashing and she flicked her wrist.
Shit. Not even an hour in and she was going to need a hospital. She’d never caught anything in her life, and she definitely wasn’t going to start with a hammer. Jones ducked and braced for impact. The hammer glanced off her shoulder, and she waited for the pain to come; for her bones to become dust upon impact. Apparently, there would be a lawsuit after all.
And then the hammer bounced. Because Jones, the most gullible woman alive, was so out of her element that she thought the studio would have a mammoth tool lying around instead of some foam prop.
The other woman gave her a sheepish grin. The green in her eyes bloomed. “Oh, shit, sorry. I thought you’d try to catch it. Not…whatever that was.” She gestured vaguely up and down Jones’ body.
Jones would not blush. She was in charge today. “Why would I try to catch a hammer? It looks like the ones used to drive stakes on a railroad.”
The woman shrugged. “I wasn’t around when the first railroads were built. But this is television, baby. Nothing here is real.”
She’d delivered that last line with an honest-to-God wink. People who could pull off winking had entirely too much power.
Jones felt rage and embarrassment fighting for prominence. And something else just beneath the surface, something that felt a lot like attraction. Since when was a woman throwing something at her a turn-on? Say something. Anything. Jones searched her brain for something quippy. “But I’m real.” Ugh, not that.
Get It Online
When you use the links in this review and buy within 24 hours of clicking then we get a small commission that helps us run the site and it costs you nothing extra
Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 979-8986117102
Publisher: Indie Author
Audiobook Publisher: Tantor Audio
Narrator: Abby Craden
Audiobook Length: 9 hours 32 minutes
If you enjoyed No Strings by Lucy Bexley then you should also look at
Note: I received a free review copy of No Strings by Lucy Bexley. No money was exchanged for this review. When you use our links to buy we get a small commission which supports the running of this site
