Neanderthal Marries Human by Penny Reid

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Title: Neanderthal Marries Human
Author: Penny Reid
Series: Knitting in the City #1.5
Published by: Indie
Release Date: May 18, 2016
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Sebastian York, Jennifer Grace
Length: 13 hours and 26 minutes
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Romantic Comedy
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Winter 2018
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ iTunes
My rating:

Blurb:

There are three things you should know about Quinn Sullivan: 1) He is madly in love with Janie Morris, 2) He’s not above playing dirty to get what (or who) he wants, and 3) He doesn’t know how to knit.

After just five months of dating Janie, Quinn—former Wendell and unapologetic autocrat—is ready to propose marriage. In fact, he’s more than ready. If it were up to Quinn, he would efficiently propose, marry, and beget Janie with child all in the same day—thereby avoiding the drama and angst that accompanies the four stages of pre-matrimony: engagement, meeting the parents, bachelor/bachelorette party, and overblown, superfluous wedding day traditions. But Janie, much to Quinn’s dismay, tosses a wrench in his efficacious endeavors and challenges him to prove his devotion by going through the matrimonial motions, no matter how minute and mundane.

Will Quinn last until the wedding day? Or will he yield to his tyrant impulses?

Regardless, one thing is for certain, Quinn Sullivan will have to learn to expect the Spanish Inquisition (i.e. the unexpected) if he plans to have and keep Janie Morris as his wife.

This book is not a standalone. It is the sequel to ‘Neanderthal Seeks Human,’ it is book #1.5 in the ‘Knitting in the City’ series, and it is a full length, 100k word novel.

Again, you must read ‘Neanderthal Seeks Human’ first before reading this book.

This book is written in first person, alternating POV (Janie Morris AND Quinn Sullivan; but more Janie than Quinn).

My Review:

4.5 stars — There was a lot more to this story than I was expecting.  I’m actually a fan of stories that address “what comes after the happily ever after”, and in a way that’s what we get here.  I loved that we got to delve a little deeper into Janie and Quinn’s romance and see how they would tackle the next challenges in life.  It was that extra that I didn’t know I wanted or needed.

First, the narrators: Jennifer Grace was just as enjoyable giving voice to Janie’s quirks in this one as in the first one.  I once again loved her pacing, emotions, the consistency of her different character voices…just all of it.  I will definitely look for more from her in the future.  Sebastian York on the other hand is one whom I haven’t enjoyed as much previously.  I will say that I didn’t mind him as much in this one.  Whatever quality of his voice that bugged me in the other book didn’t bother me quite as much in this one.  Basically he’s still not a narrator I would seek out, but he didn’t dampen the story for me this time.  I think part of that is that he had less sections (it definitely wasn’t 50-50 with the female narrator).  I still wasn’t super excited with his voice for Janie, but again…it wasn’t as bad as the other book.  So yay!  That means I don’t need to completely avoid him!  🙂  Trust me, that’s a win since he’s very popular.

All the fabulous aspects from the first book were present in the second: awesome nerdy humour; ridiculous situations; hot chemistry between Quinn and Janie; the best girl gang I’ve ever read.  It wasn’t a reprisal of the first book, it was just MORE.  And I loved all those aspects just as much this second go round.  My favourite really is the tight knitting gang, and both their crazy shenanigans and their unwavering support of one another.

I think I laughed EVEN MORE in this book.  And it wasn’t just the crazy antics….more often than not, it was little one liners from the wondrous brain of Janie.  She would just surprise me and I would laugh out loud.  Sometimes it’s the subtle humour that pulls me in more than anything.

And while the laughing was good, it was the heart in this book that really put it over the top for me.  Pretty much everything surrounding Quinn and his parents, and more importantly what Janie gained from her new relationships with Katherine and Desmond had me tearing up on multiple occasions.

One thing I will note, I haven’t read many of the books in this series, and I’m trying to go through them in order.  But I think the timeline in this one overlaps a LOT with book 2, so I’m not sure if I should have read that one first or not.  I guess I’ll find out when I read it next.

So yeah.  Great success.  What really made me happy is that at this point I was just invested in our characters, so any little bits that bugged me in the first book just settled for me in this one, and I was able to just enjoy myself.  It definitely makes me want to finish the series SOON SOON SOON!