Thanks to Emily, her publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with an ALC of the re-release of her novel, Beneath the Hood.

3.5/5 ⭐️
1/5 🌶️

I absolutely love Emily’s books and was excited to see her publisher pick up her first series to re-release them! This one follows Blakely, a 19 year old social media influencer and Jackson, a 28 year old, who works on prop cars for movies. They meet because he works for Blakely’s dad’s business.

This book has:
- age gap romance (9 years)
- virgin(ish) FMC
- mental health rep
- disordered eating rep

It was cute and had a lot of stuff you see in an age gap romance. I appreciated Emily’s take on mental health (panic attacks, anxiety/depression, OCD) and disordered eating.

The audiobook: I loved Brooke Bloomingdale as Blakely. I didn’t love Liam DiCosimo as Jackson. His fake southern accent felt really wrong and not genuine for the part. Especially considering Jackson didn’t live his whole life in the south (Sugar Lake, TN).

⭐️⭐️⭐️½ | 🌶️🌶️🌶️ | 🏎️ Age Gap Romance

I went into this expecting bratty-influencer-meets-grumpy-mechanic vibes and got WHIPLASH because this book has LAYERS, people!

Jackson's all "escaping heartbreak to fix vintage cars" but ends up babysitting his boss's daughter instead (classic). Meanwhile Blakely's out here being Instagram-perfect while secretly drowning in anxiety. Their forbidden chemistry? INEVITABLE.

The vibes we're tracking:
🚗 Under-the-hood tension (literally)
🧠 Mental health rep that doesn't pull punches
🌡️ Age gap that's more emotional than just spicy
📱 Social media facade vs authentic connection

The narration? TOP TIER. That southern accent had me WEAK. Not the steamiest read I've encountered (solid 3/5 spice) but the emotional depth caught me off guard in the best way. Quick listen that's way deeper than the cover suggests!

*♡Thank you to Emily Mcintire, Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC of this audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion♡*

I adored Blakely and Jackson's story!!
Dont let the cover fool you.. although this is a spicy rom com it dives deep into mental health struggles, eating disorders, the grief of losing a parent and the impact that social media has in society. Emily does an amazing job at using these in a respectful way to really make the characters back stories lack a punch.
I feel in love with both of the characters straight away and the slow burn between them was delightfully drawn out, making the end result well worth the struggle!! Deliciously spicy, as Emily always is!

**3.5 stars
Please note that this book deals with eating disorders, OCD and anxiety.

I listened to this audio book at 1.25 speed and it is dual narration.

I really enjoyed the female narrator (Brooke Bloomingdale) for this book, although I was a little unsure of the male narrator (Liam DiCosimo).

This story is about Blakely who is a 19 year old 'rich' influencer with a 'rich' dad and Jackson who works for Blakely's father and 10 years Blakely's senior. He comes from Sugar Lake from a less wealthy family, but moved to fulfil his deceased fathers dream restoring cars. Blakely's father asks Jackson to keep an eye on her at some of her events, and from there you can feel their immediate attraction to each other.

As mentioned this story revolves heavily around an eating disorder and anxiety. The author handled these situations well. I did feel the story did drag out a little, but I am only new to listening to audiobooks.

This was an enjoyable book. While I’ve never struggled with an eating disorder, the way the FMC is portrayed and her struggles around eating felt very believable. I found myself getting anxious for her. The romance in this book was cute. I wished there was a little more groveling in the resolution, but still romantic. Emily McIntire’s writing is always very easy and enjoyable!

Ａｕｄｉｏｂｏｏｋ Ｒｅｖｉｅｗ
🌟🌟🌟🌟.2
This new cover art is gorgeous and very eye-catching. Jackson Rhoades has a perfect smile and a broken heart. When he gets offered his dream job in Hollywood, he packs up his shattered pieces and leaves Sugarlake for good. He thought he was hired to restore classic cars, but instead, his new boss tasks Jackson with keeping an eye on his unruly nineteen-year-old daughter.

Blakely Donahue is one of the biggest influencers in North America. She's followed by millions but has never felt more alone. Obsessed with counting calories and drowning under the pressure of perfection, she's barely holding herself together. When her father's new employee starts hanging around, Blakely can't help but feel a pull.

This book was beautifully written, and I like how the author handled the mental health issues Blakely was experiencing. This is book three in the Sugarlake series, and honestly, I haven't read the other two, and I felt like I wasn't missing a beat. I enjoyed this book. It did feel like it dragged a little at some points.

The audiobook was good; it's dual narration, and they did a great job telling the story and bringing it to life. It was super easy to listen to and understand. I listened at 2x speed.

Thank you, Netgellay, and Blackstone Publishing for the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

The new Audiobook is coming out this week. Brooke was the perfect for the FMC, she got the right voice and emotion level for it. Liam narrated the MMC and it felt slightly documentary-ish and didn’t love it.

The book in general was so wild, the FMC is an influencer with daddy issues. While the book does great at tackling OCD symptoms and eating disorders her personality falls a little flat and feels unrealistic.
He is broody and about 10 years older than her bit still behaves like a 21 year old so while the book attempts to be an age gap romance is completely irrelevant.

Also it felt it dragged…

Triggers: eating disorders, abandonment issues, sex on page, OCD .

Thanks neg galley for the advanced AudioBook

I was so happy to get Jax's story. He had been pining for Alina since they were teens. Over a decade, he waited as she got over and then back with his former best friend Chase. Jax moved to California to fulfill his father's wish. Blakely is his boss' daughter and social media star. They were an unlikely pair, being opposites and age gap (28/19). But Jax saw behind the facade, and she helped heal the heart she didn't break. I loved how Jax and Alina were able to maintain their friendship, and Alina got to be his #1 fan of his HEA. The ending leads right into the 4th and final book in the series.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

before i really get into this review i want to mention an ‼️ EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING ‼️ for disordered eating and panic attacks. these topics are explored and described in GRAPHIC, REALISTIC detail.

in this book we follow blakely, a 19 year old social media influencer, and jackson, a 28 year old mechanic that works for her dad.. CLEARLY this is going to cause some issues as we progress through the story..

blakely spends all of her time maintaining the perfect image to her followers and fans— until her dad decides she needs to work at his auto shop where they fix up old cars to be used in movies. this is where she meets jackson— the hot older guy that she loves to flirt with. their relationship is full of banter and pent up attraction until one day jackson witnesses blakely having a panic attack and EVERYTHING changes. from there… the rest is history 😉

the one thing that i really loved about this book is that i felt like enough time was spent on the different aspects of the story that nothing felt unfinished by the end of the book. i also loved that over the course of the book, blakely realizes that she has these mental health issues and gives herself the time and space to work on those issues, without the sole reason she gets better being the love interest. major, major props for that plot point!

this book felt like a wattpad fanfic at times, and i mean that in the best way possible. this felt nostalgic and it didn’t run together with other romance books i’ve read recently because it was so different from a typical contemporary romance.

if you’re into forbidden, age gap tropes… this is 100% the book for you. if you’re not.. you might be after you read this 😂

Thank you to Blackstone Publishing for an early listening copy.

This is the third installment in Emily McIntire's "Sugerlake Series", which are standalone, interconnected romance dramas following a friend group. This book follows Jackson Rhoades, after the events of the first book led to heartbreak, as he leaves Sugerlake to work on movies in LA. While there, he meets Blakely, an influencer and his boss' daughter. On the surface, Blakely is an attractive socialite with nepo connections, and Jackson is the only one to see deeper into her struggles with her mental health. While the romance and character development are missing a lot of the spark that the first two relationships in this series have, readers will enjoy the age gap relationship.

Please note that this audiobook does not list the specific content warnings prior to the text, which are much more intense than the prior books in this series.

Absolutely devoured this book from Emily McIntire.
Very different from the never after series but definitely worth picking up!

I appreciate the opportunity to listen to this audiobook early, but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it, at all. I hated just about everything in it and while usually a solidly narrated book can save a book I don’t love and at least make it entertaining, I didn’t care for the for this as an audio either.

I feel the FMCs issues were handled carelessly, with what was described was a severe eating disorder was categorized by her as a “lifestyle choice” and by the MMC as “issues with food’” and having no one else notice meaning nothing looked off, made no sense to me, because the behaviors described, which we’re lead to believe she has been doing for years, should have had her loosing far too much weight, not maintaining. The spiraling into panic attacks over literally everything got old fast and became especially frustrating because her OCD and other mental illnesses were her only personality traits. That and being an influencer, which she seems to hate literally every aspect of and which seems to have a lot to do with her obsessions and behaviors but it’s also just about the only thing she cares about.

We kept hearing from Jax the entire book about how ama9 “the real” Blakely is, but were never shown or even told about who she is as a person outside of these issues, and I literally do not know what about her he loves. The age gap of it all was equally as annoying because she was very much acting like the immature 19 year old she was and I feel like if your going to do a 9 year age gap with someone that young, they need to be extremely mature for their age. We were given more of a personality from Alina in the small amount of time we got to see her than we were ever given for Blakely, which posed another issue with the book for me. Being part of the sugarlake series, it was disappointing that we only spent, literally, 10% of the story in sugarlake.

The constant blaming of Alina for hurting him made it hard for me to car about Jax in all this, becuase it was the typical “nice guy” routine. We were told in the first book that he always knew she was only ever his friend but getting mad at her for never loving him and STILL being mad at her for it pissed me off every time it came up. whether or not she was with Chase, she never owed him anything. she didn’t love him like that, it’s not something to villainize her over.

I sadly could go on about what I didn’t like, but I won’t. I just think every aspect of this book was handled poorly.

Blakely is an influencer, but her dad doesn’t see it as a legitimate career. To keep the peace, she also works at his company, which is where she meets Jackson, a man her dad hired to restore classic cars. Blakely enjoys flirting with Jackson, but he keeps his distance due to their age gap. However, after her dad asks Jackson to keep an eye on her one night, he finds himself drawn to her in ways he can’t ignore. Jackson becomes the steady presence and honest voice Blakely desperately needs. I loved how he truly saw her for who she was, rather than what others expected her to be. Narrators Brooke Bloomingdale and Liam DiCosimo bring Blakely and Jackson’s story to life beautifully, capturing their chemistry and connection perfectly. While this is a sweet romance, it also delves into some heavier themes, so be sure to check the trigger warnings.


Thank you, Emily McEntire and Blackstone Publishing for the ALC.

I want to start my review with discussing the narrators for this book. Both narrators were pleasant to listen to without any annoying or awkward quirks that I sometimes get with other narrators. The male narrator has a bit of a country accent throughout the book and uses a country female voice for characters from the MMC’s hometown. I found his voice quite charming.

Now the actual book, I wasn’t a huge fan of. A big part of this book is about the FMC’s relationship with food and her body image issues. I understand many men and women struggle with the same issues, but this is not a topic I particularly care about reading. That being said, I did not base my rating on my biases. I became pretty bored around the 40% mark and found myself speeding up the book to try and get through it faster, which I rarely find myself doing. It’s just a lot of repetitive scenes and I feel like there wasn’t a lot happening.

I did find Emily’s writing to flow very well, it was just the context and pace of the book that I found lacking.

Definitely check your triggers. There is a huge eating disorder rep in this and it’s very well written. You’re going to feel a lot of things because of it. I love everything Emily McIntire does and this is definitely my favorite series from her. I enjoyed the audiobook of this quite a bit. This was definitely a slow burn and the age gap was written well. This book is going to make cry, anger and fall in love. If you haven’t read the other books the side character stories are going to seem like a lot but make sense when you’ve read the first book in this series. Even though you don't have to, I highly recommend because it was so good. Thank you for the opportunity to get this arc.

I feel like this was such a cute book with such a big message and let me add that I was not expecting spice, but it was definitely spicy! I’ve never read a book that was both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. As someone who suffers with anxiety and panic attacks this book definitely made me feel the whole “it’s ok to not be ok” statement. The mental health representation was very well written in this book.

Outside of that, i loved the characters! Blakely although a little bratty in the beginning made me cry! All the things she goes through while putting on a smile for the world. I think Jackson Rhoades is one of my new favorite book boyfriends! He’s so caring, kind, and emotionally aware.

Together towards the end they both showed moments of doing everything for the person you love even if it meant breaking their own heart. I feel like they lacked communication skills which would have prevented a lot of the unnecessary drama and heartache. However, I also think they both needed it to happen to feel all the feels and get to where they needed to be in the end.

I truly enjoyed this story and THE EPILOGUE….I can’t wait to continue this journey!!

This opposites attract romance was good between the two main characters was great, but I think the side stories were odd. The fact that Jackson was still somewhat in love with his former best friend that was a girl who happened to be dating his ex best guy friend was just weird. I also do not think it was that large of an age gap except for the fact that Blakely was not 21 and could not drink. When I think age gap, I think at least 15 years but normally more. We did have some depth to Blakely's character with her eating disorder and how she would work through that, but overall it just fell flat for me.

2.5 rounded down to 2
This one just wasn't for me. I couldn't connect with Blakely.

It might be for you if you enjoy:
-Opposites Attract
-Age Gap
-But Daddy, I Love Him
-Forbidden Relationship

Thank you, NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing - Audiobooks, for providing access to the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

This book made me realize that Emily McIntire’s books are not for me, I only finished this one because it was an audiobook. I felt zero chemistry between the main characters. Jackson’s POVs are mostly about his former best friend, whom he had feelings for (and who is now in a relationship with his best friend), and the age gap between him and Blakely (which raised some red flags). Meanwhile, Blakely’s chapters are filled with information about ED, which I found problematic, and complaints about how hard life as an influencer is.

Anyway, sorry if my review is a bit too honest, but this really wasn’t a book I enjoyed reading.

Beneath the Hood Honest ARC Review:

This is an angst filled, forbidden romance with an age gap. Under the impression that he would be restoring classic cars, Jackson relocates from Sugarlake to Hollywood. His new employer asks that he keep an eye on his nineteen year old daughter, Blakely. Blakely has a very structured schedule as an influencer. Before long, Jackson and Blakely feel an increasing chemistry with one another.

As the two get to know one another, Jackson learns controversial and delicate information about Blakely, that she keeps out of the sight of the public. Will the two be able to work through the obstacles that Blakely faces or will her secrets cause the two to part ways? Can they overcome social barriers and move forward together?

Filled with plot twists and turns, this is an interesting read. This is definitely one to add to your TBR!

I enjoyed reading Blakely’s story as her character and storyline pulled at my heartstrings a bit with everything she was going through.

⭐️forbidden romance
⭐️Age gap romance
⭐️contemporary romance
⭐️a bit of office romance

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️