Audiobook Review: Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

Best Offer Wins
Author: Marisa Kashino

Narrator: Cia Court
Published: November 25, 2025
Audiobook: 8 hours 38 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 29- April 2, 2026
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description: 

An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly humorous debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?

Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian — and in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track — Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend (with unbeatable, all-cash offers in hand).

A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged—but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The most unsettling part? You’ll root for her, even as you gasp in disbelief.

Dark, biting, and laugh-out-loud funny, Best Offer Wins is a propulsive debut and a razor-sharp exploration of class, ambition, and the modern housing crisis.

Jessica’s Review:

What a debut novel!  Margo Miyake has a plan: The perfect marriage, the perfect house, and the perfect baby. Margo is quite the unhinged character!  She lives in a cramped apartment with her husband Ian and finds out about a dream house in THE dream neighborhood in DC. They have been house hunting for 18 months and have lost 11 bidding wars.  It’s already an extremely tough market, but being in DC makes it even more brutal. Realtors, watch out for Margo!

Best Offer Wins gives us an example of what this housing market can bring and how far one woman will go to get the house of her dreams once she sets her mind on having THIS house.

Margo is unlikeable in the way she approaches everything, determined at all costs to get this house. And the lengths she finds herself going… As a listener I was pulled in and wondered how far she will go to achieve her dream home. So many times I found myself saying, “All this for a house??!?!” I hope I never become as desperate as Margo when the time comes that I can afford a home to call my own. Just when you think Margo has reached the furthest she can go, she takes another step!  Best Offer Wins is a shorter novel, about 8.5 hours on audio and the equivalent of around 280 pages for a physical novel, but it goes full steam the entire time!

The narrator Cia Court did a great job with her portrayal of Margo. For a debut, I am excited to see what Kashino brings us next!

Bound and determined to get this dream home, will Margo achieve her goal?  You will have to read/ listen to this one to find out! And may the best offer win!

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Blog Tour Guest Post: No More Tomorrows: A Confession From a Romance Author

Today I am taking part in the blog tour for No More Tomorrows by Olivia Lockhart and Hal Lambert. Today Olivia is sharing a confession: She loves writing sex scenes! I’m intrigued by this novel so I had to put in a pre-0rder for it! **And if you are lucky enough to live in the UK, there is a giveaway going on to win a signed copy of the novel!

No More Tomorrows is available now! It was just released on April 9th.


Book Description:

Two eras. One aching heart.

1917 – At Cambridge University, American scholar Harry Turchin never expects to lose himself to desire. But Annie Mackenzie—soft-spoken, grieving, and luminous—claims his heart from their very first kiss. Their love is swift, fierce, and intoxicating. Married just days before Harry is sent to war, their passion is ripped apart when the trenches claim everything he knows, and Harry is thrown into a future that should not exist.

1967 – The free-spirited sixties are alive with rhythm, rebellion, and possibility. Harry awakens to a world he doesn’t recognise—and to Annalise Taylor, as bold and captivating as the era itself. Brilliant, independent, and achingly alive, she rouses a desire he thought belonged solely to the past.

Caught between the love he was ripped away from and the passion he cannot resist, Harry is torn between two women, two lives, and two versions of forever. Because time will not bend twice … Or will it?

Sweeping from the blood-soaked battlefields of World War One to the fevered nights of the swinging sixties, No More Tomorrows is a sensual time-slip romance about desire, devotion, and the devastating power of love that refuses to be bound by time.

Buy Your Copy Here:
Amazon US
Amazon UK


Confession From A Romance Author:
I Love Writing Sex Scenes!

I love writing sex scenes. Maybe that has something to do with the kind of books I write. In my stories, the intimacy is never pointless. It isn’t there purely for titillation or shock value. It’s there because it reveals something deeper about the characters – their trust, their vulnerability, and the love growing between them.

To me, those moments are another form of storytelling.

Literature can be incredibly sensual when it’s done well, but I’ve read too many books that focus purely on the physical mechanics of it all. You know the type, insert A into B while stroking C, followed by a meticulous description of what D looked like in the moment. Technically detailed, perhaps – but for me, they miss the point entirely.

That kind of writing has never been what draws me in.

What I care about are the small, human details. The way someone’s breath catches unexpectedly. The way their eyes soften as they look at the person they love. The nervous hesitation before a first touch, the quiet wonder of discovering someone’s body and realising that they trust you enough to let you be there.

Those are the moments that make a scene feel real.

For me, intimacy in books isn’t about anatomy – it’s about emotion. It’s about the tension that builds between two people who have been circling each other for chapters, sometimes for an entire novel. It’s about the shift in their relationship when the walls come down and they finally allow themselves to be seen fully by another person.

When that connection is written well, the physical side of the scene almost becomes secondary. It’s there, of course, but it’s the emotional weight behind it that makes readers feel something.

That’s the kind of scene I love writing.

In many ways, it’s also part of the reason I started writing in the first place. I’ve always loved romance novels, but over the years I found myself frustrated by some of the ones I read. The relationships didn’t feel believable, or the intimacy felt disconnected from the story itself.

So eventually I did the slightly reckless thing many writers do.

I decided to write my own.

It feels like a bold statement to say that out loud, because the truth is that someone, somewhere, will inevitably think my books fall into the same category of “bad romance” that I once complained about. Taste is subjective, after all. What works beautifully for one reader might completely miss the mark for another.

And that’s okay.

At the end of the day, all any writer can really do is write the stories that feel true to them. The stories we’d want to read ourselves. The ones that make us excited to sit down at the keyboard and bring characters to life.

For me, that means writing romance that leans into the emotional side of intimacy – the tenderness, the anticipation, the quiet moments of connection that happen between two people who care deeply about each other.

Because when those feelings are on the page, the scene becomes about far more than sex.

It becomes about love.

And if I’m lucky, somewhere out there are readers who feel the same way. Readers who connect with those moments, who see the beauty in them, and who want to experience more stories where intimacy isn’t just physical – it’s emotional too.

Those are the readers I write for.

And hopefully, they’ll keep wanting me to write more.


About One of the Authors:

Olivia Lockhart (Livvie to her friends) is an English author who can’t quite decide if she wants to write contemporary romance, historical romance, or paranormal romance. So she writes them all, because it HAS to be romance!

She loves to write about the underdog, the one who got away, the bits of love stories we can all relate to.

When not writing she can be found drinking wine, cuddling with her beloved pooch, or with her head in a book.

**UK GIVEAWAY**
Win a signed copy of No More Tomorrows

Click here to enter to win! (Win for me since I can’t enter as I am in the US!)

*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome.  Please enter using the link above.  The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  She is not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize

Contact Olivia:
X
@Olivialocks
Instagram @livvieharts

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Audiobook Review: What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

What Alice Forgot
Author: Liane Moriarty

Narrator: Tamara Lovatt Smith
Published: May 1, 2010
Audiobook: 13 hours 32 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 15-23, 2026
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over…

Jessica’s Review:

Imagine this: You wake up in the hospital. Other than being unsure why you are there, you are thinking you are 29, have a happy marriage, and newly expecting your first child. And it is 1998. Then you are told it is actually 2008, you are 39 (No Way!?!?! That’s middle age!!!) with three children (Wait a minute..not one but three kids!?!?!), estranged from your sister, and in the middle of a divorce (WHAT!?!?). That’s what happens to Alice after she has a fall in the gym. 

This is the basic premise of What Alice Forgot. The reader/listener goes on the journey with Alice to try and figure out the who, what, when, and whys over the forgotten last ten years. There are many mini mysteries that Alice must figure out, or does she even want to? This is a book about family misunderstandings, forgiveness, second chances, and love.

Can you imagine missing the last ten years of your life?!?!  This was a book club read and called for a lot of discussions. The ten years that Alice forgot a lot happened in the world: She doesn’t even remember 9/11. And then all of the technological changes over that time including Y2K!  Even going back from now in 2026 to back to 2016, I have gone through so many changes! It’s scary to think about. 

I did have some issued with the narration. At times it was hard to distinguish differences in characters journals/homework, etc. I had to go back in my audiobook at the beginning of most chapters to figure out who or when the chapter was occurring.  Maybe a second narrator or even just a change in her tone would have been helpful.

Other than the narration issues, I did enjoy this one! 

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK 

 

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