🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 3.2/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read The Challenge yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
Okay so I genuinely wanted to love this one. Penelope Ward? Usually a safe bet for me, in fact her books are an automatic buy for me. And the premise? A woman accidentally moves into a house that her childhood best friend is already living in, thanks to a property management company that forgot to cancel the listing? Great setup. There’s history, there’s tension, there’s clearly unresolved feelings going on. I was here for it.
But then the female narrator opened her mouth, and I fought this book the whole way through.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
The World’s Most Awkward Move-In
Chloe shows up at a rental she booked, code in hand, and starts walking through the place when she realizes something is very off. Someone is living here. She hears footsteps, and then out comes Evan Ricci asking who’s there — and then realizing it’s Chloe.
They know each other. Like, really know each other. Evan lived with her family twice growing up — once when she was 13 and again at 17. He was her best friend through her late teenage years, basically her person. So walking into each other’s rented house is… a lot.
Turns out Evan had cancelled the listing weeks ago. He’s been living there while his house is being renovated, and the property management company just didn’t get the memo and took Chloe’s money anyway. So now they’re both standing there in this very awkward situation.
Chloe is in town to help care for her mom, who has dementia. She’s not there for fun. And suddenly she has nowhere else to stay because every hotel in the area is fully booked. She heads back to grab her stuff and sleep in her car, and Evan basically tells her not to be ridiculous and offers her a room. She sits down “just for a minute” and wakes up to his daughter, Effie, staring at her.
And then Effie drops a little bomb. She asks why they were fighting earlier. Chloe says they weren’t really fighting. Effie goes… is it because of the bad dreams? The ones where he calls out your name?
Hi. Hello. He’s calling out Chloe’s name in his sleep. Noted.
The History
Chloe has always been attracted to Evan. Not in a brother way. Never in a brother way. She came on to him once and he turned her down, which obviously stung. She started seeing a therapist who encouraged her to write out her feelings, even if she never sent it. But drunk Chloe decided to mail that letter, and sober Chloe had absolutely no memory of doing it.
And here’s the thing. Evan admits, eventually, that he had feelings for her too. He just was afraid of losing her. Which, okay, I understand, but you lost her anyway, buddy. He also didn’t accept a challenge she gave him when they were teenagers — she had asked him to be her first, and he turned that down because he didn’t want her to skip out on going to university. In his head he was doing the right thing. In her head it felt like a rejection. And then she left for college and his heart apparently just sat there waiting.
Evan’s Situation
Evan has a daughter named Effie and full custody. His ex-wife Katerina apparently just decided she didn’t want to be a mom anymore. She’s off with a new guy. Didn’t cheat on him, but she walked away from her child, and I just… I don’t know what kind of mother does that. Effie is obviously feeling that abandonment and latches onto Chloe pretty quickly when she comes into the picture, which honestly makes complete sense.
Evan also has a girlfriend named Naomi when this all starts. Naomi wants to move in with him. He won’t let her because he doesn’t want to send Effie that message. Naomi is aware that Effie doesn’t even like her. And then Naomi shows up at the house and finds Chloe there, which does not go smoothly. Chloe calls Evan confused, Naomi, weirdly enough, offers to let Chloe stay at her apartment so that she can move in with Evan. Evan declines and things spiral from there, Naomi gives an ultimatum, and Evan just… doesn’t fight it. At all. He lets her walk without blinking. Make of that what you will.
The Sticky Note Challenges
These are the heart of the book, and honestly the most interesting part of it. They have this tradition from when they were younger — leaving each other sticky notes with a challenge. You have one week to complete it or you lose. It’s a specific, charming little detail that gives the book its name and its energy.
The first challenge back in their adult lives? Evan leaves Chloe a neon post-it note telling her to go visit her dad.
Now, her dad divorced her mom before the dementia showed up, but then he remarried, and Chloe is furious about it. She feels like he betrayed her mom, even though the marriage was already over. The challenge forces her hand and she goes.
While she’s there, her dad says something that stops her cold. He mentions “what happened between him and your sister.” She has no idea what he’s talking about. Apparently, after Chloe left for college, her sister decided to try to get closer to Evan. They kissed, but he stopped it and eventually moved out. Nobody told Chloe. She’s just finding this out now. So that’s a fun little layer of history to sit with.
She challenges him right back — bra shopping with Effie. He does not want to do this. He does it anyway. There’s some serious flirting involved, and that same night he’s knocking on her bedroom door. So yeah. The challenges work.
The Boyfriend Problem
There’s also a boyfriend named Scott. He shows up unannounced, clearly not happy about the living situation Chloe conveniently forgot to mention. They’ve only been dating five months, she had basically told him he could see other people while she was gone because she wanted a break from him, and then he decides to surprise her instead. Evan is not happy about it. The whole energy of what had been building between them gets completely derailed.
Chloe lets Scott stay one night, but Evan makes it clear he’s not comfortable with more than that. So she takes a rental that had just opened up. She and Scott are uncomfortable around each other. The next morning things come to a head, she lies about her period, and then just decides she should break up with him because she’s not into him. He flips out and leaves.
She cancels the rental and shows back up at Evan’s. Without calling first and just walks right in, which I thought was a little bold. She walks in on Naomi, who is there because Evan was officially ending things. Perfect timing as always. Chloe asks if her old room is available. He says no, but offers her his room instead so she has more space. And just like that she’s back.
The Halloween Party That Went Sideways
They go to his uncle’s Halloween party. Chloe comes as a nurse, which she knows is his thing. Evan barely puts any effort into his cowboy costume but spends the whole night being extremely possessive. A guy she’d met at a bar before tries to talk to her, Evan shuts it down, pulls her into a bedroom, kisses her — and then somehow makes her feel bad about it. She gets mad and leaves. Classic.
Effie ends up staying at her maternal grandmother’s that night. Evan takes Chloe home, they finally stop dancing around each other, and he ends up at her bedroom door. They have unfinished business. Things finally happen.
Her Mom
The next morning they were going to take Effie for waffles when Chloe gets a call from the assisted living facility — her mom hasn’t been eating or drinking. They go visit her. While they’re there, her mom says she wants to go home and Chloe is crushed because there’s no home to take her to.
And then Evan says, yes there is.
He bought her childhood home. He’s been renovating it. This is honestly the sweetest moment in the book, I can’t even be mad about it.
They move her mom into the old house, and Chloe moves in too to take care of her. She and Evan are still seeing each other but keeping it quiet from Effie. Things are going well until Evan starts pulling back, worried that Effie is getting too attached to Chloe. Chloe calls him out on it, and she’s right to. She basically says you’re putting this distance here, and you’ve never given me one reason to stay.
He realizes he was being an idiot, goes to apologize, and they make up. They’re on their way to pick up Effie when Chloe gets the call. Her mom has died.
The Katerina Complication
Evan tells Chloe she should go back to Chicago. Figure out what she wants. She hears that as him not fighting for her but he explains it’s hard to decide with everything going on and that would probably be best for her, so she decides to go.
Then Katerina shows up.
The ex-wife who walked away from her daughter four years ago has apparently been in therapy and done a lot of soul-searching. She was afraid of failure, so it was easier to just leave. Her boyfriend eventually broke up with her, and now she wants back into Effie’s life and, oh, also back into Evan’s *wink wink*. Because obviously.
Meanwhile, Effie sends Chloe an email to Chicago. She’s so excited her mom is home. She’s hinting at her parents getting back together. Chloe feels like she can’t get in the way of that and withdraws.
Evan finds out about the email and gets on a plane. Shows up at Chloe’s door in Chicago. Tells her he loves her. That he told Effie he cannot love Katerina as a wife the way she deserves, because his heart belongs to Chloe. It’s a good moment.
He’s getting ready to head home after three days with her when Katerina calls. She’s leaving again. Got back together with her ex-boyfriend, he’s taking her to Germany, the tickets are non-refundable… blah blah. She just wanted to make sure Evan would be home as planned.
I’m sorry… what?
Chloe hears about it and immediately starts packing. Not for herself but to go be there for Effie. And I think that is the most important moment in this entire book, because when your first instinct is to make sure this kid doesn’t feel abandoned again, that says everything. That is the moment that matters.
They rush back to Dry River. He picks up Effie, brings her home, and Chloe is there waiting. Effie runs to her and just starts sobbing. From there, they figure out the rest together — Chloe asks her job if she can work remotely, they say yes as long as she flies in occasionally, and that settles it she is staying.
The Epilogue and the Missed Opportunity
They finish the renovations on her childhood home and move in together. Evan makes a video — clips of young Chloe sneaking glances at him, clips of older Evan watching her when she wasn’t looking. It’s genuinely sweet.
And then he proposes. He wrote it on a shirt, and he’s down on one knee.
Which, fine. Sweet.
But I have to be honest. I was waiting for the post-it note. The whole book, these challenges, these neon sticky notes — they are the throughline of Chloe and Evan’s entire story. They brought those two kids together. They became the language between them as adults. And when it came time to propose, the neon post-it was nowhere to be found. That felt like a huge missed opportunity. The whole point of a call-back is that it closes the loop, and this one just… didn’t go there.
The epilogue wraps up with them married and expecting a baby boy.
Worst Part of This Book
The female narrator. I’m sorry. Desiree Ketchum has an incredibly monotone delivery and listening to her for an entire audiobook was genuinely a slog. Connor Crais was solid as always, but he can only carry so much. Beyond the narration, I also found Chloe exhausting at times — she reads everything as a rejection before she even has evidence, constantly needs reassurance, and it veered into pick-me territory more than once. I get that she’s been carrying these feelings for years, but it wore on me after a while. And Katerina coming back with her whole soul-searching journey, only to immediately leave again for Germany with non-refundable tickets… I mean. Come on.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥🔥- There’s heat here, but it’s definitely not the main event. They take a long time getting there, and when it finally happens it’s good, but this book is much more about the emotional push and pull than the physical. Warm, some scenes, nothing that’s going to make you put on a fan.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
A little of both. The emotional ending — Chloe showing up for Effie without a second thought — was the best beat in the whole book. But the proposal felt like a swing and a miss after all the challenge setup, and the book overall felt different from Penelope Ward’s usual style. Whether that was the writing or the narrator, I genuinely couldn’t separate them enough to know.
Would I Reread It?
No. I wouldn’t relisten to this one. The narrator killed it for me and I don’t think I’d want to sit through that again even for the parts I liked.
📖 Where to Get This Book
Where to Get This Book
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Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Standalone | Genre: Contemporary Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 | Narrators: Desiree Ketchum & Connor Crais