Choose Us

I’ll be honest: *Choose Us* left me with mixed feelings, but not because it’s bad—because it’s *too efficient*. As someone who’s edited dozens of romance audiobooks, I appreciate a story that respects my time, but this one races through a decade of heartbreak and redemption so fast, I barely had time to process one twist before the next hit. Nate’s voice—gruff, wounded, but with a thread of dark humor—comes alive in Alexandra Valentine’s performance. She nails the military cadence in his dialogue, and her delivery of the love scenes is surprisingly tender given the story’s otherwise brusque tone. That said, her pacing sometimes flattens the secondary characters; the brother’s return, which should feel earth-shattering, lands with a thud because the narration doesn’t linger on the silence between lines. The production is clean, with no distracting edits, but the real issue is the story’s structure. McLaughlin packs in *so much*—survivor’s guilt, a love triangle with nuclear-level tension, a last-act reveal that rewrites the past—yet the short runtime means key moments (like the fiancée’s moral dilemma) get short shrift. The romantic suspense elements, like the looming threat tied to Nate’s SEAL team, feel undercooked, more like a footnote than a driving force. Still, if you’re craving a high-stakes, low-commitment listen—something with the emotional punch of a full-length novel but the runtime of a commute—this delivers. Just don’t expect to savor it.