Julian & Shaw Audiobook By A.D. Ellis cover art

Julian & Shaw

On Cravenwood Block

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Julian & Shaw

By: A.D. Ellis
Narrated by: Oliver Young-Apstein
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About this listen

Julian is content with great friends, close family, and a job he loves. While his love life has been a bit lackluster, he’s not one to complain. He might not be actively looking for love, but if the right man happens to come along, Julian wouldn’t pass up a potential romance.

Shaw has single-handedly pulled himself up from the depths of a traumatic past and he’s ready for the next step. The moment he finds himself on Cravenwood Block, Shaw knows his situation is about to change for the better.

Julian’s world shifts the moment he spies his very own angel on earth. Shaw has learned to take care of himself, but he’s not going to turn down Julian’s protective support. Despite an irritating threat from the past, Shaw dives head first into experiences he’s missed out on and replaces ugly memories with happier ones. With Julian by his side, Shaw faces his past and charges right into a promising future.

*Julian & Shaw: On Cravenwood Block is a steamy, hurt/comfort, roommates-to-lovers, age-gap M/M romance featuring an apartment manager with a heart of gold and a younger man doing his best to heal from a traumatic past.*"

©2022 A.D. Ellis (P)2024 A.D. Ellis
Romance
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Great Gay Series Book 3 of On Cravenwood Block

Troupes: age gap, overcoming past trauma and abuse from a rough life, blackmail, care taker, friends & roommates to lovers

Cravenwood Block, named after the developer Robert Cravenwood, was established twenty five years prior within a city when the proposed plans were to demolish the buildings for a parking lot. Cravenwood saw the potential in renovation and revitalization of the area creating a community with a community near midtown.

Cravenwood Apartments Towers, better known as CAT A & B, have unique upper floor housing arrangements similar to dorm suites complete with 8 bedrooms. Tower A's Cravenwood employee residents are the focus of this series. Well developed relatable characters, Julian and Shaw are the third two of the eight roommates, featured in this book. The rest of the roommates were introduced in first book will be elaborated in their respective books. With this information reiterated in each book, you do not have to follow the series in order. The books overlap timewise.

Julian is the thirty five year old, older half brother to Ollie from the previous book. He is the care taker of the group and the handyman apartment manger for CAT A & B. When Lucas and Dean tell Julian about down on his luck Shaw, he can't help but jump into his care taking mode and bringing Shaw into the fold.

Shaw is twenty something, who was orphaned at ten years old. The years since losing a wonderful foster family at thirteen have been nothing but a struggle to merely survive through various abuses by a variety of people. After putting distance and years between his days in the adult entertainment industry and scraping by to get an education, he is ready for a brighter future. On the move to start fresh, he reads about the Cravenwood Block Community. Drawn by the good things he reads a about area, Shaw finds a flier for a Cravenwood Health Center Front Desk Reception opening was the perfect opportunity to start again. He encounters Lucas and Dean at Cravenwood Tap who recognize Shaw's precarious situation and offer a helping hand.

Life finally is looking up to be filled with the positive newly forged relationships and safety he has been missing since losing his mom and foster family. However, the past is threatening not to stay well in the past when an unsavory character reappears to upend Shaw's life.

I loved the literary references presented with Shaw being an avid reader. The explanation of flower representations in the bouquet of flowers Julian buys for Shaw was also a neat inclusion.

Oliver Young-Apstein provides a pleasant voice to listen to, but could do better to distinguish between the various male characters. Much better than virtual voice narrated books, but not quite as good as other narrated books.

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Heart-warming

I was so confident that this would be the best volume in the series! The likable protagonists, the six good-natured roommates, the age-gap trope that I love, and Shaw's painful past hinted at in the previous volume were all there.
Unfortunately, we didn't see anything from his past, it was just told.
Then he met the boys, got a job and Julian arranged an apartment for him - he owns the last available room and shares common spaces with him. From here on, it is not difficult to guess what the outcome will be - if the title wasn't already revealing enough. :D
The whole book focuses on Shaw, which I absolutely understand, but I'm a little sad that I didn't get to know Julian better - although his overall character trait is certainly not just him being selfless.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the unfolding of their relationship, even though the book hurt me much less than I expected. I think some flashbacks would have been good.

This is the book in the series that I would say is more enjoyable if you have read the previous books, because keeping track of so many characters can be hard for some people, but it can stand on its own anyway - even though the reader (aka me) will definitely would want to read the last book, because if those two dummies won't confess their love to each other very quickly, I'm gonna do it for them! :D

The narrator made a noticeable effort to separate the two characters, Shaw is more reserved and shy than the others; he conveyed this beautifully! However, I still missed a little more enthusiasm from his part. You don't have to be afraid of sex scenes, play with your voice! :(

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My favorite book in this series

(Some of my review is based on the series so it’s the same as in other books from the series but everything specific to this book has been edited)

I often avoid shorter books that focus on only one couple because so many books waste so much time on silly misunderstandings that you don’t have time to enjoy the couple building a relationship or rush into things so quickly that it seems totally implausible and just doesn’t “feel” like a real relationship. The books in this series are perfect examples of books that walk the line perfectly between taking time to build a relationship and not wasting time on unnecessary stuff. It’s nice that at times we move forward in time a week or two or something so you don’t feel like everything on page happened in such a short period of time that it’s implausible. I also really like the way this series does truly focus on one relationship per book but has a group that becomes so close over the course of the series that reading them together feels completely cohesive and allows you to enjoy the other characters in each book as the series progresses.

Julian and Shaw were definitely my favorite couple in this series. Julian couldn’t possibly have been sweeter and the way he treated Shaw was absolutely perfect. Shaw was just amazing in how he overcame the trauma in his past and found the courage to trust not only Julian but all of the men in this found family. The way that Julian tried to give Shaw all of the firsts that he missed out on from holding hands to getting drunk with friends to the sexy stuff was so heartwarming and the prom that turned into something that so many of the guys got into as a chance to just be themselves was amazing. I was so happy that this book came after the first two because it made it so much more meaningful in how the first two couples supported Shaw. I also really liked the way Shaw and the guys reacted to Shaw’s past and the texts that everyone got threatening him. I was definitely surprised by who it ended up being and Shaw couldn’t have handled the final confrontation better.

The narration was good with nice pacing and a pleasant reading voice. There were occasional times where a bit of background noise was there (traffic sounds) but it was so low that it didn’t detract. The one negative thing I would say about listening to the book is that the characters sometimes had inner dialogue with themselves in the middle of a conversation that made it a little confusing in the audiobook to know when they were speaking and when they were just thinking. Again it didn’t detract from the book enough to make it unpleasant to listen to.

In all if you are only going to read one book from this series I recommend this one but I would also recommend reading the whole series in order. I also wanted to say that after listening to the whole series I enjoyed that they overlapped in when they took place so even though the couples often started their relationships at the same time we get to see each develop from beginning to end not just start at the point in time that the last book ended.

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Apartment Meet-Cute

Julian & Shaw is a wonderful story about an instant connection between two complete strangers that come together with what amounts to be fate. Julian was already captivated by Shaw just from talking to him on the phone! Their in-person meeting at Cravenwood Block was just icing on the cake for them both. I love their stumbling advances with one another. Where some of the other MCs have very outgoing personalities or attributes, both Julian and Shaw are more laid back overall. Shaw blends well into the Cravenwood crew, even as one of its youngest members.

The added emotional aspect to Shaw's storyline was intense but beautiful. I love characters that can look back on a passed family member with such love and happy memories.

Audiobook Update:
Oliver Young-Apstein adds a fun level of shy authority to Julian, and a sweetly affectionate and easygoing nature to Shaw . Both MCs are awkward in their own ways, but fit so perfectly well together, and listening to them get together in the audiobook is great fun.

I received an authorized copy of this story/audiobook and am volunteering my honest review.

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