Act Your Age, Eve Brown

Talia Hibbert

Act Your Age, Eve Brown is the third and final installment in the Brown Sisters trilogy and follows Eve and Jacob as they discover new things about themselves and each other. Taking place in modern day London, sans Covid-19. Eve has issues with sticking to one passion. She’ll start a career that she loves and within the month, she has quit and moved on. She calls these her failures. So after ruining her cousin’s wedding by setting all the doves free, Eve is sat down by her parents and told that her trust fund payments will stop and she is required to get a job and keep the job for one whole year. At this, Eve is okay and she understands that she is disappointing her parents. When Eve’s mother calls her an embarrassment, Eve gets up, understandably, and goes for a drive. She didn’t expect to drive hours away from her home to the Lake District where she stumbles upon the quaint town of Skybrair and a small B&B, Castell Cottage. It just so happens that the B&B is having interviews for a new chef that same day. Eve knows a few things about cooking…she did study at a pastry school in Paris for a time… 

Jacob Wayne is blunt, always in control and has autism. Raised by his aunt, Lucy, Jacob has always put his business first and will stop at nothing to dominate the hospitality industry. When a tornado named Eve turns up a month before the biggest event of his life, the Gingerbread Festival, he tells her not a chance in hell. Eve leaves of course, but when Jacob comes to the realization that she’s his only hope, he chases after her- then gets hit by a car. Her car. 

Now Eve really has to stay and help Jacob.

The first two Brown sisters books were good for me, but this one blew me away. Talia Hibbert has such a delicate way of talking about tough topics like physical disabilities, depression, neglect and autism. She’s not insensitive or rude or degrading towards the people living with these differences. She’s also funny. The way she delivers lines for her characters is so natural and human that you forget that you’re reading fiction.

I have little to no complaints or critiques of this novel. Eve was hilarious and so happy and so unapologetically herself. And Jacob was clearly in love with Eve the entire time it hurt that they weren’t together sooner. And Eve was so sex positive! That is a great thing to see because so many women are shamed for liking sex, which is not okay. The one minor critique I have is that the trust fund was never discussed again after Eve’s parents announced they were no longer paying her. Where did the money go? Does she still have the money? I would’ve liked to know.

 Again, this novel was so amazing. It was fascinating to witness Eve’s transformation and self discovery. This book was the definition of a rom-com.There was even a soundtrack mapped through the book as you went! I can already see this adaptation on the big screen. Eve, Jacob, Talia and the rest of the gang offered an amazing escape from reality, which is something a lot of people need these days. I look forward to reading more from the amazing Talia in the hopefully not too distant future. 

grumpy/ sunshine, enemies to lovers, baking, cute, romance, steamy, black author