Key Details
- Performance: Jason Clarke is the only credited narrator, though the synopsis confirms Erin Mallon co-narrates and joins in for a bonus conversation in the final ten minutes.
- What it covers: friends-to-lovers, best friend's sibling circle, hockey-world contemporary romance
- Feel: Flirty and fast-paced
- Our call: Does All the Way require the first Hot Jocks audiobook to make sense? The synopsis itself says no, and the story confirms it.
This All the Way audiobook comes with a specific, sourced bonus most listings don't mention upfront: a question-and-answer session between narrators Jason Clarke and Erin Mallon built into the last ten minutes of the recording, credited directly in the synopsis even though only Clarke appears in this listing's narrator field.
The Verdict, Briefly
Reading the synopsis carefully pays off here, because it reads as though it blends two different characters' voices without a clear break between them. One thread follows a narrator whose best friend is 'professional hockey stud Owen Parrish,' 'the king of hookups,' offering to guide them through online dating; a second thread shifts to someone helping their friend Becca chase a match on a dating app, then noticing Becca themselves instead. Kelly's review clears up the connection: Becca and Owen were introduced together in the first Hot Jocks book, with Owen established as 'Justin's teammate and Elise's brother' and Becca as Elise's close friend, so this is very much their continuation.
Owen is confirmed as the story's hockey player through the synopsis's own pronoun, described helping a friend past 'nervous and sweaty' dating anxiety, and Becca is confirmed by name and pronoun as the person that friend cannot stop noticing 'behind those baggy clothes and messy buns.' Danielle's review calls the result a stand-alone continuation of 'the friends-to-lovers and best friend's little sister tropes' the series opened with in Playing for Keeps, and says flatly that it 'stole my heart.'
Three reviews here, Danielle's, Kelly's, and Jessica Hodge's, are all dated September 24, 2019, the same day this audiobook was released, which points to a coordinated push of early reviews around launch rather than opinions gathered slowly over months. Eleonora zarrilli's review, posted from Italy roughly a year later, sits at the opposite extreme: two words, 'Nice book!,' rated a full five stars, with none of the detail the launch-day reviews offer. Danielle's fuller review supplies the series context behind that launch-day enthusiasm: 'I love hockey romances, and I was so excited when Kendall Ryan announced the Hot Jocks series,' having already enjoyed 'the first book, Playing for Keeps,' before this one arrived.
The Best Parts of All the Way
The dual narration is the clearest reason to choose audio here specifically. Jason Clarke and Erin Mallon split the point-of-view chapters, and the synopsis confirms a genuine bonus most print editions cannot offer at all: a real conversation between the two narrators recorded into the last ten minutes of the audiobook, a perk not one of the five reviewers mentions, though the book's own description states it plainly.
Mags's review from the United Kingdom backs up the emotional payoff dual narration is built to deliver, quoting the book directly: 'This is Owen. My safe place. My protection from the storm that constantly wages inside me,' and calling the pairing 'the perfect pairing' whose 'road to true love is packed full of feeling as well as explosive chemistry.' Kelly's review adds that Kendall Ryan 'manages to take the predictability out of the typical sports hunk trope,' crediting the writing more than any single scene for the payoff.
Jessica Hodge's review captures the kind of reaction the series is built to produce: 'I usually wait at least a day before writing a review for a book but in this case, I can't.. I just can't,' finishing it 'seconds ago' before sitting down to write. That immediacy, three reviews arriving the day of release and one finished in what sounds like a single sitting, suggests a fan base primed to devour each entry the moment it lands rather than easing into it.
Points to Consider
Confirm you understand which two characters this book actually follows before starting, given how the synopsis mixes perspectives without labeling them clearly. It resolves quickly once Kelly's review supplies the missing context about Justin, Elise, Owen, and Becca, but read cold, the description alone could leave a new reader guessing who is speaking in which paragraph.
The rating badge reads 4.3 from five counted votes, a number that cannot be produced by any combination of five whole-star ratings under standard rounding, a different kind of inconsistency than listings where the counted votes simply run lower than the written reviews. All five written reviews here are visible and rated between four and five stars, so the badge and the written record at least sit in the same neighborhood, even if the specific decimal does not add up cleanly on its own.
Who Should Listen to All the Way
Series readers who enjoyed Playing for Keeps and want Owen and Becca's specific chapter are the obvious audience, and the synopsis itself removes any hesitation about entry point: 'Books can be enjoyed in any order.' Jessica Hodge's review backs that up from the other direction, calling it 'the book you need in your life' without assuming any prior series knowledge from the reader. Kelly's review adds a wider genre argument for the whole Hot Jocks line, describing contemporary romance generally as 'comforting, reliable, predictable, and heartwarming,' qualities meant as praise rather than complaint, and a fair description of what this specific entry delivers within that comfort-read tradition.
Skip it if the dual-POV structure or a bonus narrator conversation doesn't interest you, or if hockey-adjacent contemporary romance with playful, sweaty-palmed humor isn't your preferred tone; the synopsis leans hard into that register from its opening lines. For anyone who wants to hear Clarke and Mallon actually talk about making the book, staying through the last ten minutes is the whole point of choosing this format over print.
Before You Listen
Does All the Way require the first Hot Jocks audiobook to make sense?
No. The synopsis states directly that the books can be enjoyed in any order, and while Owen and Becca were introduced in the first Hot Jocks book, this audiobook gives enough context on its own. Series fans may catch extra callbacks, but newcomers are not lost.
Is there a bonus track included in this All the Way audiobook beyond the story itself?
Yes. The synopsis confirms a question-and-answer conversation between narrators Jason Clarke and Erin Mallon recorded into the last ten minutes of the audiobook, a format-specific extra that a print or ebook edition of the same story could never reproduce, and one no reviewer currently mentions in writing.
How steamy is this audiobook compared to a typical friends-to-lovers sports romance?
Reviewers describe real heat alongside emotional weight, with one calling the connection 'explosive chemistry' layered onto a slow-building friends-to-lovers setup. It reads as solidly adult contemporary romance rather than a sweet or closed-door entry in the genre, closer in tone to the earlier Hot Jocks book than to a young-adult crossover.
