J.T. Geissinger builds her romances the way a skilled screenwriter builds tension: through the precision of her setups and the patience of her escalation, and Liars Like Us demonstrates that craft at full strength. This audiobook, narrated by Troy Duran across just over nine hours, is a standalone marriage of convenience story with a morally gray, obsessive hero named Callum McCord, and Geissinger has constructed in him one of the more genuinely compelling figures the subgenre has produced in recent years.
First, the Big Picture
The premise is familiar to romance readers: a young woman facing financial ruin receives an offer from a powerful, difficult man that she cannot easily refuse, and the arrangement escalates into something neither of them planned. What Geissinger does with this framework is less familiar. Callum is not redeemed by the romance; he is revealed by it. His obsessive, possessive qualities are not softened for the reader's comfort but examined with the same directness that his character applies to everything he wants. Geissinger's author note describing him as "morally gray" is accurate and useful; listeners who prefer their romantic heroes uncomplicated will want to set their expectations accordingly.
One reviewer described the experience of reading from both Callum and Emery's perspectives simultaneously and argued with each of them in real time, which captures something genuine about how the book manages its dual viewpoint. The internal logic of both characters is rendered consistently enough that their conflict feels like a collision of real perspectives rather than a narrative convenience. That consistency is difficult to achieve in the romance genre, where the requirements of the happy ending can flatten character contradiction.
Another reviewer called the book their author's latest title that makes her an "auto-click author," noting the story is "UNPUTDOWNABLE" with a Callum who is morally gray in ways that go beyond convention. The comparison to the classic obsessive hero archetype is warranted; Geissinger writes Callum as someone who genuinely does not recognize the difference between desire and entitlement, and who has to learn it, but who is rendered with enough specificity that the process feels earned rather than schematic.
The third reviewer's description of the book as "wildly far fetched in the most intriguing way" is honest and accurate. This is a story that operates at a heightened pitch of fantasy and emotional intensity. Readers who approach it with an appetite for exactly that will be satisfied. Readers who prefer their romance grounded in quotidian realism will find the premises require active suspension of disbelief.
What Makes Liars Like Us Worth Hearing
Troy Duran's narration handles the emotional temperature of the material with skill. A morally gray obsessive hero requires a narrator who can voice controlling behavior without making the character insufferable in audio form, where delivery is everything. Duran threads that needle by grounding Callum in specificity rather than archetype, finding the character's internal logic and playing to it rather than playing to audience expectation.
At just over nine hours, the audiobook gives the slow-burn dynamic room to develop. Geissinger's plotting works through accumulation rather than event, which means the middle sections are where the real relationship development happens. Audio format suits this structure well; the sense of time spent with the characters as they negotiate the terms of their arrangement and discover its unintended consequences is more immediate in listening than in reading.
The audiobook is explicitly intended for mature audiences. The spicy content is integrated into the narrative rather than isolated from it, which means the listening experience operates as a unified story rather than an alternation between plot and scenes. That integration is a function of Geissinger's craft at the story level, and Duran's narration preserves it.
What Might Not Land
Listeners who are sensitive to possessive or controlling hero dynamics should approach this one with clear eyes about what the book promises. Geissinger is not writing a critique of these dynamics; she is writing a romance that inhabits them as fantasy while gesturing toward character growth. The line between those two things is meaningful, and the book does not always honor it with the clarity some readers will want.
The marriage of convenience framework requires some tolerance for contrivance. The setup, which places a financially desperate woman in the path of an extremely specific kind of billionaire with an extremely specific kind of offer, does not aim for plausibility in the realistic fiction sense. This is a romance operating according to genre logic, and accepting genre logic is the prerequisite for enjoying the book.
The content is explicitly mature, and the audiobook is intended for adult listeners accordingly. Younger readers who have found Geissinger's other work through social media recommendations should be aware that this title's heat level is adult rather than YA-adjacent.
The Right Listener for Liars Like Us
Romance readers who have enjoyed Geissinger's previous work will find this audiobook delivers what they have come to expect from her: precise emotional construction, a hero who creates genuine friction rather than easy warmth, and a payoff that lands because it was set up properly. Listeners looking for an introduction to the morally gray hero subgenre who want a well-executed version of the type will find Callum a useful entry point.
Fans of marriage of convenience and forced proximity romance tropes will recognize familiar dynamics used with more precision than the subgenre average. The audio format with Duran's narration adds a dimension of presence to the power dynamic that enhances the genre pleasures rather than flattening them.
