Quick Take
- Narration: Teddy Hamilton brings a restrained, guilt-edged quality to Maguire’s first-person voice that keeps the taboo premise from tipping into melodrama.
- Themes: Forbidden grief romance, chosen family, military sacrifice
- Mood: Emotionally raw and slow-burning, with a cliffhanger that will frustrate some listeners
- Verdict: If the premise resonates with you going in, Leigh Lennon earns it; just know this is book one of a duet and ends unresolved.
I was on a long drive through northern Pennsylvania when I started Like Father Like Son, and by the time I reached my exit I had to sit in the parking lot for another twenty minutes because I needed to know where things were going. That is not a guarantee of literary merit, but it is a reliable indicator that a book is doing something right at the level of narrative pull.
The setup is stark, almost brutal in its simplicity. A soldier dies and leaves his grieving widow, Holland, in the care of his father, Maguire, with a letter that functions as the novel’s emotional anchor: take care of my most precious possession. What Leigh Lennon does with that premise is not cheap or sensational. She takes it seriously, which turns out to be the right choice. The entire first book is built around the question of whether Maguire and Holland can even be in the same room together without the weight of what they feel doing damage to the memory of Scott.
Our Take on Like Father Like Son
This is a grief romance, and Lennon understands that the emotional logic has to be airtight before the romantic tension can function. She spends most of book one establishing who Maguire is as a man, who Holland is as a young widow, and why Scott’s love for both of them makes the situation feel impossible rather than titillating. The taboo is there, but it is embedded inside something messier and more honest: two people trying to navigate loss while standing too close to each other.
Holland in particular is drawn with care. One reviewer described her as their spirit animal, and I understand why. She has the quality of someone who refuses to perform grief in the way people expect. She is bold, occasionally funny, and genuinely devastated. The contrast between her exterior and her interior is where the book earns its emotional stakes. Maguire, as narrated by Teddy Hamilton, is more guarded, which makes his eventual cracks feel earned rather than manufactured.
Why Listen to Like Father Like Son
Teddy Hamilton is well-suited to the narration here. His voice has a particular quality of suppressed feeling that works for a character who spent decades as a military man and is not practiced in processing anything out loud. Hamilton does not overplay the guilt or the attraction. He lets the language do the work, which means the moments when Maguire’s composure slips carry real weight. If you have heard Hamilton in other military romance titles, you will recognize the register he brings here. It suits the material.
The pacing is a reasonable complaint. A reviewer who gave it three stars noted it felt slow, and that is not inaccurate in the first third. Lennon is building architecture, not rushing toward the obvious destination. Whether that patience feels like craft or friction will depend on what you want from romance audiobooks. If you need momentum from the first chapter, this may test you. If you like your emotional payoffs to feel structurally earned, the slowness reads differently.
What to Watch For in Like Father Like Son
The cliffhanger is real and it is abrupt. Several reviewers were caught off guard by it, including at least one who noted uncertainty about continuing the series. This is a duet, not a standalone: book one ends without resolving the central tension between Maguire and Holland, and the conclusion is genuinely unresolved rather than simply open-ended. If you have strong feelings about cliffhangers in romance audiobooks, factor that into your decision. The series continuation does exist, and from what I can determine from reviewer response, it resolves the open questions.
What the book does unusually well is the cross-generational grief. Maguire’s experience of losing his son and Holland’s experience of losing her husband are distinct griefs, not interchangeable ones, and Lennon keeps them separate even as she shows how they intersect. The scene where Maguire and Holland are sharing stories about Scott, each learning something about the man they loved that the other knew and they did not, is quietly devastating. That is where the book is at its best: not in the forbidden attraction, but in the space where two people are mourning the same person from entirely different angles.
Who Should Listen to Like Father Like Son
This is for readers who enjoy emotionally heavy romance that takes its taboo premise seriously rather than using it as a simple hook. If you liked Colleen Hoover’s approach to difficult emotional terrain in contemporary romance, Lennon’s register will feel familiar. Skip it if you need your romance audiobooks to resolve satisfyingly within a single title, or if slow-build pacing tends to lose you before the emotional payoff arrives. Military romance readers will find the grief texture here more central than the military backdrop.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Like Father Like Son end on a cliffhanger, and do I need to read book two immediately?
Yes, it ends unresolved. This is book one of the Father/Son Duet, and the central tension between Maguire and Holland is not concluded here. If you dislike cliffhanger endings in romance, you may want to have book two queued up before starting.
Is the father-in-law/daughter-in-law romance handled with enough emotional grounding to feel believable rather than gratuitous?
Most readers who engaged with the premise found that Lennon earns it through careful characterization and grief work. The book spends significant time establishing both characters as people in genuine mourning before the romantic tension becomes central. It is not played for shock value.
Does Teddy Hamilton’s narration work for both Maguire’s perspective and the emotional scenes involving Holland?
Hamilton narrates Maguire’s first-person point of view throughout. He handles the restraint the character requires well, and the emotional scenes land without melodrama. Holland does not get her own narrating voice in this format, which some listeners may notice as a limitation.
Is this a standalone or do I need to commit to the full duet to get a satisfying experience?
You need both books for a complete story. Book one ends at a narrative inflection point that sets up rather than resolves the main relationship. The duet structure is intentional, and the second book, Also Father Like Son, continues directly from where this one stops.
