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Audiobook details
A forger's hands are steady until his are on hers
Vero Mercer learned to fake things before she learned to drive. Her parents ran cons for a living, and she swore she would build something honest for herself, a graduate degree, a real name in art history, a life nobody could take back from her with a phone call. Then her friends' jobs land on the line, and the only way to save them is to do the one thing she promised she'd never touch again: forge a document good enough to fool an expert.
The expert turns out to be Dr. Viktor Ashworth, a private, unreadable professor with more money than his position should allow and an unnerving eye for detail. He catches her forgery within minutes. He doesn't report her. Instead he offers her a job: reproduce a manuscript so old it shouldn't exist outside a locked archive, and he'll pay her enough to make her problems disappear. Vero knows better than to trust a deal this clean, but she takes it anyway.
What she doesn't expect is how much time she'll end up spending in his study, how carefully he watches her work, or how the late nights start to feel less like a job and more like something she isn't ready to name. Viktor has been keeping a secret far older than any manuscript, and the closer Vero gets to him, the more dangerous that secret becomes for both of them. Bound follows her right into the middle of it, one late night at a time.
I went in thinking this was a straightforward dark academia romance with a suspicious professor and a scrappy grad student. It is that, for about an hour. Then it becomes something else entirely, and I mean that as a compliment.
Vero is the strongest part of this book. Hazelwood gives her a specific, believable skill set, forgery, an inherited talent she resents and relies on in equal measure, and builds her voice around competence rather than quips. She's sharp without being glib, and her wariness toward Viktor feels earned rather than performative.
Viktor himself is where the paranormal twist lands. Without spoiling how it unfolds, his composure stops reading as British reserve fairly early and starts reading as something closer to control born of necessity. The reveal is paced well, dropped in pieces rather than dumped in one scene, and it recontextualizes his earlier behavior in a way that rewards attention.
The forgery plot itself holds up on its own merits. There's real texture to the manuscript work, enough that it reads like Hazelwood did her research on provenance and restoration, and the tension between Vero's professional ethics and what Viktor is actually asking of her gives the middle section real stakes beyond the romance.
Brittany Pressley plays Vero with a clipped, guarded energy that softens in exactly the right places, while William Macleod gives Viktor a controlled, precise cadence that turns unnervingly warm in the quieter scenes. Their scenes together have real chemistry, and at 7 hours and 7 minutes, the duet narration never loses momentum.
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Bound by Ali Hazelwood follows Vero Mercer, a grad student and reluctant forger, into the orbit of Dr. Viktor Ashworth, a private British professor who hires her to reproduce an ancient manuscript. The job is supposed to be simple, until Vero starts noticing how carefully Viktor watches her, and how much he seems to be hiding.
Take advantage of the free trial, cancellable at any time, and let Brittany Pressley and William Macleod carry you through the 7 h 7 min runtime with duet narration that keeps Vero's guarded wit and Viktor's controlled restraint distinct from start to finish. Their back and forth gives the slow burn real weight.
The audiobook remains yours forever, even after canceling the trial. The offer also opens the door to thousands of other titles at no extra cost, an easy, risk-free way to discover new stories. Start listening today.
More Audiobooks by Ali Hazelwood
US-based editor & staff writer focused on audiobooks. Honest reviews, curated “best of” lists, and practical guides with an accessibility lens.
