Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Art of Us
    The Art of Us
    The Art of Us
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Art of Us

    Written by K.L. Hughes

    Narrated by Abby Craden

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Eighteen-year-old Charlee Parker met the love of her life in a parking lot-a leggy brunette with a valedictorian medal hanging from her rear-view mirror and an attitude as biting as a Boston winter.
    Alexandra Woodson was guarded, a nineteen-year-old orphan set on a bright future in hospitality administration. She never imagined an art student with a penchant for cheesy pick-up lines and stealing parking spaces would crack her rigid exterior and claim her heart.

    For four years, theirs was an enviable love-evergreen and growing. Unbreakable . . . until it broke.

    Alex's job now brings her back to Boston, after five years working on the opposite side of the country. When, by chance, they meet again, Charlee and Alex are swept up in a whirlwind of heart-rending history, tossed between past and present, and lovers old and new. Will their lingering connection be enough to convince them that some loves are meant to last? Or should the past remain in the past?

    Contains mature themes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 27, 2018
    ISBN9781977376756

    Related to The Art of Us

    Related audiobooks

    Contemporary Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Out On The Court

      Sep 11, 2018

      Out On The Court
      3 min read

    • Article

      I Was A Bad Lesbian

      Dec 23, 2022

      I’ve always been a bad lesbian.To be fair, I missed orientation. Athletic lesbians got inducted in high school. They didn’t think to collect the femmes in drama club, so I got left behind. It wasn’t until I saw a handsome black and white photo of k.d

      3 min read

    • Article

      Screen Queens

      Apr 6, 2021

      Screen Queens
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Sapphic Lit Scene Has Never Been Better

      Feb 24, 2023

      Five years ago, if you had told me my sapphic romcom, Sorry, Bro, would be released on the same day as another sapphic romcom (Behind The Scenes, by the lovely Karelia Stetz-Waters) I would have laughed in your face. Me? A published author? Forget it

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Love Letter To My Queer Female Friends

      Apr 25, 2021

      I’m a sociable person. I have huge amounts of love for the people in my life; the ones I’ve known forever, the ones I’ve met this year, the ones I turn to for advice, the ones who lead me astray. The list goes on. Before corona (BC), it wasn’t unusua

      4 min read

    • Article

      Getting Up

      Oct 15, 2022

      Getting Up
      20 min read

    • Article

      Open Short Story Winner Tight Situation

      Apr 4, 2024

      When Carol first wakes up, she thinks it must have been a dream. The ringing phone had been distant, muffled as if the landline device had been buried in a bag of something soft like cotton wool - the packing material stuffed so tightly into its bag

      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jul 1, 2019

      You agreed to meet him in one of those cafés you imagined yourself writing in if you could afford to live in that city. He was also a writer, but older, and you wanted to know how to get published. Slip a picture of yourself in with your poems, he ad

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Last Dance

      Feb 1, 2018

      The Last Dance
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Education of Mrs. R.

      Sep 6, 2022

      An adolescent shriek woke her. Cockerels, she thought, cockerels, with a wry twist to the word. She lay in the dark listening. There was no use in covering her head; the screaming still came through. The soloist was suddenly submerged in the chorus.

      13 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Play Dead

      Mar 3, 2020

      There was a man, let’s call him Henry VIII. There was his wife, let’s call her Anne B. Let’s give them a castle and make it nice. Let’s give her many boy babies but make them dead. Let’s give him a fussy way of being. Let’s make her smart and sneaky,

      17 min read

    • Article

      Xoxo

      May 5, 2022

      Xoxo
      4 min read

    • Article

      Now That I’ve Arrived

      Dec 30, 2020

      Now That I’ve Arrived
      5 min read

    • Article

      O Fortuna, Velut Luna

      Sep 15, 2018

      What is Miss Treece’s trouble, according to a popular notion? The man A has failed to show up. Arousing herself at the restaurant, she fixes her lipstick when her solo supper concludes and takes herself down the stairs situated behind the bar. There,

      3 min read

    • Article

      I Saw Plenty

      Jun 1, 2020

      I Saw Plenty
      6 min read

    • Article

      An Unspoken

      Mar 3, 2020

      Hal Parker runs out to his wife’s hydrangea bushes. He’s trying to scare away the neighbor’s black Lab, Major. Hal claps his hands in front of him and shouts, but Major’s already peeing on the bush. It seems to Hal that lately the dog just won’t stay

      11 min read

    • Article

      Book Extract

      May 16, 2022

      Book Extract
      5 min read

    • Article

      Dark Dweller

      Jan 25, 2023

      Dark Dweller
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Fortune Teller

      Jul 10, 2021

      My head has a liquid feel to it as I stumble down the street. The bottle of red wine in my belly making it seem like my limbs have become balloons, and at any moment they might float away. Next to me, Michael has a stupid whiskey grin stretched acros

      18 min read

    • Article

      Don’t Have A Bird

      Aug 2, 2020

      There are so many rites of passage you’ve already missed out on, and the school ball is destined to become another item on that ever-growing list. You try to delay the inevitable until every breath from your lungs sounds as if cystic fibrosis is cack

      12 min read

    • Article

      Restless Souls

      Mar 6, 2018

      Restless Souls
      8 min read

    • Article

      Gabriel & Holly

      Feb 8, 2021

      The first day was the most daunting. It helped that she’d arrived last night to settle herself in the cottage annexe before first contact this morning. Still, nerves attacked her as she stood before the door of the imposing but charming ivy-covered 1

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Art of Us

    4.5/5

    87 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      No better fitting title could have been chosen for this novel. The art of writing is not putting one word after another, but to convey a message and to bring palpable emotions to the foreground. I could feel the love between Alex and Charlee. I cried with them and laughed at their antics, and could not take enough of the beautifully worded pages. Every character was well rounded and developed. Abby Craden did an excellent job in bringing all the characters to life. I hope KL Hughes’s other works are at least as remarkable as this one. I’ll be reading more by her soon.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      One of my favorite story, its kind of heavy but its worth it
    • 5/5
      Jesus this was emotional. I actually cried at parts. Heart wrenchingly beautiful. Abby Craden performance is phenomenal, if not her best. Brava!
    • 2/5
      Ya it was intense…. Intensely annoying how it was mentioned that they loved each other so much it hurts every 3 seconds. Would have been soo much better if the reader could have figured it out themselves without having to be told it in every chapter. And it was so predictable to the point that this STORY hurt ME and my salinity. I DNFed it at chapter 13
    • 4/5
      Very sweet but extremely sappy and dramatic. Still, I enjoyed it, especially because of the excellent narration by Abby Craden.
    • 5/5
      Easily one of my favorite books ever. This book depicted love and longing so well, my heart was crying. It's so good! Definitely worth a read.
    • 5/5
      This book is very intense! Just the first sentence of the book made me emotional. You really need to focus on listening to this book because if not, you’ll be lost between the past and present. I loved this book. Even at intense emotional moment, there is always a funny dialogue and you’ll end up, in tears while laughing. I greatly recommend this. This is a very well written story and Abby Craden did not disappoint.
    • 5/5
      What a beautiful story. The Art of Us sucked me in by the third page. Hughes writes with such passion; I felt the intensity of Charlee and Alex's bond well before they set eyes on each other again. In hindsight, even the title incites passion. From an artistic view, Charlee and Alex's story includes strokes of love, dabs hurt, and stipples of hope. Also, the cover is an image of a particular scene in the book.

      I don't care for flashback stories. Usually midway through I'm thinking "Enough already, let's move on." However, with this story, there is a steady balance between Charlee and Alex's past relationship and their current interactions. I was able to learn just enough about their past to understand their present. In addition, just like in the world of art there's the influence of dealers, patrons, and critics, so too are the influences of the minor characters (Cam, Vinny, and Gabby). I love that during Charlee and Alex's "messy" stage, they have a strong supporting trio in Cam, Vinny, and Gabby. 

      The intimate tension between Charlee and Alex exists throughout the store, so I appreciate that the sex scenes were not overly done. Although, I would have liked it if Charlee used edible paint for the body painting scene near the end...I'll say no more! Overall, this is an enjoyable emotional read, and I'm certain I will reread it again and again.