A Grumpy Mountain Man, a Chaotic Contract and a Narrator I Was Not Ready For
Hour 1. Animals on the mountain: already climbing. My composure: intact, briefly.
I went into Nine Month Contract by Amy Daws for one reason: everyone kept telling me it was better on audiobook than on the page. After ten hours and fifty minutes of laughing in my car like a woman who has lost control of the school run, I have to agree.
This is one of those books where the performance does an enormous amount of heavy lifting, in the best possible way. The duet narration by Erin Mallon and Teddy Hamilton made it funnier, warmer, spicier and more alive than I think it would have felt in print. This is a 4.5-star rom-com, four chillies, and a genuine public-safety hazard at traffic lights.
Let me explain.
What is Nine Month Contract about?
Nine Month Contract is book one in Amy Daws’ Mountain Men Matchmaker series, and it is a spicy small-town rom-com with a very silly, very effective premise.
Wyatt Fletcher is a reclusive, grumpy, 40-something mountain man living near Boulder, Colorado, with a lifelong dream of becoming a single father. Instead of going about that in a calm, normal way, his chaotic brothers decide to help by posting a wildly unpolished help-wanted ad for a surrogate. Very professional. Several notes.
Enter Trista: lively, opinionated, curvy, cowboy-boot-wearing, and carrying enough personality and history to completely disturb Wyatt’s carefully controlled mountain life. The arrangement is meant to be strict, professional and absolutely not romantic. It lasts roughly as long as any romance-novel contract involving forced proximity, real chemistry and a grumpy man voiced by Teddy Hamilton.
There are also many animals.
Trope-wise it runs on grumpy-sunshine, forced proximity, an age gap and found-family warmth, with a curvy heroine at the centre.
Why I picked it up
Honestly, peer pressure, and the promise that the audio was worth it.
I had not read Amy Daws before, I had not listened to Erin Mallon before, and I had somehow never listened to Teddy Hamilton either. I went in mostly blind, which I recommend, and by the end of the prologue I already knew I was going to love it. I wanted a spicy rom-com with mountain man energy, banter and pregnancy chaos as a lighter palette cleanser after a run of darker reads. That is exactly what I got, plus a level of public embarrassment I did not budget for.
First impression
I expected to enjoy it. I did not expect to be personally attacked by a rom-com in peak-hour traffic.
I thought Wyatt would be grumpy, large, emotionally unavailable and possibly chopping wood purely for the aesthetic. As it turns out, he is not chopping wood purely for the aesthetic. Visually disappointing, probably healthier for the plot. The surrogacy and pregnancy angle did not worry me going in, and it worked far better than I expected, mostly because the humour and the performance carried it.
The vibe
Warm, chaotic, funny and escalating, with a running gag baked right into the structure.
Every chapter opens with a little countdown-style tally, something like “Weeks pregnant: 12. Animals on the mountain: 3,” and that tiny detail gives the whole book personality. It sets the tone before each chapter even starts: pregnancy chaos, mountain animal count, rom-com nonsense incoming. In audio it becomes a proper running joke, especially once you can hear the exact flavour of Wyatt’s annoyance in the count after the chickens arrive.
Suggested reader summary: weeks pregnant, increasing. Animals on the mountain, concerning.
Why the audiobook is the whole recommendation
This is not just “I liked the book.” This is “I think the audiobook made the book better,” which is a different kind of recommendation.
The duet narration made the comedy land harder and the spice hit harder. The ranch dip cup, the Tylenol syringe, the farm-method explanation with the hand gestures, the ranch-cup requirements list, making the bald man cry, the goat-turd gestation comparison: these are funny on the page, but in audio they become moments. They build. They land. Erin Mallon was great, and she had a big ask performing beside Teddy Hamilton, because he was doing a lot. If you can only choose one format, choose the audio.
Fictional man assessment
The book boyfriend is Wyatt Fletcher: grumpy mountain man, big softie, and, crucially, a Swiftie.
He has that gruff-but-soft energy that works so well in rom-coms, the big capable mountain-man exterior with the emotional softness tucked underneath. A big man being a softie is unfortunately effective. A big man being a softie and a Swiftie is targeted behaviour. Then the audiobook hands him Teddy Hamilton’s voice, and suddenly he is warmer, funnier and considerably more dangerous to my ability to behave like a normal adult.
Would I survive dating him in real life? Yes, probably, which is genuinely rare for my fictional men. He is not a keep-him-in-the-Kindle-for-public-safety situation like my darker reads. He might actually be allowed near real life. I would still fold embarrassingly fast, but that is a me problem.
Main character vibes
Trista is the kind of heroine who makes the audiobook format shine.
Her humour, timing and sheer chaos feel like they were written to be performed, and the cowboy boots absolutely become a personality trait. But she is not just one long joke. She has survived a lonely, difficult upbringing with no real family, and that gives the romance genuine weight under all the ridiculousness. I connected with her mostly through the humour rather than a “she is exactly me” recognition, which is to say: I would very much like to sit near this woman at book club, ideally while she tells the whole story with the hand gestures.
Nine Month Contract spicy chapters: how spicy is it and where?
Short answer: four chillies, open door, and stronger in your ears than on the page. Here is how spicy it is, and roughly where the heat sits.
Is it spicy, and how much?
Yes. Nine Month Contract is a solid four out of five chillies, open-door and cheeky, with real humour and warmth around the heat rather than wall-to-wall spice. One heads-up on theme: it is a surrogacy-and-conception premise, so there is a distinct breeding-kink flavour to the spice, which fits the plot but is worth knowing going in.
It is not a five-chilli, explain-nothing-to-your-family emergency, but it is absolutely not a casual family-speaker situation either. The reason it feels like it punches above four chillies is the narration. Some scenes are already spicy on the page, and then Teddy Hamilton gets involved and I am covering my face like the audio personally knocked on my front door. I am deeply envious of people who can listen to spice and stay composed. I am not one of them. Yet.
Where is the heat, roughly?
If you want the marked spicy chapters, the list readers share on BookTok is:
- Chapter 15
- Chapters 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34
- Chapter 38
The big run is that 30 to 34 stretch, and the infamous miniature-horse chapter sits right in there, which is peak funny-spicy chaos and the reason for the public-listening warning below. The recurring “sundown sessions” are where a lot of the heat lives, and they are romantic as well as spicy, which is the correct use of a sunset. Maybe cue those up somewhere other than the car.
Favourite moment
Spoiler-free: the ranch dip cup and the Tylenol syringe deserve an award, and the farm-method hand-gesture explanation is pure gold. The list of requirements for the ranch cup was a favourite running bit, and “making the bald man cry” lives in my head rent-free. On the softer side, the sundown sessions did the emotional and the spicy work at once.
Most unhinged moment (and a public-safety warning)
Chapter 30. The miniature-horse incident.
Chapter 30. Animals on the mountain: concerning. My composure: gone. My location: peak-hour traffic, tragically.
I listened to it in peak-hour traffic and laughed so loudly that I am fairly sure people at the lights were concerned for me. It was not a bad scene at all, I was simply personally victimised by the timing and by my complete inability to laugh quietly in public. This is the core danger of audiobooks: a book can make you laugh, but an audiobook can make you laugh in front of strangers at a red light. Different threat level entirely. Plan accordingly.
For what it is worth, “Lucky” is Wyatt’s nickname for Trista, because she is his lucky number 13 surrogate. Adorable. Also partly responsible for the traffic situation.
If this book had a scent
Scent notes: mountain pine, honey butter, warm bourbon, vanilla cream, hay, peach skin, camp coffee, cedarwood, brown sugar and sundown air.
Scent vibe: warm mountain air at sundown drifting through a cabin kitchen. Cosy, funny, a little spicy and a little feral in the way only a rom-com audiobook can be when Teddy Hamilton is involved. It smells like ranch chaos, sundown sessions, a man who is secretly soft, and a woman explaining something with hand gestures that should probably not be demonstrated in public.
If this book was a drink
A honey bourbon peach iced tea. Sweet, warm, a bit mountain-ranch-coded and perfect for sundown-session energy. If you want the book-club-safe version, a peach and honey mocktail is soft, sweet and considerably safer than Teddy Hamilton through the car speakers.
If this book was a snack
Honey butter cornbread bites. Warm, cosy, ranchy and just messy enough to suit the vibe. Brown sugar cinnamon popcorn also qualifies, because this is a laugh-in-the-car listen and popcorn is the correct emotional support snack.
Listen to this audiobook if
- You like spicy romantic comedy with mountain man energy.
- You enjoy grumpy x sunshine, age gap and forced-proximity dynamics.
- You are here for a big softie MMC, bonus points for a Swiftie.
- You love a strong audiobook performance and duet narration.
- You want spice with genuine humour and heart around it.
- You need a lighter, funny palette cleanser after darker romance.
Avoid or pause if
- You do not enjoy pregnancy or surrogacy storylines.
- You prefer low-spice, closed-door rom-coms.
- You are listening through car speakers with other people nearby.
- You cannot risk laughing out loud at a set of traffic lights.
- You are not ready for the narration to change your standards.
Quick answers
How explicit is Nine Month Contract, and is there an age rating?
It is open-door and properly spicy, sitting at about four chillies, so treat it as 18-plus listening. Romance is not formally age-rated, and this one balances the heat with a lot of comedy, but the pregnancy, surrogacy and difficult-family themes mean it is worth a quick comfort check first.
Can you read Nine Month Contract as a standalone?
Yes. It is book one in Mountain Men Matchmaker and gave me a complete Wyatt and Trista story. It nods to Amy Daws’ separate Wait With Me universe, but you do not need to have read anything else first.
What order do you read the Mountain Men Matchmaker series in?
Nine Month Contract is book one, followed by Seven Year Itch, Honeymoon Phase and Bad Boy Era. Each one follows a new couple on Fletcher Mountain, so the reading order is really just the fun order.
Is the audiobook worth it over the ebook?
For this book, absolutely. The duet narration by Erin Mallon and Teddy Hamilton is a huge part of why it works, and it is the version I would hand anyone first.
EmberSas ratings
- Story: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ / 5
- Romance: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5
- Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ / 5
- Tension: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 / 5
- Audiobook performance: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧 / 5
- Duet narration: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧 / 5
- Damage Report: No thoughts, head empty, 10 out of 10 (spice, headphones probably advisable; damage, you are fine)
- Traffic laughing risk: 🚗🚗🚗🚗🚗 / 5
Review Snapshot
- Book: Nine Month Contract
- Author: Amy Daws
- Series: Mountain Men Matchmaker, Book 1
- Format: Audiobook, 10 hours 50 minutes, duet narration by Erin Mallon and Teddy Hamilton (Harlequin Audio)
- Overall rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ / 5
- Spice rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ / 5
- Emotional damage: You are fine (No thoughts, head empty, 10/10)
- Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5, next book started immediately
Final verdict
Nine Month Contract is a 4.5-star spicy rom-com that is genuinely better on audio, and that is the whole recommendation. The grumpy-mountain-man-meets-chaotic-surrogacy premise is ridiculous in the best way, Wyatt is a big softie Swiftie who might actually be allowed near real life, Trista brings both the chaos and the heart, and the duet narration turns every silly detail into a moment. It will not emotionally destroy you. It might publicly embarrass you. Grab your headphones, keep them off the car speakers, and maybe do not queue up Chapter 30 in peak-hour traffic.
Final tally:
Hour 10:50. Animals on the mountain: still concerning. My rating: 4.5 stars. Would I relisten: immediately.
Okay, so Nine Month Contract on audiobook? I get it now. I’d heard it was better on audio than reading, and I agree. The duet narration made this so good. Erin Mallon and Teddy Hamilton understood the assignment. Teddy Hamilton? Just wow. Wyatt is a grumpy mountain man, a big softie, a Swiftie, and apparently that is now something I am personally affected by. Trista is chaotic, funny, cowboy-boot-wearing and the reason some of these scenes hit so well in audio. This book made me laugh so loudly in peak-hour traffic that people were probably giving me funny looks at the lights. There is a ranch dip cup. There is a Tylenol syringe. There are hand gestures explaining a farm method, and I need you to understand it was pure gold. There is a Lucky nickname situation. There is Chapter 30. It’s 4.5 stars, 4 chillies, spice headphones probably advisable, damage you’re fine. Please listen to it so I am not alone with the peak-hour traffic damage.
