I’ve had this story on my “to-be-read” list for a while. How could one pass up that title? I wondered if it was a sweet romance or a male/male. I found out it was a romance between a married couple. OMG, that almost never happens.
In this novel, Thea asks her professional baseball-playing husband Gavin to leave. She’s done with his distance, not to mention how her life is no longer her own because of children. He loves her to the depths of his soul and wants her back—desperate enough to join his buddies’ romance book club.
That’s right. That’s the big secret. The men use romance novels to find out how women think, what they want, and what they truly desire. Depending on their love-live issues, each man receives a different book to assist him in repairing his love life.
OMG, what a premise.
The audiobook had a story-within-a-story with two narrators—one for each tale. It made for interesting listening. In the regency romance inside the contemporary narrative, an English lord must convince his wife he loves her and didn’t just marry her because he had to. Similarly, Thea and Gavin became pregnant early in their relationship. Then his baseball career took off. Thea was left with an absent husband and twins. The plots parallel somewhat, and Gavin uses the lessons from the English lord to help him with Thea.
It’s a romance, and I won’t spoil, so we know the ending. The idea of using another romance novel to show men what women need and desire was wonderful. I mean, the men still didn’t always get it. They still floundered and screwed up, misinterpreting these novels for real life. A little toxic masculinity reared its head. I liked the thinking in these books, our books, showing how women think and feel. It took Gavin a while to understand. But if he’d gotten it immediately, there’d be no story.
The book used the trope of miscommunication. I use it, too. But sometimes I want to scream at the page, “Talk to each other!” as if that’s an easy thing to do. After twenty years of marriage, Hubby and I still fail to connect once in a while (read that as “frequently,” lol). I guess I shouldn’t judge.
The Bromance Book Club had some interesting pieces and a great premise. I’ve got the other books in the series on my TBR list now.
I give The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams Four Regency Romance Novels (probably by Julia Quinn and Sarah MacLean).
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Awww that really is a sweet premise! It probably helps that I can see my own fiance do this too. <3
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