Series: Bromance Book Club

BOOK REVIEW: The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club #1) by Lyssa Kay Adams

December 31, 2022 / Jen / 6 Comments

The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club #1)
by Lyssa Kay Adams
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
The first rule of book club: You don't talk about book club.

Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott's marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.

Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.

Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville's top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it'll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

Review:

The Bromance Book Club was absolutely genius, I was addicted from that first page and finished this book in a day! And while I devour second chance romances, those stories where they’re already married with kids and struggling? Nope, I always pass on those books. But The Bromance Book Club completely changed my mind! I have been so wrong to not read this type of book before! This story was laced with heart, jealousy, friendship, love and second chances. If you love romance that is emotional, laugh out loud funny and easy to fall in love then you definitely need this book on your tbr!

“Good. First rule of book club?”
They finished in unison. “You don’t talk about book club.”
What. The. Fuck.

Gavin Scott was a professional baseball player and had a whirlwind romance with his now wife. They got pregnant early in their relationship, married, and loved one another with their whole heart. Yet a few years into their marriage, Gavin discovered his wife had been faking it. The whole time. Yes they had other issues, but with his heart hurt and wounded he moved out at his wife’s request. I actually felt bad for Gavin the more time we spent with him. He loved his family, but somewhere along the way he lost his spark with them. Especially his wife. So when Gavin got pulled into a book club, and the men tried their best to help him fix his marriage since he was beyond clueless, I couldn’t stop laughing!

Read some books and, voilà? Thea would take him back with open arms? Was he really that desperate?
He pictured life without Thea.
Yes, he was really that desperate.

Gavin was determined to win his wife back and be with his twin daughters again. So he tried so hard in everything that he did. Gavin was sexy and beyond seductive. He made me fall in love with him and was a true book boyfriend we could obsess over! I loved his moments with his friends and those in the book club. They were so good at helping him piece things together and coming up with ideas for helping him salvage his marriage. So I loved watching him try to win his wife back and be the man and best friend she needed him to be. And when he would lay things out, like his rules, I was screaming with joy. He used moments with Thea to show her why they were so good together. That they still had passion and sparks. And why they should stay together. I loved every minute of it!

“Please, Thea. Just give me a chance.”
“To do what?” she blurted, throwing her hands wide in an exasperated gesture.
“To prove how much I love you.”
Her lips parted again. She stared at him for a moment that lasted forever.

It took me quite some time to warm up to Thea. She kept her husband at arm’s length and the problem was, I had already fallen in love with Gavin. I wanted to push her back into his arms. So the moments she would cave or give in to him, ohhhhhhh I was smiling with joy! The more we got to spend around Thea, and see her past, that pain cut so deep. I understand why she acted the way she did. It was disheartening that she didn’t share any of that with her husband before, but thank goodness from his book club he realized they had to work through that too. So Gavin tried everything to win Thea back and get her to open up about her past. I was cheering for them every step of the way to get the HEA they deserved!

They started walking again, but they hadn’t taken more than a few steps when Amelia asked. “What are you afraid of, Daddy?”
Losing you and your mom, he thought, his throat thickening.

The side characters added so much to this story! The book club meetings were always a favorite and the lengths they would go to help Gavin, just wow lol! Del and Mack were my absolute favorites. And with Mack, just try and not laugh at his actions. Thea’s sister Liv was her biggest champion. Yet she didn’t know the whole story behind Gavin and Thea’s issues. And I just wanted to whisper to her all the details so she would help them get back together. And then there were Gavin and Thea’s twins. Their emotions were strong, overwhelming and so real. They caused me to have tears in my eyes at time. I just wanted them to be a happy family again!

Dammit! Why, dear God, WHY did she have to be married to a man whose job literally depended on him being in peak physical shape?

The Bromance Book Club was laugh out loud hilarious and effortless to love! With so much emotion, fabulous characters and a story-line that was devoured way too quickly, it easily became a favorite! The scenes between Gavin and Thea were steamy hot! And the mixture of heart, laughter and sadness was done perfectly. This adult, second chance romance is a must read!

PS Poor Gavin getting spoilers lol

BOOK REVIEW: Undercover Bromance (Bromance Book Club #2) by Lyssa Kay Adams

March 3, 2020 / Arielle / 3 Comments

Undercover Bromance (Bromance Book Club #2)
by Lyssa Kay Adams
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Braden Mack thinks reading romance novels makes him an expert in love, but he’ll soon discover that real life is better than fiction.

Liv Papandreas has a dream job as a sous chef at Nashville’s hottest restaurant. Too bad the celebrity chef owner is less than charming behind kitchen doors. After she catches him harassing a young hostess, she confronts him and gets fired. Liv vows revenge, but she’ll need assistance to take on the powerful chef.

Unfortunately, that means turning to Braden Mack. When Liv’s blackballed from the restaurant scene, the charismatic nightclub entrepreneur offers to help expose her ex-boss, but she is suspicious of his motives. He’ll need to call in reinforcements: the Bromance Book Club.

Inspired by the romantic suspense novel they’re reading, the book club assists Liv in setting up a sting operation to take down the chef. But they’re just as eager to help Mack figure out the way to Liv’s heart... even though she’s determined to squelch the sparks between them before she gets burned. (

Review

Liv Papandreas is a badass. I repeat, Liv Papandreas is a badass.

Even though we get a picture of what these two main characters were like in the first book, the scope of what we learn when they are the focus is obviously so much more. The two briefly meet earlier on because of Liv’s sister Thea and Mack’s friend, Gavin, but they really don’t know anything about each other. When Mack decides to wine and dine his latest girl and make things ~official~ he of course decides that he needs to go to a super swanky restaurant and buy her this $1,000 cupcake that surprise, surprise is Liv’s job to make. Due to a series of….very unfortunate events…the cupcake ends up in Mack’s girl’s lap. Neither one of them care very much as it was an accident EXCEPT for Liv’s douchey, slime-ball of a boss. When she goes up to his office later that night to receive the talking-to of a life time, she walks in on him sexually harassing another employee and things proceed to blow up from there.

Let’s just say that neither Liv nor Mack’s nights end up very good after that. Liv is FURIOUS about what she witnessed and without a job and Mack is left sans girlfriend, feeling guilty for playing a role in Liv being fired. The two, begrudgingly (especially on Liv’s part) eventually decide to team up to take down the previously mentioned douchey slime-ball.

What I really enjoyed about this book, other than Liv’s badassery, was the push and pull of Mack’s and Liv’s relationship. They both have their own share of issues but as the book progresses we slowly see both of them showing sides of their life and who they truly are to each other that no one else has ever seen before. There were plenty of bickering scenes which then always sets up a good scene for explosive kisses (which we get a few of) and you know that this is going to be a couple that is always going to be poking at each other just to rile the other one up.

The scenes with the other guys from book club were just as fun as the first book. The Russian, I tell ya, lol. He might be my favorite. I just love picturing this huge group of hot, hulking guys who are insanely famous and rich getting together reading romance novels lololol. Ugh, still such a genius idea.

Finally, the biggest component of this book that ended up being so satisfying to read was the take-down of the bad guy. It ends up coming to light that (not surprisingly) this guy has been a predator for LONG time and has paid a lot of women off because he’s done terrible things. There were a few really important scenes with Liv and a friend that also happened to have been taken advantage of by the sleaze bag, where Liv got so mad because her friend just wanted to let it lie. She had a café that she owned and ran and she just wanted the past to stay in the past. I mean that is such…relevant commentary on situations that have come to light recently with several different rich and powerful men and that you know has happened for years and years in the past. While Liv’s friend did eventually come forward about it, they had a little bit of a falling out about it before that. What I learned from that situation is that even though you are always going to want those people to get in trouble, the women who went through it don’t necessarily want to drag that past into the now because of the pain it’s going to cause them. Just because they didn’t come forward with it when it happened, doesn’t mean they should be discredited (like what seems to happen these days). They just knew in that moment that even if they did come forward, they probably still wouldn’t have gotten believed and their life would have been even worse off than if they just stayed quiet.

UGH. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it honestly.

Luckily in this story at least, the girls and Liv get partial justice anyway which is something. Liv learns to be more understanding and to trust and love and Mack learns how to just be himself. Overall a very good continuation of the series!

Huge thanks to Berkley and NetGalley for allowing me to read an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion! ♥

BOOK REVIEW: The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club #1) by Lyssa Kay Adams

October 4, 2019 / Arielle / 9 Comments

The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club #1)
by Lyssa Kay Adams
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
The first rule of book club:
You don't talk about book club.

Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott's marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.

Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.

Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville's top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it'll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

Review

THIS BOOK IS FREAKIN’ GENIUS. Genius I tell you. A group of macho guys getting together READING ROMANCE NOVELS, helping each other fix their relationships?!?!?!ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!? I loved every. single. aspect. Of this damn thing. Like I want this to be a really, really great review but I think it’s going to end up being one of those where I flail around like a cray person because I am so in love. Like everything about this entire book was PERFECT. EVERYTHING!!

Like at one point, when the main character, Gavin, is being initiated into the group, one of his friends is telling him why they read romances and that women LOVE reading them and secretly want that kind of stuff in their life. Gavin denies that his wife, Thea likes them because she doesn’t have any around the house. His friend saying something along the lines of “does she have an e-reader? I guarantee you that thing is full of romance novels.” HAHAH I FELT PERSONALLY ATTACKED. I have so much smut on my Kindle that it’s not even funny.

But in all seriousness, other than me loving the funny of a bromance book club in general, this book had a lot of important things you don’t see in every day romance. #1 it had a couple working to fix their relationship on the brink of a divorce. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book like that before. #2 Gavin had a stutter and it came out during every day conversation and was just a normal thing. There were several things brought up about it (him tell Thea he had been teased about it in high school, Thea bitching a woman out for being incredibly rude about it, him saying that one of the reasons he fell in love with Thea was because she never acted weird around him for it, never interrupted him, etc.) and again, I’ve read books where character have had stutters in the past but have worked past them so that it only comes out when they’re nervous or something. This was just a part of Gavin and I just loved it. Just one more book that people can relate to in a world where so many characters are too perfect.

There was the tiny, temporary fall out in the end but I think it was really necessary to their overall story and to Thea’s healing and self-discovery. The ending was perfect in every way and I seriously hope this series is a million books long because I will CHERISH EVERY ONE. Seriously, if you guys don’t go out and read this when it comes out, you’re all nuts!!! Lol, but really.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Berkley books for allowing me to read an eARC in exchange for an honest review!♥