The Bromance Book Club – Lyssa Kay Adams

If nothing else, I love the idea of more men reading romance novels – so I was delighted to discover the premise of The Bromance Book Club and eager to read it. A big-time sports star is staring down the barrel of a divorce, and his buddies convince him that reading romance novels might be the trick to winning back the love of his life. Doesn’t that sound sweet?

The Bromance Book Club includes ‘extracts’ from the book the ‘club’ is reading to help Gavin get his marriage back on track. In Courting The Countess, an English lord has married a woman to avert a social scandal, only to find that he actually loves her for real – and he wants to make her fall in love with him, too.

It’s a situation that can easily be transposed onto Gavin’s own circumstances, but naturally borrowing the moves and dialogue from a Regency romance doesn’t go exactly to plan. Thea is a modern woman, after all, with her own hopes and dreams – and young twin girls – to consider, and Gavin’s going to have to do the hard yards to prove he can make the marriage work. There’s also the external pressures of Nashville WAGs and a cynical live-in sister to contend with.

I liked that Thea and Gavin felt like a real couple – not in a cliche “oh, they’re so flawed” kind of way, but in the sense that their hang-ups and insecurities and habits all felt realistic and natural. The Bromance Book Club is a book about how they figure out how to communicate and appreciate each other (and themselves) more. The men-reading-romance angle is a great hook, but it’s not the core of this story.

Adams also manages to portray a marriage in trouble without making either party a villain. The Bromance Book Club alternates between Gavin and Thea’s points of view, so the reader gets to understand each side of the argument. Gavin is a very head-in-the-sand kind of guy (as long as everyone’s smiling and saying things are fine, they must be) because he hates appearing vulnerable, while Thea struggles to express her concerns and frustrations due to a long-held fear of abandonment (thanks to her parents’ crappy marriage, and crappy parenting come to that). Both of them have legitimate grievances, and both of them have to overcome obstacles in order to come back together.

This even-handed portrayal extends to the side characters, too. The children seem realistic (in that they are neither absolute angels nor raging ferals). The book club bros are clearly written by a woman, but they’re still a good balance between committed friends and comic relief.

Honestly, my only real problem with The Bromance Book Club was a couple of very-dodgy euphemisms for human anatomy. “Pink parts” on page 22 was the most egregious.

The Bromance Book Club is a fun, well-written and well-paced second chance romance. There’s a strong cast of supporting characters, so inevitably it’s followed by a series of books set in the same universe following their stories – good news for anyone who’s looking for a stack of summer reading to take to the beach.

My favourite Amazon reviews of The Bromance Book Club:

• “This read as a feminist manifesto of male stupidity rather than a fun ROM-COM.” – 5171MilesBookBlog (Ashley)
• “The female main character, Thea, was so unlikable that I just kept thinking Gavin go for the divorce! I want an escape when reading romance, not feminist complaints about men.” – Amazon Customer
• “Ultimately, they needed therapy and not a book club.” – Ivy
• “I found myself doing the soap opera thing. You know where you skip a few days and then can pick up and didn’t really miss anything, I skipped pages and picked right up, they were still fighting over whether she was going to let him kiss her.” – Shopaholic