Roll for Romance: A Novel
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Two fledgling tabletop gamers find themselves falling for each other—both in and out of their weekly D&D sessions—in this charming, fantasy-tinged romance. For years, Sadie Brooks has declined her best friend’s standing invitation to join his Dungeons & Dragons campaign. But when she unexpectedly loses her marketing job and flees New York City to spend the summer with him in small-town Texas, she also runs out of excuses to say no. In the game, she becomes Jaylie, a powerful and self-assured human cleric blessed by the Goddess of Luck with spells to heal her companions. But in real life, Sadie believes her luck has run out, and she hopes the distraction will give her time to clear her head and plan next steps. She never expected Noah Walker—the handsome, outgoing bartender roped into joining them—to factor into that plan. Like Sadie, he’s new in town. But with a taste for adventure, Noah never stays in one place for long. He’s something of a traveling bard—just like his character Loren, the charismatic, lute-strumming elf. While Jaylie finds herself succumbing to the bard’s charms over the course of their party’s travels, Sadie also begins to fall under Noah’s spell. As their relationship progresses in both worlds, Sadie can’t help but wonder if they might last beyond the game. But when a surprising new opportunity opens in New York, she must face the truth about why she lost her job in the first place—and whether she and Noah have found something in Texas worth staying for. Torn between her career dreams in the city and the exciting uncertainty of a new adventure, she will have no choice but to roll the dice.
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Thanks to Ballantine Books for the eARC!
Dungeons & Dragons has taken the world by storm over the past couple of years. Once something only geeky nerds used to play, now almost everyone has HEARD of it, if not played it themselves at least once. (I was a pirate rogue!) As such, there's a lot of references now to the game in popular culture. I know of at least two other contemporary romances that have to do with the game. Despite being very heavily entrenched in Dungeons & Dragons, you don't need to know the game in order to enjoy Roll for Romance. The story takes place both IN GAME as their characters, and in ‘real life'. You get to see both main characters gain confidence in playing DND, and grow into themselves a bit more. (At least with Sadie, anyway.)
This is an adorable, tooth-achingly sweet book. There's no real villain, nothing goes wrong. AND BEST PART – SERIOUSLY, BEST PART – THERE'S NO MISCOMMUNICATION. I can't tell you the last time I've read a contemporary romance without some stupid miscommunication in it. Both Sadie and Noah are very open with each other, and though there's some worrying and anxiety on Sadie's side, Noah was always very up front with her.
If you're looking for something without like any stakes at all, please read this one. It's cute. It's funny. It's surprisingly spicy? There's ONE good sex scene, and it's much hotter than I was originally expecting, so props to Lenora Woods there. The characters are all nice enough, but they're fairly flat and one dimensional. Which is fine for background characters in a romance novel - no one's here for the background characters, I don't think. I do wish we learned more about Noah's family (or lack thereof), because we see a decent amount of Sadie's mentioned.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It's a quick, easy, enjoyable read, and I highly recommend it!
