I just have to say wow with this book. It blew me away! This is a debut author, even though she says she’s been writing her whole life basically. I loved this one so much. It was funny, it was real, and it had so much depth as well. While the steamy scenes were a bit awkward and maybe abrupt or not seamless, that didn’t detract at all for me, in fact, it might kind of be perfect for the story itself, even if I think it was more to do with the writing than the story itself.

While I’ve never been a big video gamer myself, other than the years of being obsessed with The Sims, I kind of want to join one of those gaming groups now. But there were a lot of other things about Max that I totally connected with. I went through a stage a few years ago when I was buying all the special editions of board games for my favorite shows, like Supernatural Monopoly or The Big Bang Theory Clue. There are other games, like Carcassonne, that I wanted to buy, but never did, because I finally figured out I just didn’t have anyone to play them with. I am also a librarian like Max. And while I do work with kids, since I am a high school librarian, I wish I had more classes with cataloging, because I think I would enjoy that.

And I did fall in love with Jonathan, or Wrath as he was known in the game. Except for the long hair thing. I’ve never been a fan of guys with long hair. And there were some bits in the story, like talking about his hair fanned out on the pillow or something like that and that just made me cringe a bit. But there was so much more to him than the long hair. I mean he was tattooed, so that’s hot.

Even more than what I’ve just talked about, this story had so much depth! The secret or issues that Jonathan had were so much more and handled with so much knowledge and reality based on the author’s own personal experiences that it really hit so hard when I was reading both from his point of view as well as those around him.

And then, the part that sealed the deal on how much the author of this is a Penny Reid fan was the line that was so like something Cletus Winston might say. “I could respect a man who knew how to handle his meat.” And I think it was something that was even thought about Cletus, so that made it even more perfect!

Loved this book so much, and a little part of me hopes that Maxine’s friend Lois might get a story from this author in a future SmartyPants Romance book, maybe let’s set her up with Norman?