TEST
Penny Reid is one of those authors with such a distinct style that you know immediately you are reading one of her books. No one has the same cadence or character voices that Ms. Reid does and it makes it such a delight to fall back into her stories. Dr. Strange Beard is a friends-to-lovers tale that features Roscoe Winston and Simone Payton, childhood best friends who haven’t been in contact since high school but are forced back into proximity when Simone starts making regular trips to their hometown.
Roscoe, we learn quickly, makes himself scarce during those weekends because he has been in love with Simone since forever and cannot handle being around her since he knows his feelings are not reciprocated. He confessed his love to her back in high school, and her response was less than awesome. Roscoe desperately wishes he could forget that conversation, but he can’t. Not because of the way that traumatic memories haunt the best of us, but because that he actually cannot. Roscoe has an eidetic memory and has crafted his life around not creating more memories since he can’t handle the ones he already has. His veterinary practice in Nashville is going well, he routinely comes home to Green Valley to see his siblings and their partners, and if he can just avoid Simone completely he’ll be fine.
Simone has absolutely no idea why Roscoe ghosted her all those years ago. Between then and when our story begins, she landed a job in the research lab of the FBI. She trusts numbers, and research, and science, and has absolutely no time for emotions. In my favorite piece of repeated dialogue, she informs us that decisions are best made by either Google Maps or a sherpa, and never by emotions. She’s back in Green Valley because the FBI has actually recruited her out of the lab and into an undercover operation. Turns out they’ve been infiltrating the motorcycle club that Roscoe’s dad is a part of for a while, and are closing in. They need a point of contact between the bureau and their agent on the inside and since Simone’s presence working at her mother’s bakery won’t really raise suspicions, she’s drafted for the job.
Up to the point our story begins, Roscoe has been doing an exceptional job of avoiding Simone’s visits, which occur according to a pattern, so he just arranged to be out of town. In the opening scene however, she’s switched up her schedule and our boy is in a bit of a panic. How is he supposed to deal with the only woman he has ever loved or will ever love as though it’s no big deal she doesn’t love him back? Well, then his dad shows up and makes the choice easy for Roscoe – protect Simone regardless of personal pain.
These two are embedded in each other lives, and watching them sort through the layers was a treat. As the book alternates PoVs, we get to know each of them separately while also getting to know them together. We hear from Roscoe as to why he ghosted Simone long before he could bear to tell her, which makes his eventual confession that much richer – we know the pair have done the work to get to a place where he can trust her again. We hear from Simone about her life as a black woman both in the FBI and in America, and whenever there is an issue where her race was A Thing, she tells us how she views it and Ms. Reid’s decision to give Simone total agency of those narratives is a gift. In the acknowledgements at the end of the book, the author lists a number of folks who – according to her – read early drafts and helped make Simone a stronger and more grounded character. As far as I’m concerned, it shows.
I could honestly write for pages and pages about how I fell deep into it with these two. I have, in fairness, done so with every other book in the series, but this one hit me in a specific place. I read it in one sitting and sighed absolutely contentedly at the end. While this is a stand-alone novel anyone can enjoy, I cannot recommend this entire series highly enough. Get to know the Winston clan, everyone, and I know you will not regret it.
Buy it at: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/Apple Books/Kobo
Grade: A
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 02/08/18
Publication Date: 07/2018
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Voracious reader, with a preference for sassy romances and happily ever afters. In a relationship with coffee, seeing whiskey on the side.
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My words in this review are my experience and are not meant to rebuke or agree with anyone. I am in an interracial relationship for more than 15 years and we never spoke explicitly about us being of different ethnicity (race or any other word you want to use). That will be something forced and to me will not make a realistic conversation. So, I am grateful that scene was not in the book. For some reason I have never seen him as the white boy I felt in love. I see him as the human I felt in love. I think if at some point you see the color of the skin, the probability that love actually grows is remote. For me is very credible that Simone do not see Roscoe as her white friend and Roscoe see her as his non-white friend. Especially when the friendship begin in childhood. When love (or friendship) already grew, the color of the skin is the last thing you see. Is this what happens in Tennessee? Maybe it is not realistic for the place the book is set? those are good questions.
I agree that Simone sounds preachy specially in the scene with Ashley and musing about “the talk”. But in general, I like the book. I also like it is different. A bit more angsty. If I do not have the ability to forget all my live details I want to forget, I think I will be angsty too. I cannot wait to see what happens with Billy and the fall out at the end of this book.
I really liked this one, honestly; Reed’s never disappointed me and this is no exception to the rule!
A couple more thoughts.
1. So I think this book pretty much suggests who Billy ends up with. That said, by my reckoning–and I’m basing this on having read all the Winston Brother books and I think 3 of the Knitting in the City books–he should end up with a guy (because he’s gay) or a transgender woman, so Penny Reid can school us on the injustices done to the LGBT community. Or maybe he should fall in love with an American Indian/Native American woman so we can learn more about the plight of these people (which would actually be an interesting story). Or maybe Billy should be with a double-amputee (courtesy of her latest tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan) or a vet haunted by PTSD, so Reid can lecture us on how we don’t take care of our vets (which is absolutely true).
2. Okay, so by the time the book ends, I’m inferring that Catfish (the high-ranking lieutenant in Razor’s MC) is black. Right? I don’t remember a description of him prior to this book, and I don’t have the previous books to check. I only ask because otherwise that thing Simone witnesses (and that I guess we’ll learn more about in the next book) makes no sense.
Wow, could I disagree more with a review. (Sorry, Kristen!)
First, my rating for this book would be: B- I did not find Simone’s voice or character to be unique and memorable. She reminded me of Ashley. Or maybe Ashley and Sandra (Knitting in the City) together. Or Ashley, Sandra, and Jennifer. Ditto Roscoe–he did not seem unique to me. Also, I felt like I learned very little about him, TBH. Quite a bit of telling about him, but not showing.
Second, I never got invested in Simone and Roscoe’s relationship. I felt that a lot of the key relationship development had already happened by the time this book started. Like it happened off-stage, during their youth, and I missed it.
Third, when Roscoe and Simone finally hit the sheets, I felt we did not get enough time to get Roscoe’s reaction to it all. Come on, people. After all these years of wanting, it finally happens, and we don’t spend time with him rhapsodizing over the rightness of it all for at least an extra page or two? Disappointed.
Finally, thank you, Blackjack, that’s the word I was looking for when I was getting ready to post–didactic. Yep, the author took time out twice during the story to do a lengthy PSA about the injustices that black Americans put up with daily, the talks they have to have with their children, etc.
The funny thing is though, I don’t recall Roscoe and Simone themselves organically mentioning anything to each other about what it means to them to be in an interracial relationship. And for all Simone’s musings, she does not, for example, reflect in passing on “who would have thought my best friend growing up would turn out to be a somber white boy?” (And how did that happen, anyway? The author doesn’t tell us, does she? This plays into what I was saying about their key relationship development happening off-stage, before this book starts.) Maybe I just missed it? I wasn’t exactly absorbed by the story, so that’s possible.
Overall, I think the author wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. She wants race to *not* be a featured player in Roscoe and Simone’s relationship. In an ideal world, love should be color-blind, right? And so Roscoe and Simone mainly are, which is fine with me. What’s not fine is when the author finds another way to pound it into us that Simone is black, in case you didn’t notice, and Americans of Color Face Grave Injustices Daily. All I know is, when Simone launched into her lengthy mental monologue describing how she, Poe, and Daniella each handled dealing with prejudice, I just rolled my eyes, waiting for the author to signal “we return you now to our regularly scheduled story.”
JMO
I didn’t mind the discussions of racial issues. But you pinpoint what I tend to dislike about the childhood friend trope–all the development happens off-page. I can’t invest myself in two children/teens falling in love; I need them as adults to fall in love in front of me.
Isaac Sylvester doesn’t have a beard, does he? Is he going to get his own story? Is Hank? Is Jackson?
In Reid’s upcoming Green Valley series, Jackson James is scheduled to be the first book. I think I’ve read that Hank is going to be featured in one of the books, and though I haven’t read anything to confirm, I could imagine Isaac too getting his own book. I think the beards were a particular feature of the Winston males who, according to Cletus, grew up without a male role model around to teach them how to shave in their formative years. That info came from a conversation between Jennifer and Cletus in Beard Science.
I agree with your review, stl-reader, though I’m only half way through the book. I do appreciate a white author addressing race in a contemporary romance though, and overall, I fully agree with Reid’s views on racism in America today. However, in a fictional book, it would just work better if it was handled more subtly. The “race” scenes do feel uncomfortably like a psa and the characters suddenly do not sound like themselves in these scenes. I also agree that the issue of race would have been so much more interesting if the couple had discussed what it means to be in an interracial relationship. No one is free to live outside of a racial context, including the Winston family, no matter how wonderful they are, and it feels disingenuous for them not to discuss the challenges interracial couples encounter together. Also, Reid picked one of the most obvious and glaring cases of racism in the prejudiced police officer who victimizes drivers of color. Nearly as insidious are the micro aggressions people of color experience daily in America, but they are all but absent in this book .So, in the end, while I appreciate the attempt to tackle race, I am finding it a bit clumsy and obvious.
I’m enjoying it but not loving it yet. Hopefully this book will grow on me over the next few days. I’m sympathetic to the racial issues but it also feels didactic and the scenes where race is in the forefront, the characters feel less like characters than mouthpieces for ideas Reid is trying to convey. I’ve had this feeling in other books where the idea, whether it be the relevance of therapy or the dangers of big Pharma, suddenly feels preachy. That always pulls me out of the story. I do like Reid best when she is subtle and shows us how characters feels and with a lighter touch.
I liked Roscoe and I really liked Simone (and her parents! OMG, Simone’s mother was #momgoals), but I am never a fan of the childhood friends-to-lovers trope. I never bought Roscoe putting part of his life on hold forever. But I did love Jennifer and Simone’s scene. And I’d have liked a little more insight into why Cletus is always on Roscoe’s case.
Oh, Billy.
So glad you loved it too Kristen! So many surprises, I kept having to explain to my husband what was going on because my exclamations were so loud LOL
ate it up with a big spoon! in the final pages, my husband was trying to talk to me about something, and I just held up my hand. “45 pages and you can speak again.”
Haha, I’ve totally done that too!
I am not quite done with DSB and am enjoying the read but….not loving it the way I had hoped. The other Winston Brothers books were quirky and laugh out loud funny. This one is more angsty and feels crafted, to me, less spontaneous. I still think Penny Reid writes in a voice that is head and shoulders above just about any author.
Lee, I can see how you’d feel that way. It feels deliberate in a way that the others didn’t, but because so much of it dealt with their dad, I was okay with that.