TEST
So this is the Russian’s book.
When I read the first two books in Lyssa Kay Adams’ The Bromance Book Club series, the humor involving this guy quickly wore out its welcome. I felt it was crass and narrow-minded for the only foreigner in the gang to not even have a name and to be the comic relief because of his gluten allergy. But then I saw that he was getting his own book, and for the most part, Isn’t It Bromantic? is a lovely story for this guy. Readers wanting heroes who are gentle giants and cinnamon rolls, just stop here and put this book on your list.
One of the things I liked immediately is that this story begins with hockey player Vladislav Konnikov already married to his childhood best friend Elena, although they’re all but estranged. He’s never told anyone about her. But at a friend’s wedding, she shows up, looking beautiful, and then pulls his heart straight out of his chest by telling him she’s going back to Russia.
Vlad is devastated. He’s been in love with Elena for the six years of their marriage and even before it, but they’ve been separated partly because she’s been studying journalism in Chicago and partly because he’s been trying to give her all the space she wants. Meanwhile, Elena likewise cares about Vlad. But she believes theirs is a marriage of convenience heavily slanted towards one person’s convenience – hers. She was orphaned young when her father, a journalist so involved in his career he barely noticed her, was murdered.
But after Vlad became a hockey player in the States, he found out about her situation, and offered to marry her so that she could have a chance at a better life. Elena has never forgotten what happened to her father though, and she hopes to discover who killed him, not to mention finish his investigation into sex trafficking. Hence her plan to return to Russia.
Vlad, being Vlad, steps back and allows her to do what’s right for her -which Elena interprets as his not needing her in his life. But then a collision on the ice leads to him breaking his leg, and Elena realizes he’ll need someone to take care of him. This is her chance to repay him for everything he’s done for her. For the first time in their marriage, they now live in the same house and discover new things about each other – such as the fact that they’re both desperately attracted to each other but don’t want to take any more risks.
There’s a lot to enjoy in this story. Vlad is a romantic who’s remained a virgin because… well, there’s only one woman he wants, and the scene where he finally blurts this out to the book club is great. I enjoyed the descriptions of all the Russian dishes that Elena cooks, and there are some hilarious moments, one of them involving a clandestine cheese store owned by an eccentric man who’s paranoid about “Big Dairy”. Then, of course, there are the romance novels. This time it’s a manuscript Vlad is secretly writing, and the question is whether he can use his own experiences to give his characters an HEA.
So why doesn’t this book get an A? A few reasons. The first is the number of secondary characters. As well as Malcolm, Mack, Noah, Colton and Gavin from the book club, there are Claud, Linda, Andrea and Michelle, widows and divorcées who are Vlad’s neighbors. There wasn’t room for all these characters to have a personality (Linda, for instance, does nothing but protest every time Claud says something rude), and they kept shouldering their way into the story. If you’re not keen on romances where secondary characters push the hero and heroine together, best avoid this one.
The second problem was the sex trafficking network. The plotline where Elena tries to expose this is not well-integrated with the laid-back, jokey main story, and it felt jarring to go from one to the other. Also, my recollections of Elena in the story are mostly her cooking, talking to the other women, and trying to overcome her nervousness with Vlad, so the quick wrap-up of the sex trafficking plot felt unrealistic.
Finally, while Vlad was a sweetheart, I wasn’t very keen on Elena, who does a yo-yo impression in the story. She’s returning to Russia – scratch that, she’s staying. But Vlad doesn’t need her, so she’s gone – wait, no, she’s at Michelle’s house. This time for real, though, she’s leaving. And at one point, she punches him thrice. This is presented as frustrated sexual tension building up to a kiss, but if it’s wrong for men to slam their fists into women, why is the reverse acceptable?
If you can overlook these issues, though, Isn’t it Bromantic? will be worth your time. I read it on my commute to work, and often had a smile under my mask. Readers already hooked on this series will find this a great next instalment, and readers who haven’t read the other books could jump in here with little difficulty. And I really enjoyed all those descriptions of Russian food.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
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Grade: B
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 20/07/21
Publication Date: 07/2021
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.
I'm Marian, originally from Sri Lanka but grew up in the United Arab Emirates, studied in Georgia and Texas, ended up in Toronto. When I'm not at my job as a medical laboratory technologist, I read, write, do calligraphy, and grow vegetables in the back yard.
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I’ve had mixed views on this series for awhile; sounds about right for the series at large!
She hit the hero in anger (or frustration–doesn’t really matter)? Three times? If that’s the case, I can honestly say I wouldn’t be interested.
I feel like for some utterly weird reason there are lots of big name authors writing women hitting men into their storylines. I just don’t get it.
It’s not just physical abuse that heroines are visiting upon heroes these days—there’s a lot of verbal abuse going on too. I just DNF’d a book last night where the heroine’s business loan was being called in and she screamed at the hero (the person who was calling in the loan), dropping the f-bomb multiple times, calling him all sorts of names, and eventually tearing up the loan document and throwing the pieces at him. And this is supposed to show she’s a level-headed, thoughtful businesswoman? No—it’s supposed to show that she’s “feisty” and, of course, the hero loves it. Blech! Even though the book contained one of my favorite tropes—enforced proximity in a snow storm—I couldn’t bring myself to care enough about the h&h to read to that point. Businesswoman with anger issues and businessman thinking with his dick? Hard pass!
I honestly don’t get the appeal of a heroine who goes ballistic. I tend to mentally genderswap characters in problematic interactions to see how it would look if it was the other way around, so now I’m imagining the hero raging and swearing and throwing things at the heroine. Sexxxay? No. So why should it be cool when she does it?
I don’t get the appeal either. However, I do think there are unfortunate numbers of misandrists who give this kind of behavior a pass when it’s female on male. That’s the only explanation I can really think of for the recent preponderance of this gender-swapped violence that doesn’t seem to rouse a peep from the Twitter warriors. It’s almost like they revel in the abuse disguised and labeled as “feistiness.” That’s… not cool, to say the least.
Completely agree, Nan. I’m reminded of last year’s controversy over the tattoo in Evie Dunmore’s A Rogue of One’s Own. But nobody seemed to mind that the heroine smacked the hero in the face near the end for no reason.
I did!
I think we may have been the only ones. Everyone else was ranting about the tattoo.
Completely co-sign.
I dislike stories where people are controlled by their anger rather than being angry and controlling it.
Exactly! One of the reasons I enjoy Harlequin Presents so much is that the heroines usually think things through in a mature way and make measured responses to their situations, even when they admit inwardly that they’d like nothing better than the scream, yell, and pound on the hero’s chest with their fists. I’m so much more down with a heroine whose thought process is along the lines of, “I’d love to slap that knowing smirk off his face, but it’s probably better to simply suggest that we renegotiate the loan repayment schedule,” than a supposedly “feisty gal” who throws tantrums, f-bombs, and fists! And I totally agree with everyone else that we would NEVER accept a hero who physically struck or verbally abused a heroine.
I recently finished a manuscript where the hero tries to sabotage the heroine’s hopes of marrying another man, and she’s furious at him. He realizes he was wrong, and says she can slap him if she likes. She coldly declines.
Later in the story, an intruder breaks into her house and threatens her child, so she breaks the intruder’s jaw with one punch… which is how the hero discovers that she’s a martial arts expert, and the reason she turned down the chance of slapping him is because she doesn’t use physical violence lightly. I wanted to upend the whole “angry women are cute, and it’s okay for the heroine to punch the hero because a sweet li’l thing like her couldn’t possibly do any damage” trope.
Wow! This sounds like another cool story, Marian. Is this an HR, CR, or other subgenre? And how many completed manuscripts does this make?
Thanks! It’s a historical, which is why, despite the foreshadowing for this, the hero never expected a woman to pack such a haymaker. As for completed manuscripts, I stopped counting. :)
Show off… ;-)
I agree with Dabney – I’ve noticed it as well. BUT – I just finished listening to this one, and I didn’t read it quite the same way as Marian did. It wasn’t the kind of smack-in-outrage I’ve seen elsewhere.
Good to know.
This is the relevant quote (Vlad and Elena are arguing because another man kissed her on the cheek) :
Normally, I’d love this. But the punches didn’t quite work for me.
I wonder if the fact that the narrator (who is awesome) has Elena crying and brings out the strong emotion and frustration in her voice at this point made a difference to my view of the scene. I mean, I noticed it, but it didn’t bother me quite as much as some of the others I’ve read recently. (Which, incidentally, have tended to be smacks across the face.)
Probably. I saw Elena as an angry person hitting someone who wouldn’t hit her back, rather than as a person weeping with frustration and acting without thinking, so that could make a difference.
Spot on. I just listened to the audio of this one and had more or less the same reaction. I did like Elena a bit more than you, maybe – but that might be because I didn’t particularly like the heroines in the first two (I missed book three for some reason) so it was more a case of liking her better by comparison!