Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: Natural Twenty
SERIES: Roll for Love #1
AUTHOR: Charlie Novak
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 278 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 25, 2020
BLURB:
Plants are easier than people—that’s Leo’s rule of thumb. After all, nobody really wants a man who looks like he belongs in a biker gang but would rather spend his time buried in books and flowers. It’s just easier to be single. Until he meets the owner of the new book shop.
Jacob Morris knows two things: he’s really attracted to the man who runs the local flower shop, and he doesn’t date. Not when he’s still healing from a bad breakup, has a new business to run, game nights to organise, workshops to host, and a website to build.
When friendship blooms into something more, Leo and Jay must decide whether to roll the dice and take a chance on love or keep forging ahead on their quests alone. Will their roll yield a one or a perfect, natural twenty?
Natural Twenty is an 80,000-word contemporary MM romance featuring Dungeons & Dragons, secret flower language bouquets, a spoilt Staffy (or two), and a best friend who is basically a gothic prince. It is book one in the Roll for Love series and can be read as a standalone.
REVIEW:
This is a really sweet romance about two unconventional men, one of whom runs a flower shop and the other a book shop. Jay and Leo are wonderful characters, and for once they were both simply nice. No secrets, no hard edges, no hidden motives, just two men who happened to meet and being socially awkward and neither wanting a relationship, fall in love with an adorable Staffy and each other.
The story unfolded at a perfect pace and the angst that came from their resistance to a relationship was perfectly in tune with the sweetness of the rest of the story.
The side characters were also quirky and well-drawn and I am particularly eager to hear more of Edward, whose book I believe is likely to be released next year.
I particularly like books that teach me something and in this case it was about flowers. Not only did Leo give us some lovely descriptions and imparted his simple love for flowers, but each chapter begins with a snippet of information the meaning of various flowers, some of which I knew, such as yellow being for friendship, but most of which were new to me.
I’m not sure why the book is called Natural Twenty because there is very little about D&D in there, which was slightly disappointing.
All-in -all this a perfect coffee time book. It is a sweet read, without too much angst and a straightforward, sweet love story.
RATING: 
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