Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Beauty and the Bro
SERIES: Playing it Straight #1
AUTHOR: Norah Belle
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 222 Pages
RELEASE DATE: June 7th , 2021
BLURB:
Ghosted by his long-term girlfriend, Dylan needs a roommate, and this Riley chick seems like the perfect candidate. If only Riley hadn’t turned out to be a guy. A guy who is so obviously gay.
Done with his ex-boyfriend’s jealousy, Riley is looking for a fresh start. But when his new roommate proves to be less tolerant than Riley had hoped, he finds himself slipping into old patterns. It doesn’t help that the guy is a bit of a man-child either.
Neither is the obvious choice for the other, yet somewhere along the line of navigating their toxic exes, movie nights, and reviving Riley’s old dream of running a makeup channel, sparks begin to fly.
But can this thing they have exist beyond the four walls of Dylan’s condo?
Beauty and the Bro is book one in the Playing It Straight series. Each book follows a couple on their journey to their happily ever after.
REVIEW:
This novel (and perhaps this entire series) seems to follow that most common of M/M romance tropes, “gay for you.” This is always a fun fantasy to explore and it’s set up perfectly here… Sweet but straight man-child Dylan has been dumped by his girlfriend and Sis locates him a roommate named Riley who he agrees to sight unseen. Of course Dylan assumes that Riley is a girl’s name but when he meets his new gay room-mate he has to re-examine many of his preconceptions.
Both characters have some problems in their past but both are basically likable, good hearted guys that we’re soon pulling for. Some things do go wrong and the book does use but never completely surrenders to any of the standard drama building devices. Altogether it’s a fun little bit of fantasy fulfillment that’s enjoyable from start to finish.
There is sex here and it’s NOT of the fade to black variety. It includes a few firsts for the boys, and a few somewhat graphic bits (particularly in the darkened corner of a gay bar) but what would you expect when the main gay character’s best bud is a Drag Queen name Ana Lingus? Oddly though, despite all of those elements being there, this is more of a love story than erotic fiction.
This would be a perfect beach read.
RATING: 
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