Reviewed by Valerie

TITLE:  The Dating Experiment

SERIES:  Better With You #2

AUTHOR:  Briar Prescott

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH: 280 Pages

RELEASE DATE:  July 20, 2021

BLURB:

Jamie:
Three years ago, I sold my soul to the devil.
Also known as my boss. Same thing.
Here’s the deal. Connor Quinn is arrogant, impossible to please, cold as ice, and prone to find flaws in everything.
Since that fatal day three years ago, many a murder plan have been made and many a weapon considered.
Until…
I accidentally get to know him better, which is unfortunate, since it turns out that underneath Connor’s icy exterior, there’s a man shaped by past hurts and difficult life lessons.
Which means I’m in a bit of a pickle since it also turns out I might kind of like the bastard…

Connor:
For as long as I can remember, I’ve chased calm. I’m the exact opposite of an adrenaline junkie with my pursuit of peace and quiet.
My rules are simple. I don’t make terrible decisions. I don’t make mistakes. And I don’t do chaos.
Until Jamie.
He’s an anomaly. A glitch in the system. Unpredictable. Distracting. Confusing.
But now I’ve accidentally gotten to know him better, and it turns out he’s also warm. And funny. And interesting. And with him, the world gets just a tiny bit quieter.
And I fit just a tiny bit better.

REVIEW:

“Everything about my boss just makes him supremely murderable. His flaws are many.”

I absolutely love Briar Prescott’s latest novel, The Dating Experiment. It delivers a highly amusing twist on mistaken identity in which neither of the leading men realizes he’s in an online relationship with the other because they’re both using aliases. What’s so delightful is that in real life, these men antagonize each other ceaselessly as a lawyer and his personal assistant of three years.

Jamie is Connor’s full-of-life PA. He’s self-assured, decisive, and takes great pleasure in disagreeing with everything Connor says. He has created an art form out of irking his boss. Every day in the office is a snarktastic snarkfest of verbal sparring and huge, hilarious arguments. They just don’t yet realize this has been three years of foreplay.

Jamie’s grandfather recently passed away and left a letter to Jamie asking him to contact his long-time Words with Friends partner so he doesn’t forever wonder why he was ghosted. After “J” (Jamie) contacts “Seb” (Connor), they begin playing the game together in honor of Gramps, and they soon become online friends. For months, they text/direct message each other and grow close through their conversations. They enjoy clever and playful banter while getting to know all the little things about each other that comprise an individual’s personality. J and Seb flirt in the safety of cyberspace, sharing their secrets and revealing their truths. And revealing their dicks (in pics), as it so happens. Allow me to say, the ensuing phone sex is unbelievably HAWT! In fact, this book will secure a spot in the “Great Sex” collection of my Kindle library.

As J and Seb’s friendship grows, so too does Jamie and Connor’s working relationship, as a mutual attraction begins to percolate beneath the surface. But Connor would never consider dating an employee, especially one thirteen years younger than him. Furthermore, Connor is all about order, rules, and predictability, while Jamie is chaos personified.

Meanwhile, everything is going swimmingly between J and Seb until they meet in real life. Seb is initially resistant to the idea because he’s no good at peopling. He’s afraid to date because of a lousy track record and he feels he never measures up because he always disappointed his parents for not meeting their social expectations. Mostly, he’s worried of losing the relationship with J he values so much. But he gives in, they meet, and they’re both gobsmacked to discover they’re actually Jamie and Connor. Noooo!

These two guys are wonderful together – romantic and sexy and caring. Jamie shows Connor that he’s lovable and worthy of anyone. He also shows him that sex can be fun:

“This almost makes up for having to put up with you for these last three years,” I gasp as my dick rubs against his. His palm moves to the back of my head as he draws me closer.

“It does make for an interesting change to my usual need to strangle you.”

“You’ve been insufferable,” I murmur. I can feel his breaths on my lips.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a more frustrating person in my life.”

“You’re rude,” I whisper against his lips.

“You’re annoyingly cheerful.” He flicks his tongue over my lower lip. I moan. “Kiss me.”

In addition to the book’s heroes, there is a solid cast of well-developed side characters, including Connor’s brother Gray and his boyfriend, Kai (the couple from The Happy List), and Jamie’s ride-or-die best friends, Max and Anders. You couldn’t find better buddies than these two. An outrageous duel of one-upmanship regarding the most unimaginable, embarrassing memories from Jamie and Max’s young adulthood provides some of the best laugh-out-loud moments in the book. For example:

“Jamie broke his wrist when he slipped and fell. In his own come!”

“Max sent his family chat a link with daddy porn.”

Unless your heart is dead and shriveled, you’ll swoon at the grand, romantic gesture near the ending. And, the epilogue provides a wonderfully sweet conclusion to the story. Well, almost. My only complaint with the book is that the epilogue is seven years in the future, which, in context, feels like too much time has elapsed. I’m going to pretend the 7 is a misprint for 2 (they look a little alike if you scrunch your eyes, right?) and that all the deliciousness happens just two years out. Otherwise, The Dating Experiment is near perfection, an ideal romantic comedy I simply adored.

RATING:

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