Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: The Romantic
SERIES: The Vers Podcast #2
AUTHOR: Riley Hart
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 274 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 22, 2023
BLURB:
Parker
When it comes to The Vers, the queer podcast I host with my best friends, I’m The Romantic. The one who’s looking for love in all the wrong places. If there’s a jerk close by, I’ll find him. I’m beginning to think my Mr. Right doesn’t exist.
It’s definitely not Elliott Delgado Weaver, the shameless flirt who keeps asking me out. We’re not supposed to run into each other in Vegas or get drunk together. We definitely aren’t supposed to wake up married…only, we do.
Before we can figure out what to do, Elliott’s family finds out. He doesn’t want to let them down by telling them it was a drunken mistake. My parents had the perfect marriage until my mom passed, and since I’d hate for my father to discover what I did, Elliott and I decide to pretend we’re in love and stay married for six months. Better to amicably divorce later than own up to our screwup, right?
All I’ve ever wanted is my happily ever after, and now I live with a serial hookup artist who never planned on settling down.
But then, why is Elliott so good to me? He takes me on dates, makes me laugh, and touches me like I’m someone to cherish. He’s shown me I’m a sucker for praise, and lucky for me, he loves giving it to me. Our marriage is playing tricks on my heart because suddenly I’m wishing my happy ending can be with the husband who doesn’t think love is for him.
REVIEW:
The Romantic is a cute, opposites attract, wake-up married story with characters I enjoyed, but overall, this book just didn’t work for me. I’ll talk about what I did like first.
We know Parker as The Romantic guy among the four friends of The Vers queer podcast. He’s a serial bad-dater (does that make sense?) who longs for a long term relationship with a the fairy tale ending with his true love. He meets Elliott at a bar. After hitting it off, Parker changes his mind and rejects Elliott, determining he’s just a player.
After a year of trying unsuccessfully to woo Parker, they run into each other at a bar in Las Vegas. Elliott has never had a boyfriend and doesn’t want one now, but they wind up getting married at an Elvis chapel while smashed. In the aftermath, Parker discovers that his new husband is charming and endearing; he truly cares about Parker, lavishing him with attention.
I thought the demiromantic representation was well-done and I was so pleased to see it in a book. More and more authors are exploring demisexual identities but demiromantic is still uncommon in the MM genre, perhaps because it’s misunderstood along with aromantic.
Now on to the more negative aspects. I found the book to lag; the pacing was just too slow for my taste. But the primary area I had a gripe with was Parker’s praise kink. It became monotonous and annoying because of the amount of it, not just during sex but during their daily interactions too. Elliott praised Parker all the time, calling him “good boy” way too much. It was such a turn-off for me.
This is not a bad book – far from it – it’s simply not for me or anyone else who might find the OTT praise off-putting. The plot was entertaining and the secondary characters were fun, including, of course, Declan, Corbin, and Marcus – his best friends from the podcast – plus Sebastian and Elliott’s parents. I just couldn’t get past the praise, though. If you’re a fan of Riley Hart, I encourage you to read other reviews – which are overwhelmingly positive – to balance out mine. This is largely a “me” issue.
RATING: 
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