Reviewer: Holly Man Hands (Man Hands, #1) by Sarina Bowen, Tanya Eby
Series: Man Hands #1
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: December 11th 2017
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 180
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Series Rating:
He puts the "screw" in screwball comedy...
BRYNN
At thirty-four, I’m reeling from a divorce. I don’t want to party or try to move on. I just want to stay home and post a new recipe on my blog: Brynn’s Dips and Balls.
But my friends aren’t having it. Get out there again, they say. It will be fun, they say. I’m still taking a hard pass.
Free designer cocktails, they say. And that’s a game-changer.
Too bad my ex shows up with his new arm candy. That’s when I lose my mind. But when my besties dare me to leap on the first single man I see, they don't expect me to actually go through with it.
TOM
All I need right now is some peace and quiet while my home renovation TV show is on hiatus. But when a curvy woman in a red wrap dress charges me like she’s a gymnast about to mount my high bar, all I can do is brace myself and catch her. What follows is the hottest experience of my adult life.
I want a repeat, but my flying Cinderella disappears immediately afterward. She doesn’t leave a glass slipper, either—just a pair of panties with chocolate bunnies printed on them.
But I will find her.
Sarina Bowen is a favorite of mine. I always enjoy her books, especially when she partners up with others. I didn’t connect with this one as much, though. There were some really funny parts, and I liked both Bryn and Tom, but it wasn’t as engaging as previous reads.
Bryn is in a rough place. The ink is barely dry on her divorce, and thanks to her ex-father-in-law, she’s also out of a job. She writes a food blog, but it isn’t paying the bills. When her two best friends drag her out to a swanky party, it’s the last things she wants. But they have designer cocktails and the house is beautiful, so….
Things are going great until she spies her ex with a younger, slimmer version of herself wrapped around him. Bryn loses her mind. Rather than running, her friends talk her into jumping the first man she sees, and no one is more surprised than Bryn herself when she actually does it.
Tom is feeling pretty low himself. The last season of his home improvement show didn’t end well and he’s trying to keep a low-profile while he’s on hiatus. Having a sexy, curvy woman jump him – literally – isn’t what he had in mind, but he can’t deny she’s sexy as hell. They have an amazingly sexy encounter and then..poof. She disappeared. Now Tom can’t think about anything else. Too bad things don’t go quite the way he imagined when he finally tracks her down again.
This novel is quite a bit more campy than other books by Bowen. The humor felt forced some of the time, and the situations were all really over-the-top. Plus, Bryn cried a lot. Like, All.The.Time. She showed quite a bit of growth over the course of the novel, but I couldn’t help but feel like she needed to take some time to be alone before jumping onto into another guy relationship. I really liked Tom and how down-to-earth he was despite being a “celebrity”, but the way his “situation” from the previous season of his show was drawn out was kind of frustrating. I’d have preferred to just know why he was feeling the way he was, rather than been teased by it.
Although some of the comedy was over-the-top, I enjoyed the quiet moments between Tom and Bryn. Tom was really down-to-earth and I think he centered Bryn a bit. I liked them together.
If you’re looking for a sweet contemporary romp, this book is for you.
3.5 out of 5
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