The Bromance Book Club

July 22, 2019
In this heartfelt romance, a professional baseball player fights to save his failing marriage with the help of some good friends and the inspirational exploits of a fictional nobleman. When Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott’s wife, Thea, informs him not only that she wants a divorce but that she has been faking orgasms for the three years of their marriage, he’s devastated. Macho man Gavin is just desperate enough to take the advice of a secret book club made up of other athletes and powerful men who get relationship tips from romance novels. They instruct him to use a Regency romance, Courting the Countess, as a blueprint for starting over and wooing his wife properly. Gavin and Thea rekindle their relationship, one chapter at a time, while working through their individual issues. Adams (Seventh Inning Heat) weaves in humor, complex emotions, and excerpts from the motivational story itself to create a satisfying courtship. A strong supporting cast, including Gavin’s book clubmates and his tiny, adorable twin daughters, helps flesh out the Legends community. This earnest charmer is sure to win Adams new fans. Agent: Tara Gelsomino, One Track Literary.

September 15, 2019
Professional baseball player Gavin wants another chance with his wife, Thea, after she kicked him out of the house. She feels as though she's disappearing, between caring for their twin daughters on her own, and dealing with the expectations of the other team members' wives and girlfriends. Three Nashville Legend players sit Gavin down and convince him to face difficult and embarrassing truths about how he has ignored his wife's needs, including her sexual fulfillment. They reveal that they have found the perfect way to learn what women really want: read romance novels. They bring Gavin into their secret club so he can start over and successfully court his wife. There's plenty of humor in Adams' modern take on Cyrano de Bergerac, though both Gavin and Thea have to acknowledge their past mistakes and make changes before they can move forward. The supporting cast is as interesting as the struggling couple, including their precocious daughters, Thea's sister, and Gavin's clever friends. Readers will look forward to more books in the Bromance Book Club series after this promising start.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2019
A baseball player attempts to heal his marriage with the help of his team's romance-novel book club. Gavin Scott has it all--a killer baseball career, twin daughters, and a devoted wife. But when Gavin discovers that Thea has been faking it in the bedroom, he's distraught. The two have a blowup fight that ends with Gavin moving out and Thea asking for a divorce. Thea, however, has been faking it in more ways than one--even though she's painting the picture of a happy baseball wife, she's actually miserable in that role and wishes she could go back to school and pursue art. Between Gavin's busy career and their young children, he hasn't even noticed how unhappy she is, and she has no plans to tell him. When Gavin confides in his teammates that his marriage is in trouble, their advice comes from an unconventional source: romance novels, specifically Regency romances full of lords and countesses. Gavin is skeptical, but his teammates persist--the books help them understand what their wives are thinking and learn how to verbalize their feelings. Feeling desperate, Gavin decides to give them a chance, starting with a book called Courting the Countess. Surprisingly, the advice from his friends works--but what will Gavin do when he has to stop using the romance novel's words and start using his own? Adams creates a refreshingly open group of male friends who talk about emotional labor, toxic masculinity, and how pumpkin spice lattes and romance novels are mocked because women like them. They're also, however, hilariously and believably crude (case in point: a running joke involves one of Gavin's teammate's "digestive problems"). Alternating between Gavin's and Thea's points of view, Adams never paints either character as the villain, instead pointing out how both spouses' lack of communication led to their current predicament. Also included are passages from Courting the Countess, a detail sure to please historical romance fans. Gavin and Thea's story begins at such a low point that it's hard to imagine how they'll ever fall back in love, but their reconciliation is built so slowly and realistically that readers will be rooting for their happily-ever-after. A fun, sexy, and heartfelt love story that's equal parts romance and bromance.

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