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Gavin Scott is the second baseman for the Nashville Legends pro baseball team and his marriage is in trouble. He recently discovered that his wife Thea has faked having orgasms with him, all but one, and he didn’t handle it well. Not realizing this was just a symptom of bigger problems, Gavin’s reaction was the proverbial straw that broke their fragile relationship. Now he’s desperate to get his family back and when he’s approached by some of his biggest alpha team members about joining their secret book club, he’s skeptical.

I wanted this book the moment I heard about it and I knew I wanted it on audio. Best decisions ever because I loved both. This book club was all about reading romance novels to learn more about what women want and applying that knowledge. To say Gavin was leery is an understatement but he’s given a regency romance novel as his guide. There are too many laugh-out-loud moments to recount and they help balance the more serious moments devoted to the very real marital issues Gavin and Thea shoulder.

I loved this book and one surprise element was the inclusion of whole passages from the regency novel, performed by Maxwell Caulfield, which linked clearly to Gavin’s next steps. As the story is told primarily from Gavin’s point of view, it was insightful to get a male’s point of view. We also get Thea’s regularly, which underscored that both of them contributed to the sad state of their marriage. This was the fun I was looking for and the story of substance I didn’t expect. I hadn’t heard Andrew Eiden before but he was excellent as Gavin. Loved listening to this so much that I finished it in a day. Bravo that this is now a series, one with so much fertile material for future stories I don’t want it to end anytime soon.

(Thanks to Penguin Random House Audio for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.)