Tag: pop star FMC

Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Reviews: Adriana Locke’s This Much Is True, the next Marshall Family series romance ✍🏻

professorromance

Overall Grade: A-/B+

There are two things I know: Adriana Locke can continue to write small-town romance and second-chance romance, and this reader will be content. Her latest book, This Much Is True, showcases her strengths in crafting these types of stories. She invests us in Laina and Luke’s enduring love, fraught with misunderstandings, misgivings, and feelings of inadequacy. At the core, though, Locke has written two characters who mutually respect and love each other. What this gifts her readers is a story to get lost in. As Laina stands in her authority, making choices that benefit her, you cannot help but cheer her on. She is loveable, albeit naive to her father’s management of her life. And Luke is fun-loving, but also serious. He becomes her protector and confidante, drawing them together. Locke sprinkles spice throughout their story, but it never borders on smut or detracts from their evolution. The tension of This Much Is True is mild, never devolving into anything too angsty. 

Adriana Locke’s version of romance feels like a warm blanket on a cold day. This Much Is True is a promise, a reminder that romance can be so many different things, but in the end, it leaves us filled with hope. That’s the gift Adriana Locke offers her readers with each of her stories.

In love and romance,

Professor A

new release, Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Louise Bay’s Dr. Fake Fiance ✍🏻

professorromance

Overall Grade: B

Tropes: he falls first; fake engagement; pop star FMC; golden retriever MMC

Louise Bay’s Dr. Fake Fiance is definitely my favorite story of her The Doctors series. All of the stories in these books offer FMCs and MMCs that burrow their way into your heart. However, Beau and Vivan have something a bit more magical between them. For one, at a time when Swifties have fallen hard for Taylor and Travis Kelce’s romance, Beau and Vivian’s story has a similar feel. It’s easy to love Beau in Dr. Fake Fiance. He doesn’t take life too seriously and doesn’t know that Vivian is a superstar in hiding. He is a loveable “golden retriever” of a hero. In contrast, Vivian is guarded. She’s been hurt by the machinations of her former long-time fiance and burned by the media. London provides her with the perfect cover, but Vivian and Beau’s instant chemistry makes it difficult for her to keep hiding. Louise Bay has crafted Vivan and Beau so that friendship quickly morphs into something deeper and scary for both of them. While Beau is seemingly easy-going, we recognize that his past trauma has actually impacted him more than he ever suspects, and Vivian is granted the opportunity to take control of her life. Their story arcs are interesting and engaging, and you will find yourself cheering for their happy ending. 

Add to this the cornerstone of Bay’s The Doctors series: the familial bond of Beau’s family. This is the tether between the stories, and it acts as the grounding force for the internal struggles of this series’s heroes and heroines. It does the same for Vivian and Beau, allowing them some normalcy in their chaotic world. The guidance of Beau’s parents and his brothers’ wisdom becomes the impetus for Beau to move forward. 

If your Roman Empire is currently the Taylor + Travis romance, you absolutely want to read Louise Bay’s Dr. Fake Fiance. 

In love and romance,

Professor A