Take a Hint, Dani Brown
(The Brown Sisters #2)
Talia Hibbert
Release: June 23, 2020
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ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley
Talia Hibbert returns with another charming romantic comedy about a young woman who agrees to fake date her friend after a video of him “rescuing” her from their office building goes viral...Review:
Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits—someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.
When brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and ex-rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Now half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae—and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out, his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse?
Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf’s secretly a hopeless romantic—and he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his... um, thighs.
Suddenly, the easy lay Dani dreamed of is more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?
Take a Hint, Dani Brown is a Friends to Lovers, Fake Dating Romance set in the worlds of academia and professional sports. Dani is a literature professor and PhD candidate and the hero Zafir is a retired rugby player who works as a security guard at her university and runs a non-profit on the side. They have a flirty friendship going until a photo of him rescuing her goes viral and the world assumes they're a couple.
Going viral seems to be a popular theme in Romance this year. I can't help but compare Take a Hint, Dani Brown to the latest in Alisha Rai's Modern Love series, Girl Gone Viral. (See my review here.) My brain just keeps falling down a #CafeBae vs #DrRugbae rabbit hole. In both cases I didn't love the second book in the series quite as much as the first. While Dani is funny, her humor is always a deflection so you can't really laugh with her. That, along with the themes of grief, anxiety and toxic relationships made this book feel not as light as the previous one.
I think the fact that the conflict is all internal, there's no action and the characters never go anywhere, (Okay that's an exaggeration, but still.) also adds to that heaviness. The obstacles in their relationship are his reluctance to acknowledge his past and hers to acknowledge her feelings. Both characters are stunted, but in opposite ways. Dani is all intellect and Zaf is all emotion.
The pairing of a closed off heroine with an emotional, HEA-loving hero is a reversal of expected gender roles, but it's far from the only one. The book challenges gender roles in lots of not-at-all subtle ways. It's literally both characters' job to call out misogyny and toxic masculinity, hers in her classes and his with the boys he mentors. The message is obvious, but it never felt heavy handed.
While I enjoyed Dani Brown and I continue to call Talia Hibbert one of my favorite Romance authors, I just didn't love this book. The first in the series, Get a Life, Chloe Brown, about Dani's sister was one of my favorites of 2019 and I think it had my expectations set too high. Dani just couldn't quite fill her big sister's shoes.
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