I usually prefer middle grade, young adult and select new adult and adult books that are not about romance. I am not a lovey-dovey person and I would rather not read detailed sex scenes so I generally avoid books I know will be focused on romance and sex. However, I saw the cover of this book and could not help but want to read it. This was a cover buy and a cover read and I am okay with that.
Title: Truth or Beard
Author: Penny Reid
Genre: Contemporary – Romance
Age Classification: New Adult
Publisher: Caped Publishing
Format: E-book
Release: July 21, 2015
The story begins with a sexy Gandalf, a case of mistaken identity, a broken down car and a game of truth or dare with some of the bearded Winston brothers.
Beau and Duane Winston are identical twins in a family of many brothers, however, for this book, Duane is our leading man. He is a tall, strong, redhead/bearded mechanic at a family owned auto shop who loves racing in his spare time. Duane also has a massive crush with somewhat unrealistic relationship goals for a girl named Jessica James.
Jessica James is the daughter of the town’s sheriff, the sister of one of the deputies and the local high school’s math teacher. Unsurprisingly, she is described as being incredibly attractive and yet strangely still single at twenty-two. Part of the reason is her wanderlust which has her wanting to leave town and travel the world as soon as she has the money to do so. The other reason is her obsessive “he is my hero” style crush on Beau Winston.
At a Halloween party, to which Jessica goes dressed as sexy Gandalf, Jessica mistakes Duane for Beau and basically lives out one of her Beau fantasies. Jessica’s real-life-fantasy moment is shattered when Beau comes looking for Duane and gives away the identity of the Winston brother Jessica had just been making out with. Now Jessica has the impossible decision of what she is going to do about her now very confused feelings and Duane has the impossible decision of how to get his happily ever after with his dream girl when what she wants most is to leave.
There are romance and passion and scenes that sometimes went too far for my taste, but I liked that Duane was respectful in most of these situations. Other than that, the romance storyline was enjoyable.
There were two major non-romance plot points that I need to mention – Jessica’s Aunt and Iron Wraiths biker club. Both of these elements felt like they were only included to add something more to the story. Sure, the plot surrounding Jessica’s Aunt is great, I can see how the Iron Wraiths work in the story and these two plot points seem to be related to each other, but these type of scenarios seem to pop up in every romance-ish novel I have read. I would have loved to read something different that had me thinking “wow” instead of “eh, predictable”. This on its own was enough for me to deduct a star.
The only other thing that sort of irked me is the split point-of-view. We see both Jessica’s and Duane’s view of events and while there is little recapping, which I appreciate, it became a little tiring reading both of their negative thoughts regarding their relationship and other life events. Other than that small complaint, the writing style was easy to read and an enjoyable e-book to read during a few lunch breaks.
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Jessica’s situation at the start of the novel is fairly relatable for me because I would love to travel and live abroad, but there are people and things in the little small town where I live that I can not see myself leaving for long periods of time. However, I do not have some sexy mechanic practically begging me to spend my life with him so that element is not relatable.
Have you seen any of the books in this series before?
Have you read any of them?
What is your favourite romance novel?
Let me know below or on my Goodreads review.
Until next time bibliophiles!
Amy x
Zany Bibliophile 
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