Well, hell, man. I had originally planned on writing a post about the MM romance rabbit hole that I’ve fallen down. Don’t get me wrong, I assure you that I am, indeed, down the rabbit hole. I’ve fallen, landed, redecorated, set up a nice living space and have no immediate plans to leave anytime soon. But then Lauren Blakely had to come along and written a book that’s so stunning in it’s simplicity that I had to spend this post telling you all about it. Just a warning, this book review might be a little more spoilery than usual.

Let’s all take a moment and break the age old rule of judging a book by its cover. Wouldn’t you agree that A Guy Walks into my Bar by Lauren Blakely is giving 10 Things I Hate about You or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? Also, what’s up with the number 10? Anyway. Focus. Lauren tells the story of two men: Dean Collins, the owner of a London bar, The Magpie, and James Fitzpatrick, the top defenseman in the NHL, playing for vague New York NHL team.

Fitz, as his friends call him, is in London with one of his sisters, Emma, who is starting art school; her long time dream. Fitz is getting Emma settled at school and enjoying his last days of freedom before he “locks it down” for training camp. He and his teammates agreed to a pact during training and pre-season, that they would avoid all hookups until the season started. All romance readers know that this is a formula for a disaster though, right? Pacts will be broken. Love with be fallen into, etc etc.

One night, Fitz walks into Dean’s bar and it’s on like donkey kong. After they get over themselves, which, thank the romance goddesses, doesn’t take too long, Fitz and Dean start spending time together getting to know each other and, yes, getting to KNOW each other. The feel of this book is very Before Sunset, have you see that movie with Ethan Hawke (swoon) and Julie Delphy? What I mean by that is the story hyper focuses on two characters for most of the story. There’s a driving plot with some reflection, but most of the time, we’re reading about two people, progressing their relationship in real time. This works very well with the idea that they only have about five days to meet, resist, accept, fall in lust, then like, then love. And they fall hard. But focusing on the two characters makes it seem more realistic, like we can’t help, but hang on through space and time, and believe that you can feel so deeply for another person after mere days.

One other element of the book that I like is that Blakely doesn’t stop the story at them falling in love, then we see an epilogue of them getting married and having children. I think this format is why some readers skip the epilogue in books. Instead, Blakely finishes the story. We get to see what happens after, within the meat of the book. We still have SO MUCH story to go after they fall in love.

There’s so much more to be said about being able to really hear the accents, the sounds of the landscapes, and picture the settings. Blakely subtly makes all of that come to life. All in all, highly recommend this one. I gave it 4.5/5 stars.

Now. I’m finishing this book review while I’m 83% into another MM romance that I knew going in was going to shatter me, but I’m a masochist, so here we are. I’m deep in the hurt right now, but as soon as that one is done, you better believe I will be posting that book review. Sorry for the minimal posts this week. I’ve been trying to take my sorry ass back to the stupid gym for my stupid mental health, which means that I have less time for writing. I’ll try to figure out a better time balance for all of this because I love posting here…even if literally no one reads it.

Until then…peace out!