Title: Dr. Strange Beard
Author: Penny Reid
Series: Winston Brothers #5
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Chic lit, Contemporary, Contemporary romance
Dates read: 15th – 25th March 2021
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: SmartyPants Romance
Year: 2018
5th sentence, 74th page: I see your point.

Beards, brothers, and bears, oh my!
Hunches, horse races, and heartbreak

Ten years after Simone Parton broke his heart, all Roscoe Winston wants is a doughnut. He’d also like to forget her entirely, but that’s never going to happen. Roscoe remembers everything – every look, every word, every single unrequited second – and the least thing he needs is another memory of Simone.

Unfortunately, after one chance encounter, Simone keeps popping up everywhere he happens to be…

Ten years after Roscoe Winston dropped out of her life, all Simone Payton wants is to exploit him. She’d also like some answers from her former best friend about why he ghosted her, but is she never gets those answers, that’s a-okay. Simone let go of the past a long time ago. Seriously, she has. She totally, totally has. She is definitely not still thinking about Roscoe. Nope. She’s more than happy to forget he exists.

But first, she needs just one teeny-tiny favor…

As usual, I love the works of Reid. She is funny, engaging, generally awesome and just all round, a lot of fun. The fact that, yet again, Reid finds characters that are not mainstream and a little in the minority… well, it just draws you further and further into the storyline. In this case, we have a POC lead female, and a male with a seriously awesome memory… one that I’m not exactly jealous of, because I can understand how painful that would probably be for him.

Roscoe is such an absolute sweetheart. He has been throughout all of the Winston Brothers books but getting to read about him as a sweetheart from the very beginning… oh. My heart just melted. Of all of the absolutely delectable brothers, he is most definitely the sweetest. Which is lovely considering that he is also the one that is in love with his childhood best friend… and the way he goes about it? Oh, honestly, once I actually got into this book and had the time to pick it up, I just devoured the whole damn story.

Although this is a contemporary romance series, Darrell Winston is a scary, horrible villain. He is just… so damn evil. And probably because he is also believable… he is also one of those villains that seriously give me the heebie jeebies. So, having a story that much more heavily featured him in the present (for the first four books he’s in jail) was… awesome. And horrible. It just made this story all that much more difficult to put down. Plus, it also is a great story point and methodology to pull Simone into the tale and the world of the Winston’s again.

Simone and Roscoe are a great couple. One that you fall in love with from the very first moment. I mean, all of the Reid couples are ones that you are pulling for from the beginning. But something about these two… it’s just wonderful. I love the stories about those who grew together as friends and become lovers. There is something just… adorable and impossible to forget about such a story line. There is a horrible cliché about falling in love with your best friend. One that is so completely true – and Roscoe and Simone definitely work with this cliché perfectly.

Not only does this story hit all of my happy points for diversity and romance. But it also helps to kind of round out the story with Darrell, who hovers throughout all of the tales. And it sets things up for the next two books – Billy’s story. I’m not exactly jumping to read Beard With Me because I know that it’s probably going to break my heart. But then, the other part of me… just can’t wait.

<- Beard in Hiding

Beard with Me ->

Image source: Bookdepository