Homecoming King by Penny Reid

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Title: Homecoming King
Author: Penny Reid
Series: Three Kings #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: December 14, 2021
Format: eARC
Pages: 387
Genres: Contemporary, Holiday, Romance
Source: Social Butterfly PR
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Rex "TW" McMurtry’s perpetual single-hood wouldn't bother him so much if all his ex-girlfriends didn't keep marrying the very next person they dated, especially when so many of those grooms are his closest friends. He may be a pro-football defensive end for the Chicago Squalls, but the press only wants to talk about how he's always a groomsman and never a groom. Rex is sick of being the guy before the husband, and he’s most definitely sick of being the best man at all their weddings.

Bartender Abigail McNerny is the gal-pal, the wing-woman, the she-BFF. She's dated. Once. And once was more than enough. Privy to all the sad stories of her customers, ‘contentment over commitment’ is her motto, and Abby is convinced no one on earth could ever entice her into a romantic relationship . . . except that one guy she’s loved since preschool.

The guy who just walked into her bar.

The guy who doesn’t recognize her.

The guy who is drunk and needs a ride home.

The guy who has a proposition she should definitely refuse.

My Review:

I received a free copy through Social Butterfly PR in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

4.5 stars — This review is going to be a bit all over the place…it happens sometimes, and sometimes it’s just too hard to wrangle my brain in order, so I leave it.

Abby delighted me.  She was wonderfully quirky and odd.

I wish this story had been dual POV, but I suppose I can understand that the story was not built for dual POV.  I just prefer Ms. Reid’s dual POV books, because her heroes are…complicated and enigmatic.

Rex and Abby totally had a bit of a Quinn and Janie feel (from Neanderthal Seeks Human).  She was super odd, he was enthralled, she had no idea, there was some unreliable narratorness because of that.  He gets described with words like menacing on occasion, and Lenore gets confused about what that’s supposed to look like, and it fucks with her enjoying the romance… *shrugs*

Abby was sweet, a bit naive, and definitely damaged.  She had a big heart though, I loved the way she couldn’t help but want to help the ones she loved, including Rex.  Definite girl crush on her, she had me laughing so many times with her quirky sense of humour, and her wonderful awkwardness that was so easy to connect with.

As might be obvious from the above, Rex was a bit confusing.  The parts of him I loved, I LOVED.  But I didn’t quite get all of who he was.  I did feel like we got to see his vulnerabilities a bit more than, say, Quinn (from NSH).

They were pretty adorable together.  They had this fun chemistry that blew up from friendship to more.  Obviously there was a lot of crush feelings on Abby’s side, but you could tell, even from her POV, that he had caught the feels.  Which could make it frustrating when she kept denying it to herself.  I appreciated that while she saw so much more of him than most people, she still didn’t know all of him and he surprised her.

The Christmas aspect wasn’t as strong as I was expecting necessarily, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment at all.

I’m really looking forward to the other two books in this series, and it’s going to be so hard to wait.  I hope it’s Cyrus next, since he’s the one we got to get to know.

Basically, this book was awesomesauce, and the only reason I’m rounding down instead of up is because I was a bit kerfuffled by the characters at times.