CRAZY STUPID BROMANCE

A woman learns the father she never knew needs a kidney transplant.

Alexis Carlisle is settling into a quiet life; a few years earlier, she joined several women to reveal they had been sexually harassed by a celebrity chef. Now she owns a cat cafe in Nashville, but she is also committed to providing a safe space for other sexual assault survivors. Alexis assumes a new customer, a shy young woman named Candi, is looking for support, but it turns out Candi has a personal relationship to disclose. A DNA test for an ancestry website has identified Candi and Alexis as probable siblings. Their father has only a few months to live unless he has a kidney transplant, and Alexis is his last hope for a compatible family match. Alexis approaches her best friend, Noah Logan, for advice, but he fears she is yet again rushing in to save others before thinking about herself. Noah has been hiding his love for her for years out of respect for her traumatic past. His best friend, Mack, and the rest of the men in their book club—introduced in Bromance Book Club (2019) and Undercover Bromance (2020)—encourage Noah to tell Alexis how he feels. Along with the kidney transplant story, the book has other meaty subplots—the men of the Bromance Book Club are planning Mack’s wedding, Alexis’ business is being targeted by a neighboring merchant with a vendetta, and Noah struggles with strife in his own family. The romance is a third-string plot, and though readers will be happy to see Alexis and Noah transition from friends to lovers, the romance is disjointed and unfocused. The large, unwieldy cast of characters exists to create crises for Alexis and Noah to solve or offer advice on how they can get back together.

Numerous subplots overwhelm a romance between friends.