This is book three of the Life in Icicle Falls series.  I didn’t read the other two and do not feel like I needed to.  This book took me completely by surprise.  Most romances center around the angst of women trying to find true love.  This book centers around men!  It was very refreshing to read a story from the man’s perspective.

Jonathan Templar and his poker buddies are single, married, separated, height challenged, balding, overweight and geeky.  Not your typical romance heroes!  But they all have good hearts and no knowledge on how to get the love of their lives, or keep the loves of their lives.

The main character of this book is Jonathan who has been in love with his childhood neighbor his whole life.  She only sees him as her “good friend”.  Their 15 year high school reunion is coming up and he is determined to change from geeky, skinny, computer nerd, to stud-muffin he-man.  He’s also determined to learn how to talk to women and learn what they want.  His poker buddies also have their women challenges from Adam who thinks he’s in love with someone at work, to Kyle whose wife kicks him out for taking her for granted, to Vance who has known love and lost love and has quite the surprise!   Ms. Roberts deftly weaves their stories and other secondary characters around Jonathan’s.  Jonathan’s sister starts planting the seed of reading romance novels to learn about women.  They attend their local library’s book sale and Jonathan ends up buying a ton of romance novels.  He approaches reading them as if they were textbooks, highlighting passages and taking notes.  He ends up actually enjoying them!  His poker buddies accidentally come upon his new hobby and he hooks them into reading the romance novels too.  It is quite interesting, humorous and thoroughly engaging to watch these men transform.

This book will make you laugh, cry, and cheer for the underdog.  It is very well written, with great character development and scene setting.  You’ll fall in love with the Town of Icicle Falls and all its characters!