Truth or Beard (Winston Brothers, #1)
Penny Reid
Beards, brothers, and bikers! Oh my! Identical twins Beau and Duane Winston might share the same devastatingly handsome face, but where Beau is outgoing and sociable, Duane is broody and reserved. This is why Jessica James, recent college graduate and perpetual level-headed good girl, has been in naïve and unhealthy infatuation with Beau Winston for most of her life. His friendly smiles make her tongue-tied and weak-kneed, and she’s never been able to move beyond her childhood crush. Whereas Duane and Jessica have always been adversaries. She can’t stand him, and she’s pretty sure he can’t stand the sight of her… But after a case of mistaken identity, Jessica finds herself in a massive confusion kerfuffle. Jessica James has spent her whole life paralyzed by the fantasy of Beau and her assumptions of Duane’s disdain; therefore she’s unprepared for the reality that is Duane’s insatiable interest, as well as his hot hands and hot mouth and hotter looks. Not helping Jessica’s muddled mind and good girl sensibilities, Duane seems to have gotten himself in trouble with the local biker gang, the Iron Order. Certainly, Beau’s magic spell is broken. Yet when Jessica finds herself drawn to the man who was always her adversary, now more dangerous than ever, how much of her level-head heart is she willing to risk?
If chapter one was this good, I seriously can't wait to dive into the rest of the book! It’s already got me hooked! 🔥
0Your rating:
A Strong Start with a Few Missed Opportunities This book had a fantastic start—seriously, that first chapter was amazing. But after that, it started to taper off for me. I did enjoy that the story takes place while Ash is back in Chicago from Beauty and the Mustache, as I’d been curious about what was happening with her brothers during that time. Duane and Jessica made a great pair; you could really see Jessica putting in the effort to make things work, and Duane’s romantic side truly shone as he focused on what was best for her. My biggest issue, though, was that some heavy topics, like Jessica learning the truth about her family, felt a bit glossed over. There were a few loose ends, but hopefully, they’ll be addressed in later books in the series. Overall, I wanted to love this book as much as I loved the opening, but it didn’t quite maintain that same momentum. It’s still worth a read, especially for fans of the series, but I wish it had fully delivered on its initial promise.
0Started reading this while travelling home from Tucson!
It starts out great: girl mistakes twin guy (classic Romance trope) and has a steamy grope session with the "wrong" twin, they have a history and don't like each other, but as soon as we see his perspective we see that he is already in love with her and has been for years and is determined to "do this right and court her". *swoon*
Unfortunately it sort of leveled out after that. Jess talks herself into loving Duane extremely quickly, using rose colored glasses to re-write their history. So this insta-love basically cancelled out the tension that could have been super hot. Plus Jess is lusting after him, which could have been great internal struggle for her but wasn't.
There is moderately decent external struggle, between Jess's aunt/mom dying and Duane dealing with the bad guy bikers, but this wasn't really what I was wanting the conflict to be about as a romance. And the sexy scenes weren't particularly sexy to me, they started to become more 'fade to black and hint and what's happening', which was disappointing after the head-on initial approach.
Duane also seems unusually okay with being like "yep, it's totally cool with me to cut my roots and travel with you because I luuurve you".
But it's a happily ever after and a quick read.
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