Love Across the Tabletop
by Kait Disney-Leugers
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f
Blurb:
Will love be a critical success or an untimely end to the campaign?Mika Levenberg is over relationships. After her ex-girlfriend cheats on her, all Mika wants to do is make good food and play the tabletop role-playing game Bargains & Battles with her friends every week.
Ash Aguila is new to Washington DC. After escaping an abusive relationship, he’s looking to start over in the Capitol and try to rebuild himself. When his cousin invites him to play a game called Battles & Bargains, Ash reluctantly agrees to try something new. At least he can meet some new people.
When he meets Mika, he discovers that passion can spark across the tabletop. Will Mika and Ash take a chance and roll the dice on love?
My Review
I received a free copy from the author through Booksprout and voluntarily reviewed it.
This one caught my eye when I saw it was about an couple meeting over a tabletop roleplaying game. I’ve played tabletop roleplaying games myself in the past and was excited to read a book set around a roleplaying game. I enjoyed the premise as much as I had hoped, it was fun to have the tabletop roleplaying game be such an important part of the characters life and it made for an unique first meeting.
I really enjoyed this book, both Mika and Ash were great characters and I enjoyed reading about them. I also liked their dynamic and seeing them interact together. Mika is a very bubbly character where Ash is more shy and quiet. I enjoyed seeing them grow closer and also seeing the whole friend group and how they interact and play B&B, the tabletop roleplaying game they play in this book.
It is a pretty slow burn romance and I liked how Mika and Ash became great friends before it turning into romance even though there was mutual attraction from the start. I liked seeing them give a relationship a try and thought they were great together. I also appreciated how very realistic and in character the first sex scene was, the rest were a bit less to my taste and felt more typical from what I expect in a romance book.
I liked the roleplaying theme in this book. I also liked seeing the type of jobs Mika and Ash had as it’s not something you often see in books. I would’ve liked to see a bit more of where they both go with their dreams regarding their jobs as that was only touched upon. Both characters have a past and some struggles with past relationships and Ash actually is just out of an abusive relationship. That part was tough to read about at times with how Ash’s ex treated him, but I thought the author did handled the topic well and showed how Ash was doing now and going to therapy to help him recover. I also liked reading about their friends from Marco, Stella and Nico who complete their B&B tabletop roleplaying group to Lena whose Marco’s wife, then there is Mika’s family and some new friends Ash makes as well. All the side characters had their own lives and personalities as well and were well written. I liked reading about them.
I did really struggle with the last 25% or so though. There is some conflict and I just did not like how it was handled. I really don’t like the third act breakup or obligatory breakup scene as I often call them and this one was a good example of why I don’t like them. The whole thing felt very forced and it felt out of character to me how they both acted. It just made me feel uncomfortable and sad and I wanted to get through it as fast as I could. It also bothered me how much groveling Ash had to do and ofcourse only the guy had to grovel. Sure he was mostly at fault, but I thought Mika could’ve handled things better as well. I am not a big fan of the groveling trope, but I know it’s a thing in romance. I just didn’t like this whole section. Then there was the whole political plot line, which felt like it came a bit out of nowhere and felt solely to give the characters something to do. It just felt off. And the ending lacked the right tone for me, it just left me feeling a bit disappointed as the rest of the book had been so good.
To summarize: I really enjoyed this book! The tabletop roleplaying theme was a fun one and I liked reading about it. The romance was great and I liked seeing Mika and Ash became friends and then later become a couple. I liked reading about them, their jobs and lives and then seeing them together. I liked their dynamic and liked how it’s the guy here who is the shy one where the girl is the more outgoing, flirty and bubbly type. The side characters all have their own personalities and lives as well and I enjoyed reading about them. It could be tough to read about Ash’ abusive relationship at times, but I thought the topic was handled well and it was good to see how he’s doing now and be in therapy. The only thing that really bothered me is the last 25% or so and the third act breakup, to me it felt forced and out-of-character. The groveling felt overdone and trope-y. And I didn’t like how that whole part was handled from how it started to the aftermath or reconciliation. It just left me sad the ending didn’t end on a high note for me as the rest of the book was so good. Overall I definitely recommend this to fans of romance books or those who like tabletop roleplaying games.
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