Score: 5/5 Bookmarks

Steam rating: 🍆🍆🍆🍆 /5

Thank you to Avon Books for gifting me a review copy of Take a Hint Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert.

Talia is an auto-buy author for me now and I love her writing style and her vulnerable but strong, real-feeling characters. Plus, did you know she’s not even 25 and she’s already published 17 novels, with more in the works! She’s kind of amazing.

Anyway, on to the book. This is the second book in the Brown Sisters Series, with the first being Get a Life, Chloe Brown (which I also loved). It is jam-packed with witty dialogue (both spoken and internal), which I find extra amusing because I once read Talia saying how she doesn’t think she’s a funny person, but she sure knows how to write books that will make you spit tea out your nose.

Like most of her books the characters in Take a Hint Dani Brown also have some pretty heavy situations, emotions, and baggage to work through, but those things are handled in a way that will tug at your heartstrings while also making you feel like the shit things in life are manageable, and we’re all stronger than we realize.

Our leading lady, Danika Brown, gets trapped in an elevator at work during an emergency drill and is rescued by her friend, Zafir Ansari, who works security in the building. The rescue is caught on video and ends up going viral. Zaf has a charity he runs on the side and when the video ends up being good for donations and press, the two decide to fake date for a month to keep the attention going. What could possibly go wrong?!

Anyway, no spoilers, except to say that this book has some seriously steamy parts…possibly even more so than Chloe’s book. Also, full disclosure, I don’t love all of the words used to describe body parts in this book and will warn you that the c-word is used a few times, in case you’re sensitive to that sort of language.

But what can I say, I otherwise loved every minute of it and am already dying to get my hands on the third book in the series, about the youngest sister—Act Your Age, Eve Brown.

I read part of this book and then as soon as the audio was available I switched over to the audiobook because I knew that Ione Butler’s narration would be amazing…and it was. She can really bring a character to life in your head, help you get completely immersed in the story, and I just love her voice. If you’d like a copy of the audiobook, click here. Otherwise, click the button below to get a physical copy.

Synopsis:

Talia Hibbert returns with another charming romantic comedy about a young woman who agrees to fake date her friend after a video of him “rescuing” her from their office building goes viral...

Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits—someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.

When brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and ex-rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Now half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae—and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out, his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse?

Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf’s secretly a hopeless romantic—and he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his... um, thighs.

Suddenly, the easy lay Dani dreamed of is more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?