Roll for Romance by Lenora Woods

Roll for Romance by Lenora Woods
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell for providing me with advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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When Sadie Brooks unexpectedly loses her marketing job, she flees New York City to spend the summer with her best friend in small-town Texas, where joining his Dungeons & Dragons campaign is the perfect distraction while she plans her next steps.

In the game, she becomes Jaylie, a powerful human cleric blessed by the Goddess of Luck. But in real life, Sadie believes her luck has run out—until she meets Noah Walker, the outgoing bartender roped into joining their party as Loren, an adventurous and charismatic lute-strumming elf. Just as Jaylie finds herself succumbing to the bard’s charms over the course of their party’s travels, Sadie also begins to fall under Noah’s spell.

As their relationship progresses in both worlds, Sadie wonders if what they have might last beyond the game. But like his traveling bard character, Noah never stays in one place for long. When a new opportunity arises in New York, Sadie must face the truth about why she lost her job in the first place—and whether she and Noah have found something in Texas worth staying for. Torn between her career dreams in the city and the exciting uncertainty of a new adventure, she will have no choice but to roll the dice.
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This book is unlike anything that I have ever read, and I really enjoyed how different it was. I am not a D&D player, but I am definitely a fan of the nerdy side of things, so the premise of this book was attractive to me. And I immediately loved the two worlds that Woods created in her book and the characters that inhabited them.

That said, the book did get a bit tedious for me in the middle, specifically in the fantasy sequence, but that may have been because of my lack of experience with the D&D and role playing universe. I found myself skimming some of those sections to get back to the reality timeline. However, they were beautifully written.

One of my favorite tropes is found family, and this was heavily featured in this book, so I really enjoyed that aspect of it. I also loved Sadie's journey as she is forced to really consider what it is she wants out of life and what she is willing to do to get it. We have all been at that crossroads before, and Woods writes about that indecision well.

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