NetGalley Review: Taking Initiative by Elle M. Stewart

Hey all, Sam here.

Were you expecting a tabletop game related post today because it’s the first day of Gen Con? Because that is absolutely what you are getting…because I absolutely love books that incorporate tabletop games (whether that’s TTRPGs or any sort of board game/card game/dice game/etc), and there are more and more coming out, which I love.

I’m also writing a TTRPG centered contemporary romance/fantasy hybrid novel right now. It is a slightly fictionalized version of my real life romance with my husband, and the book bounces back and forth between the out of game relationship (hence the contemporary romance genre) and the in-game adventure (epic fantasy genre). I’m honestly having a blast writing the book, and hopefully in the next year or so I can have actual news to share about releasing this book to the world.

In the meantime, I have other authors’ books to hype up. This is a relatively new release (came out at the end of June), and I had originally planned for this book review post to come out back in June, and then I completely dropped the ball and forgot to actually write down my thoughts and feelings.

I’m fixing that now….so happy birthday to me, and enjoy this geeky book review. Let’s get started.

After having her heart broken, Jo Rainier is eager to start fresh in a new town in Kansas. When she walks into her local library’s first-ever game night, she expects to roll some dice and maybe even make some Monsters & Mythology friends. But instead of finding a friendly group of gamers, she stumbles upon a gorgeous librarian seriously in over his head.

Felix Navarro is desperate to save his job so he can take care of his aging grandfather. He hopes a game night will boost the library’s patron numbers-and its budget too. The only problem? He’s a buttoned-up pragmatist who’s never roleplayed a day in his life. Luckily for Felix, Jo is an experienced MnM Game Master, and she’s willing to teach him… especially if that means time alone together.

As they gather at the gaming table, Jo uncovers Felix’s soft heart (not to mention his killer forearms), and Felix finds himself falling hard and fast for Jo’s charm, wit, and creative mind. The spark between them grows into a flame when they wind up sharing the only available hotel room at an MnM convention. But back home, not everything is fun and games. As their connection deepens, old wounds left by Jo’s toxic ex begin to surface, and Felix’s earnest affection suddenly feels too good to be true. If they want to create a real romance amidst a world of fantasy, Jo and Felix will have to roll the dice and take a chance on love.

My Thoughts

Rating: 5 stars

I’m going to start with my tiny criticism of this story, which did not alter my overall rating of the story, but I feel like I have to at least mention in this review….the hotels and restaurants during the trip to the MnM convention are all made up. So, the convention takes place in Indianapolis…coincidentally where I will be for Gen Con at the time this post goes live (which is a very similar convention experience, although Gen Con is a real convention that runs the whole spectrum of tabletop games, while the MnM convention is more focused on Monsters & Mythology. Obviously my geeky little self has to compare the two con experiences, and I know the hotels and restaurants in the area around the convention center….and it would have been so simple for author Elle M. Stewart to do just a few minutes of research and find actual hotels and restaurants in the area rather than having to create them. Overall, yes, it’s not that big of a deal…and yet, it bothered me.

Other than that….I really enjoyed this book. It was cute and geeky and fun and yes, emotional. And it did not take long at all to get attached to both Jo and Felix (and their friends and family that also make appearances in the book).

I understood both of our main characters because of my own lived experience. I am a TTRPG lover and a game master myself, much like Jo, and I throw so much of my heart and my time into my games, because I love the worlds and the stories and crafting these collaborative adventures with the others at the table.

But, like Felix, I am also a librarian (by education if not in practice). I have a MLIS, and if I were working in a library, I would definitely be setting up tabletop nights, whether hosting a TTRPG or just a variety of other tabletop games. Felix needing to learn the game rules and mechanics and everything was a fun time, and was a great way to bring our two protagonists together. Got to love that forced proximity connection time.

This story was a wonderful roller coaster, with my feelings all over the place. I felt the growing feelings and tension between Jo and Felix, and I also definitely felt the lingering effects of leaving behind a toxic relationship (mine was friendship, not romantic, but still) and the echoes of that that surface when venturing out into new relationships. There were beautiful and tender moments and heightened emotionally charged moments.

I loved the side characters too (even though now, almost two months after reading the book, I can’t tell you any of their names), and I definitely loved seeing the wonderful geeky folks come together in support of MnM, the library, and a place of community and acceptance and belonging.

This is definitely a book that I am happy to have in my personal collection, and one that I will probably recommend a great deal over the years. Plus I now am keeping an eye on future books from Elle M. Stewart, and honestly kind of hoping for other stories with these characters (like interconnected stories that follow different friends and their own adventures).

All right, well that is all from me for today. I obviously can’t say anything about my time at Gen Con because I wrote this post before leaving my house for the convention, but I will have a convention wrap-up post probably some time next week. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.