Getting His Game Back
by Gia De Cadenet
Pub Date: 1/25/22
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If this wasn’t the sweetest, most vulnerable love story!

Khalil and his best friend Darius own a trendy barbershop in a Detroit neighborhood and have opened a few more shops. They are very successful and good at what they do. Khalil is French and Algerian but presents white so even though he is a huge part of his neighborhood he had to find his place.

When gorgeous Vanessa Noble, a very famous Black woman with a multimillion-dollar tech career walks into his shop to get her hair done. She isn’t too sure about having a white boy do her hair but, after a long discussion about stereotypes she just had with her female colleagues, she tries to have an open mind. Turns out he’s not the horrible white dude that she gave an example of and if that is a constant occurrence of their behavior burn it all to the ground- wtf yuck and wtf. Like I knew they were skeeze but c’mon.

Khalil can not keep his cool around her, he is so smitten. He asks her the “App Goddess” to help build out an app for their business so that he can see more of her and to keep his business growing. The close proximity definitely helped their relationship grow and I just loved the way he treated her and his communication and care for her. Though there was something holding him back. He wasn’t necessarily taking care of himself in a way. He was letting something that was not quite diagnosed go untreated and ugh 3rd act sucker punched me. We all need someone in our corner willing to sit with us and not let go and keep holding out their hand (as SJM says).

❤ We all have our own things that we keep to ourselves that we don’t feel comfortable sharing or feel like we should be stronger than. Mental health issues are real, they can be managed but they don’t go away and don’t have a miracle cure. If you need someone to chat with about anything when you are having a good day or a bad day, I am always around.

✨PSA the “cartoon” covers which is just another form of art are not fluff pieces they are real life romance books with real people who struggle. So there are issues in them. This one has talk of race and mental health. Don’t think you are opening a sweet closed door book. I have been seeing a lot of reviews and comments that these covers are deceiving. I can’t for the life of me see why, cause there’s no cleavage and bare chest? Clothed people need love too!

Thank you @penguin and @netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

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Synopsis:

“A thoroughly satisfying love story with a big, beating heart.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This book is emotional, steamy and sweet–a triple threat! De Cadenet tackles mental health, gender stereotypes, and interracial romance with care and creativity. I loved it!”–Chantel Guertin, author of Instamom

Khalil Sarda went through a rough patch last year, but now he’s nearly back to his old self. All he has to do is keep his “stuff” in the past. Real men don’t have depression and go to therapy–or, at least they don’t admit it. He’s ready to focus on his growing chain of barbershops, take care of his beloved Detroit community, and get back to being the ladies’ man his family and friends tease him for being. It’ll be easy . . . until Vanessa throws him completely off his game.

Vanessa Noble is too busy building a multimillion-dollar tech career as a Black woman before age thirty to be distracted by a relationship. Not to mention, she’s been burned before, still dealing with the lingering hurt of a past breakup. Besides, as her friends often remind her, she’ll never find a man who checks all the boxes on her famous List. Yet when she desperately needs a shape-up and happens upon one of Khalil’s barbershops, the Fade, he makes her reconsider everything. Khalil is charming, intelligent, sexy, and definitely seems like he’d treat a woman right . . . but he’s not Black.

Vanessa may be willing to take a chance on Khalil, but a part of him is frustratingly closed off, just out of her reach. Will old patterns emerge to keep them apart? Or have they both finally found a connection worth throwing away the playbook for?