Beauty and the Beefcake by Pippa Grant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are two kinds of women in the world – those I can bang, and those I can’t.
My teammate’s sister?
She’s a can’t.
I moved in with her to protect her from a nasty ex, not to be the next guy in line.
She’s the brains.
I’m the brawn.
She’s the fruit.
I’m the sausage.
She talks too much.
I don’t talk at all, if I don’t have to.
Should be easy to resist her.
But every minute I spend with Felicity is another minute she gets under my skin. She makes me feel like something more than a dumb puckhead with a big Zamboni pony. And it’s getting harder to remember why I need to keep my hands to myself.

Beauty and the Beefcake is a vegan-friendly standalone romantic comedy featuring a hockey player whose vocabulary is the only thing smaller than a hockey puck, a book smart but aimless ventriloquist with too many voices in her head, a dilapidated old house that may or may not be haunted, and no cheating or cliffhangers.

Beauty and the Beast

Weird girl/Silent guy!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙❤️💜💚
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌍
Character development: 😊😘😟
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Felicity – she is very intelligent with more than a few college degrees, none of the previous have worked out for her. Her most recent degree is in physical therapy. Her brother Nick is an NHL hockey player for the Copper Valley Thrusters. She has grown up around hockey and hockey players, and she really wants to get a job with the Thrusters as a PTA. She has never really fit in and always feels like an outsider. She does ventriloquism because she thinks it is fun and to vent her frustrations with her life.

The Hero: Ares – twin brother to Zeus from The Pilot and the Puck-Up. Ares is seen as the dumb twin. He rarely speaks and when he does, he uses as few words as possible. He likes to text people with only gifs, and they have to determine what the gifs mean. His brother is very good at decoding his gif texts. Like Zeus, Ares is around 7 feet tall and nearly half as wide. He is a mountain of a man, and it is all muscle. He is one of the stars of the professional hockey team the Copper Valley Thrusters.

The Story: I have to admit, I loved Ares in the previous books, especially Royally Pucked where he was roommates with Manning. When Manning’s prissy fiancee comes to the penthouse with her emotional support monkey Loki; Ares says, “poor monkey” and the monkey immediately fell in love with Ares and wouldn’t go back to his owner. In Zeus’ book, we heard from Zeus that though many people think Ares is dumb due to the fact that he doesn’t speak in complete sentences, Zeus knows he really is much brighter than people think.

I liked the story for the most part. Though I have to admit that Felicity is a bit of a weirdo. She thinks the ghost of her “Gammy” is haunting her house. She often switches into her odd ventriloquist voices and talks without moving her mouth, especially when she is nervous. They are odd, cartoonish voices and she has no embarrassment when she does it. Her puppets feel like real people to her, though she knows it makes her a bit crazy. This book was also a bit too much of a slow burn for me. It took them too long to get together for my liking.

This audiobook was done in dual points of view via dual narration. It was narrated by Victoria Rose and Wen Ross. Victoria Rose did a great job in the last book. At first, I didn’t like her southern accent, but it grew on me. She didn’t have an accent in this one, and I really like her voice, it sounds intelligent and is very clear. Wen Ross has a great deep voice which was perfect for Ares.

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