Role Playing by Cathy Yardley [Review]

Role Playing by Cathy Yardley
Format: ebook
Source: purchased
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: October 9, 2023

Purchase links: Paperback | Kindle

Cathy Yardley
| Website | Amazon |

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Maggie is an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit. But when her college-aged son makes her a deal—he’ll be more social if she does the same—she can’t refuse. She joins a new online gaming guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So that nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch.

Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an emotional outlet from his family drama caring for his aging mother while his brother plays house with Aiden’s ex-fiancée.

Bogwitch and Otter become fast virtual friends, but there’s a catch. Bogwitch thinks Otter is a college student. Otter assumes Bogwitch is an octogenarian.

When they finally meet face to face—after a rocky, shocking start—the unlikely pair of sunshine and stormy personalities grow tentatively closer. But Maggie’s previous relationships have left her bitter, and Aiden’s got a complicated past of his own.

Everything’s easier online. Can they make it work in real life?

Thoughts on Role Playing: Gloriously grumpy Maggie is content with her life. Kind of. Sure, she doesn't like interacting with people and she's has to basically force herself to go out into public for necessities (like groceries), but she's good. She's fine. Everything's great. Then she makes a deal with her son to put herself out there more and it's pretty much torture. Until she finds her person. Someone who gets her. Someone who isn't put off by her spiky personality. Sure, maybe they only know one another online, but it's still interacting and they definitely build a solid friendship.

Then they meet in real life and HAHAHA. All those preconceived notions they had about one another turn out to be WAY OFF and HOO-BOY. Aiden isn't Maggie's son's age and Maggie isn't Aiden's mother's age and THEY SPARK NICELY OFF ONE ANOTHER. Maggie helps Aiden put a name to some of the things he's dealing with and Aiden is a rock Maggie can lean on when she needs it. His sweetness blunts some of her sharper edges and she helps him put his foot down when he needs to.

Oh, and Maggie is a BEAST when someone she cares about is being treated badly. She'd probably burn down the world if Aiden needed her to and I appreciate that SO MUCH. That said, Kit sharing things about Maggie with his father (Maggie's ex) made me a wee bit angry. While Maggie and Kit hashed that out, I was VERY glad Maggie had Aiden at her back because NO SIR, NOT COOL.

Some frank, enlightening talk Aiden very much needed to hear, a couple of busy-body women who were terrible at reading the room (or just didn't care enough to not cause trouble), a tense wedding with a NICE ending, a man who let guilt allow others to treat him not as nicely as they should have, and a lady who would burn brighter (and more destructively) than a supernova for her person. No lie, I have serious grumpy/sunshine love!