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Re-Release Review! DO OVER by Serena Bell (Under One Roof #1)

Book #1 in the Under One Roof series has been re-released and is now available in ebook and paperback.

✔️ Steamy small-town romantic comedy
✔️ Under one roof
✔️ Second chances
✔️ Accidental pregnancy backstory…

Do Over re-release cover

Toe-curling? Check. Sheet-twisting? Check. But is that enough for a second chance?

Jack:
I’m pretty much as tough as they come. But when a woman comes to me in tears, I’m jelly. Scratch that—when Maddie Adams comes to me in tears, I’m jelly. That’s how we ended up making our incredible son five years ago, and that’s why I practically beg her to move in with me when she’s in a tight spot. Of course, the last time I got the chance to be the hero, I let her down, but I’m not making the same mistake twice. This time, I’m going to be the man she deserves—and then I’m going to lay every ounce of sexy on her until she lets me back into her heart.

Maddie: Jack Parker is hot, and he knows it. What he’s not is a family man, something this single mom had to learn the hard way. Still, moving into his place until I get back on my feet makes all kinds of sense. He’s an old friend. He’s, ahem, the father of my child. And let’s face it, now that I’ve just been colossally dumped, we’ve got nowhere else to go. The truth is, I never could resist Jack. Living under the same roof puts dirty thoughts in my head. And when my brilliant plan backfires, my whole body is begging for a do-over. . . .

This book was originally published under the same title in 2018. It has been lightly revised and updated.

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Review:

OMG, loved!

Do Over, the first book in Serena Bell‘s Under One Roof series, was originally published in 2018. The version I read is a re-release, so if you read it when it first came out, it might be *slightly* different from this one. A note from the author says it was “lightly revised.”

Jack and Maddie’s story is a (former) friends-to-lovers story (they were friends growing up, but drifted apart in high school) and a second chance romance, of sorts–a post-high school friends-with-benefits situation resulted in an accidental pregnancy, but because of reasons they’d tell you for about 95% of the book that they weren’t actually *together* ever, except as FWBs and co-parents.

Fast forward 5ish years later, and their awkward, we-only-see-each-other-during-the-once-monthly-child-handoff relationship is thrown for a loop when Maddie catches her live-in boyfriend in a compromising position. In need of a temporary place to stay, she accepts Jack’s offer to stay with him until she can find an apartment for her and Gabe, their preschooler, and voila! We have the “under one roof” situation that the series title promises. 😉

I loved how there was so much more going on in this novel than what there appeared to be on the surface. What was a truth behind Jack’s “betrayal” of Maddie the day she told him she was pregnant, and is it too late for him to get forgiveness for it? What are the underlying factors that have made Jack into the commitment-phobe ladies’ man he is today, and how can he overcome them? What will it take for Maddie to finally trust him enough, not only with her heart, but with Gabe’s? Everything isn’t as it first seems in this book, and even the characters deny and/or hide the truth from themselves quite a bit, which complicates things more than a little.

My favorite part of the book was watching Jack grow into what he calls a “better person for Maddie and Gabe,” but which I (and, I think, Maddie) would argue is actually the person that was inside him all along. That Jack was there the whole time, just waiting for him find the strength to believe in himself and to push past the BS the world has been telling him about himself for years. It wasn’t easy for him to undo all those layers of self-doubt and the voices in his head telling him he wasn’t ever going to be good enough, but goodness, when he did, the end result was glorious.

Not gonna lie, though, I shed a few tears before he reached that point. The black moment here was bleak.

Fortunately, that makes the HEA all the more satisfying in the end <3

Bring on book 3! (Because, yes. I read them out of order. And yes, I am tempted to re-read book 2 just so I can get more Maddie-and-Jack time. No, two epilogues and a bonus scene weren’t enough ;))

Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

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