Fret Me Not by Sarah Estep
Contemporary Romance
August 29, 2024
Self-published

Review by Melanie

Sarah Estep continues to be one of my favorite author discoveries of 2023 and it should surprise no one that the third installment of her Brunch Bros series manages to capture the tenderness and heat of her first two books and while still making it feel fun and new and completely its own thing. If you’ve read the first two books (and I highly recommend you do, per my reviews of Keyed Up and So Flocked), you’ll know that one of the trademarks of this series is its small town setting with the cozy Crane Cove and a group of guy friends who form a found family that seems to keep growing with every passing book. The core group of guy friends who wear matching jackets and do monthly brunches is a party of four (wealthy businessman Graham, newly retired football player Jordy, rockstar Sam, and movie star Peter) but I would be sad if the series ended there and didn’t give us books for the McMahon brothers, of which there seem to be many. 

Back to the newest Brunch Bros book, Fret Me Not tells the story of rockstar Sam who is sweet, soft, slightly awkward, and down on her luck dance instructor Lacey. The two engaged in a torrid one night stand in Barcelona years ago but only Lacey remembers this and one of my favorite things in this book is that she lets Sam in on the truth of their first meeting pretty early on in the book. I’m really glad I didn’t have to sit through an entire book filled with anxiety over when and how Sam would find out they’d met long before he thinks they met. 

The two engage in a faux romance and before I get much further into the plot, let me add that, hilariously, a few weeks (months?) ago on twitter, I had complained about my disinterest in the fake romance trope. Well, guess what, folks?? I lied! I’m a lying liar who lies! Or, more to the point, even if I don’t care for a trope, there’s always going to be a book that proves to be the exception to the rule and here is one such example! Back to the plot, rock star Sam, hiding out in Crane Cove, wants to avoid being set up by various friends and townspeople. He decides on a whim to create a fake girlfriend and gives her a name. Only problem is that the name he gives her is distinctive enough and also belongs to the resident dance instructor he keeps running into (literally, these two have a series of meet cutes except, they’ve actually met before so I guess meet cute is not the correct phrase here). 

Lacey, in turn, agrees to play along as Sam’s pretend girlfriend  because she’s got a jerk ex-boyfriend who keeps harassing her to give him another chance and before we can blink, these two have adopted the cutest dog (Daisy, who steals not only the bed as well as Sam and Lacey’s hearts but also entire scenes in the book) and are practically shacked up together. 

While Lacey institutes a “no non-public displays of affection” rule, that rule flies out the window real quick when Sam, out of town for work, and Lacey, who’s staying at his house and dog sitting Daisy, engage in a video call that is so X-rated that I’m frankly surprised that my phone didn’t disintegrate into a pile of ashes. And that’s just the tip of the very horny iceberg. The book is delightfully filthy as Sam and Lacey take turns bossing each other around in the bedroom while Daisy the dog is hilariously distracted in the tv room by her favorite British murder mystery shows and episodes of The Golden Girls. 

The romance is slow growing and yet, I loved the way it unfolded. Lacey is unsure about committing to anything serious since she’s dated a musician in the past and has the proverbial scars to prove it. Sam has his own mental health struggles with bouts of depression and remains convinced that he is unlovable and unworthy. If there’s one thing I wished this book had done, it is to delve a bit more into Sam’s past the way it did with Lacey. Both of them get POVs in this book so it’s not as if the POV is just Lacey’s alone. There’s a throwaway line about Sam having no contact with his parents due to his early rock stardom almost breaking up their marriage and I do wish we had gotten a deeper insight into the backstory there that helped connect the dots from what seems to be his family’s abandonment of him to his issues with feeling unlovable and unworthy.

As much as I love the romance (and I really really loved the progression of the faux-to-real romance and the heat and tenderness and the nurturing way Sam took care of Lacey when she got the flu and constantly wanted to feed her), I have to mention my other big favorite part of this book and really the whole series, thus far, and that’s the way Sarah Estep portrays male friendships in her books. The total lack of toxic masculinity (at least from the Brunch Bros) in their interactions with each other, the way they so freely express their love for each other, whether with hugs or with “I love you’s” is such a wonderful and unique thing. Contemporary romances tend to showcase female friendships a lot and when they do show male friendships, it tends to be coworkers, maybe teammates on a sports team, but these four guys, from different backgrounds with vastly different careers, have managed to carve out a special friendship that spans years and keeps growing as each of them finds true love and brings their romantic partners into the fold as well. It’s just truly lovely, for lack of a better word. 

Anyway, this book and really, this entire series has been such a winner for me and I absolutely cannot wait for Peter’s book (I’m pretty sure I know who he’s paired with and I cannot wait to watch those sparks fly). Crane Cove continues to be a warm and inviting place to visit, featuring some really sweet and sexy romances and I highly recommend this book and the two that precede it. 

Grade: A

Content notes: toxic relationships in the past, mental health issues, off page parental death in the past