Roll For Romance - Lenora Woods // Book Review

Roll For Romance

Lenora Woods || Publication Date - 17.07.2025

Romance budding between D&D characters and their players - Yes please!

Fiction | Fantasy | Romance

Affiliate Link - https://bookshop.org/a/110173/9780593975411

Sadie is down on her luck. She's been fired from her job, and has now left the loving bustle of New York City for a small town in Texas. Her long time best friend, Liam, has offered to house her while she gets back on her feet and finds another job. Unfortunately, Sadie is far from ready to throw herself back into the corporate world so soon.

For something to do, Liam invites Sadie and a small group of people to play a campaign of Dungeons & Dragons. They're all new players, and people she may have met in town should she have ever left the house for longer than 5 minutes. One that strikes her interest is a ruggedly handsome bartender at the new local hotspot 'The Alchemist'.

As the campaign progresses, and the groups friendships grow, Sadie has a choice to make. Does she go back to a life of corporate servitude in the big city? Or does she leave that all behind to grow roots in this quaint small town?

The Review (may contain spoilers)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this eARC for an honest review!

I need to gush over how this novel is written. I'm loving the split between the out of character normal lives of Sadie and the other players, however, also having the in game scenarios being played out by all their player characters is so much fun. My only gripe with the scenario is that the characters are acting as if they are experienced D&D players, whereas the table is formed by players new to the game. For storytelling reasons this makes sense, however as an experienced TTRPG player myself I found it a bit odd.

I'm not particularly a fan of the beginning of the romance. It's giving very instalove and for me this isn't my favourite. I can definitely appreciate being attracted to someone from the get go, but he is kind of a bit creepy with it. Sadie is a bit more realistic with her attraction at least telling herself to cool off... As they progress through the novel it becomes so much more wholesome and sweet, thankfully and I found myself rooting for them. Especially when they decided to role play as their D&D characters out of game. That was so freaking cute!

I enjoyed the 3rd act drama in this novel as well. It wasn't miscommunication, thankfully, as both characters actually spoke about their concerns and their plans. They were okay with a type of relationship which was 'we will see where we end up', even though secretly hoping they end up together. It was refreshing and realistic and I loved how they navigated the challenges this type of relationship can bring up.

Overall Thoughts

I loved this novel, it was so much fun! The characters were awesome, the D&D Campaign scenario which was played through the novels characters was like a mini story all on its own and it was a wholesome romp the whole way to the end. If you like romance, I would recommend this book. If you like fantasy, I would recommend this book. And if you like D&D, I would recommend this book! It ticks so many boxes for me that I will definitely be buying a physical copy to go back and re-read when I need something fun to dip back into.

Thoroughly keeping my eyes on this author and I'll be buying their next release if/when it's available because I could easily see them becoming a new favourite author.