Role Playing by Cathy Yardley (Review)

Title: Role Playing
Author: Cathy Yardley
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Montlake
Date published: July 1, 2023

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Firefly Books Distribution in exchange for an honest review.

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?

⤖ My Review ⬻

I don’t typically gravitate toward romance featuring more mature couples but something about Cathy Yardley’s Role Playing had me gravitate toward it. While a number of things that the main characters, Maggie and Aiden, were faced with felt unfamiliar to me due to my age (I just haven’t leveled up to that point quite yet, haha, get the pun?), I rooted for their wellbeing and hoped for their happily ever after.

Both characters were faced with some negative situations that made me see red, and definitely made me feel protective of Maggie and Aiden. And I really enjoyed the video game aspect of the story, especially that Maggie is a badass gamer that is underestimated and that Aiden is a cinnamon roll online and offline.

Yardley’s incorporation of the video game element in Role Playing added a unique and engaging dimension to the story. It was refreshing to see characters with diverse interests and hobbies, and I enjoyed how these elements enriched their interactions and relationship development.

Overall I definitely enjoyed Role Playing and found it to be a cozy read (except for the parts that hade me ready to go to war for these characters). It was cute while also heartwarming and heartwrenching. I’m definitely intrigued to read more Cathy Yardley books after Role Playing!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Cathy Yardley is an award-winning author of romance, chick lit, and urban fantasy, who has sold over 1.2 million copies of books for publishers like St. Martin’s, Avon, and Harlequin. She writes fun, geeky, and diverse characters who believe that underdogs can make good and that sometimes being a little wrong is just right.