Review – Beard in Mind by Penny Reid (5 Stars)

Beard in Mind by Penny Reid
Series: Winston Brothers #4
Published by Cipher-Naught on 2017-07-30
Genres: Contemporary
Format: eBook
Goodreads

All's fair in love and auto maintenance.

Beau Winston is the nicest, most accommodating guy in the world. Usually.

Handsome as the devil and twice as charismatic, Beau lives a charmed life as everyone’s favorite Winston Brother. But since his twin decided to leave town, and his other brother hired a stunning human-porcupine hybrid as a replacement mechanic for their auto shop, Beau Winston’s charmed life has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Shelly Sullivan is not nice and is never accommodating. Ever.
She mumbles to herself, but won’t respond when asked a question. She glares at everyone, especially babies. She won’t shake hands with or touch another person, but has no problems cuddling with a dog. And her damn parrot speaks only in curse words.

Beau wants her gone. He wants her out of his auto shop, out of Tennessee, and out of his life.

The only problem is, learning why this porcupine wears her coat of spikes opens a Pandora’s box of complexity—exquisite, tempting, heartbreaking complexity—and Beau Winston soon discovers being nice and accommodating might mean missing out on what matters most.

FTC : I bought this book

Review :

Beau Winston is used to being the nice brother that all the ladies love. That is, until his brother hires Shelly, a mechanic that seems impervious to his charms. She’s rude, antisocial and, what pisses him off more, completely captivating.

Shelly has no interest in fitting in. She likes being a mechanic but she struggles to deal with the people that she has to interact with to do her job. People are unpredictable and they don’t understand her anxieties; she’d rather stay away from them. The only problem is that some part of her wants to deal with Beau Winston… she just doesn’t know if she can.

Shelly knows she wants Beau, enough to let him into her bed at the very least. The only issue is how to let him in there without revealing too much of herself in the process. Problem is, once Beau is in that bed, he doesn’t want to leave. But can he handle her truths? And, more importantly, can she let herself tell them to him?

I fucking loved this book. Let me be honest, I read book one of the series and I nearly didn’t go any further. I picked up book three as it was on offer and I am not looking back. I decided that this is the book I want to review though  (I’ll overview book three on GR) as it is brilliant. This book runs alongside book 3 and I do suggest you read them in order.

It is very very rare to see a portrayal of a person living with a mental health issue in a romance, and I was SO worried we would have a magical penis cure, but the book was done so well. There is a woman facing her mental health issues and trying not to let it cripple or define her with a beta hero who wants so desperately to help her, struggling to release that that is not his role. It is the sweetest romance and I never ever doubted it was going to last and the story is made even better with a hole host of crazy-ass characters that make up this wonderful world. Its kooky, over the top, swoon-worthy and heart-melting. Anything past this point could be considered spoilerific… you have been warned!

Shelly is a woman living in a world defined by her OCD. She doesn’t want to be but it’s all she knows; the strength of her will to break through the chains of her OCD is one of the main threads of this book that I love. It’s such a realistic interpretation of a life long mental health condition and I appreciate the lengths that the author went to. I wanted her to get her HEA

Beau was so meh in all the other books. In this book, seeing in his head, I understood why. The man is completely beta and he just fades into the background when faced with all the Alpha-ness of his brothers. Seeing him in his own book, with his own romance, I fell completely in lust with him. This book could never have worked with a Alpha hero because Shelly’s OCD is the alpha of this book; it’s a bossy bitch that never gives up control. It took him so long to realise that, not only could he not fix her, she didn’t need to be fixed and that he just needed to support her.

I can’t recommend this book enough, I genuinely can’t. The series arc is completely OTT but the characters at the core are the important bits for me and I adored them all. Get a sample and see if you like it; I read it in one sitting.