My first Federal Government job was working at the National Cancer Institute as an administrator. I learned a lot, but the job wasn’t for me and I got let go at the end of the probation year. My fellow hire was a girl named Rashida. We became fast friends and even though the job didn’t work out we stayed in touch over the years. Rashida is a delightful ray of sunshine, so when I found out on Facebook she got a book publishing deal, I made sure to keep track of when the book came out.
And then I forgot about it, Facebook’s algorithm made her posts disappear from my feed, and then it popped into my head to check for her book. Beaus and Arrows is a fantasy romance with cupid and a mortal woman. There’s physical comedy between the couple, so if that bothers you this book might not be for you. It’s a very sweet story with a romance where Emory grows over time in a way that feels natural. Blair is a heroine worth rooting for. There are also three relationships that Emory is helping nurture in his job as cupid that go through realistic challenges and end up at different points in interesting ways. There’s the couple that have been together for so long that they are just together out of old habit, even though the relationship died years ago, the young couple in puppy love with two different religions, and the couple who haven’t talked about the big deal breaker issues, but definitely need to.
I also really liked how the big dramatic “tell her how you feel” moment between Emory and Blair goes horribly, spectacularly wrong, because then he had to figure out how to apologize for being an idiot, and learn from his mistakes. Usually that works on the first try without giving the heroine time to figure out what it means to go from being friends to being in a relationship. Setting aside some of the people are not human, there are many diverse characters in this book. With the caveat that I am totally biased, if you like sweet romantic friends to lovers stories (there is no sex in this one) you will like this book.