Dancing with Daddy – Susan Hawke

“Was it possible? Could I really do this? Trust someone again? I could.”

In a word: Read the thing. So this is just basically pure fluff and cheese. Bit of a high-stakes premise, but very low-stakes delivery. The author’s note at the beginning of the book says that this was done on purpose. This was written purely to be a no-angst, no-drama fluff read. Maybe it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I liked it well enough. Bradley is a widower with a five-year-old daughter; Shane is Bradley’s late wife’s ex-boyfriend and also Bradley’s daughter’s biological father. It’s a bit of a convoluted situation that people generally wouldn’t peg as a romantic meet-cute, but here we are. This book really works best if you turn your brain off to read it. Don’t think too much about what’s happening, or what could go wrong; just enjoy the ride and the fluff for what it is. Bradley is a bit of a loner, and with his family and wife gone he doesn’t have anyone else for he or his daughter to turn to in times of hardship. So he’s delighted (for several reasons) when he finds out suddenly that his daughter is not biologically his. His search for the bio-father leads him to Shane, who is more than happy to accept Bradley’s offer to be in his life and home for the foreseeable future. This really is just fluff. This whole situation should be rife with angst and potential pitfalls and issues, but there are none. Bradley and Shane have no problems merging their lives together and taking care of Bradley’s daughter. They have no problems building a close friendship and eventually moving it into something more. None at all. Which is by design. This is just meant to be a light fluff read and it does that very well. Maybe not for everyone, but a good option for those looking for just that.

The Summary: (from Goodreads) I love my daughter, but finding out she wasn’t biologically mine is the best news ever.

I’m a widower who is too scared to have the stupid test that would tell me whether or not I even have the gene that would mean dealing with a horrible illness and certain death. A gene that could’ve also been passed to my child, had she been mine.

She’ll need her father, if something ever does happen to me…That’s why I search for Maddie’s biological father, and when I find him, ask him to become part of her life.

What I didn’t expect is for him to become my best friend. Shane is fun and easygoing, the exact opposite of me. He makes me laugh. He’s the perfect antidote for my neurotic existence. And he’s bi, like me.

But am I courageous enough to take the leap into falling in love with him?

Dancing with Daddy is a super sweet, full-length, standalone, feel good mm romance. There’s no angst, just two very opposite men who befriend each other super fast then slowly find their way to love…all while parenting the precocious five-year-old who belongs to both of them.

[available for purchase at Amazon.ca and Book Depository]

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS

WHAT I LIKED:

• Bradley Weston is a bit neurotic and uptight, but he’s also a good person with basically a heart of gold. He’s also a widower and has been raising his five-year-old daughter alone for the past three or so years. Bradley’s a bit of a loner, which is a point that’s driven home when his daughter has a medical emergency and there’s no one he can call to be there for him. His loner status is not about him being a terrible person or poor friend, it’s just that he’s completely wrapped up in his job and daughter and doesn’t have time for anything else.

• I have to say that what I liked most about Bradley is his dedication to his daughter. He absolutely loves little Maddie and basically thinks the world revolves around her. He’s an amazing father. And his first reaction to finding out that they aren’t biologically related is pure happiness because that means that there’s no chance that he’s potentially passed a fatal genetic illness on to her. And not only that, it means that there’s someone else out there in the world who could love Maddie just as much as him and give them both someone else they can rely on. Not once does he ever even consider giving her up, or giving custody of her to her biological father. His attitude is basically: that’s my child and I love her and I won’t give her away to anyone. Pretty much everything he does is for her, and he never thinks of her as anything other than his daughter. Never even has a crisis about it.

• Shane Jackson lives in Texas and is Bradley’s late wife’s ex-boyfriend from college. Shane’s basically Bradley’s total opposite; more free-spirited and easy-going as compared to Bradley’s more rigid way of doing things. Shane’s a total sweetheart, and is very good at just rolling with things. Case in point: suddenly finds out he has a long-lost daughter and immediately moves to California for a chance to be close to her. He’s also quite friendly and affectionate, which I think is what initially helps him and Bradley get along so well.

• I like that Bradley and Shane became friends before they became lovers. They bounce off each other pretty well and they easily have a good time together. Though I will say that I wish we’d seen more of them getting closer and less time skips with a line just telling us they were getting closer.

• Shane’s mother Audrey is a hoot and a half and I loved her. She’s a very loving woman, clearly adores Shane, and immediately accepts Bradley and Maddie as part of the family the first time they meet.

HMM:

• Bradley’s wife, Maddie’s mother, Trina died in a car accident about three years before this story starts. Trina doesn’t actually come up a whole lot, so we don’t know too much about her. We do know that she was ambitious and that she really wanted to get away from her ‘white trash’ background. Bradley genuinely loved her. But one thing we did learn about Trina made me dislike her a bit, and that’s her treatment of Shane. Because we never actually get to know Trina, but we do Shane, it’s much easier to be on Shane’s side in this whole thing. Not that there are necessarily sides to take here, their relationship didn’t blow up spectacularly or anything. But I think the way that Trina treated Shane was pretty cruel, which doesn’t really paint her in a good light. (Though I do want to say that Trina never deliberately kept Maddie from Shane, she genuinely thought that she was Bradley’s, that’s not my beef with her.)

MORE PLZ:

• So because this story is basically just pure fluff, a lot of things that came up in the story weren’t really explored much. Trina’s breakup with Shane is really only brought up by Shane’s mother, and barely discussed. And the whole Trina-Shane-Bradley thing is never really discussed in detail, just brought up once or twice to mention that no one has any issues with the past relationships. And even Shane doesn’t seem to have much opinion on missing out on his daughter’s first five years, just focusing on how happy he is to be with her now. Though focusing in depth on any of these things would’ve added some angst and drama where the author clearly wanted none, which does make the story seem a bit more shallow than it would be otherwise.

[Dancing with Daddy was published May 16, 2020, by the author; it is available both in print and ebook format]