The C*ck Down the Block Review

By Amy Award

The Cocky Kingsmans Book 1

Star rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Spice rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Audiobook rating: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧

Blurb

Always the nerdy girl, never the girlfriend~

Until her cocky best friend and his ahem rooster take charge.

Look, I've had it bad for the girl with all the curves next door forever. She turned me down in high school and since I'm not a total douchecanoe, I lusted after her all by myself in my shower, and we stayed just friends for years.

Now she's the adorkable librarian next door and I'm the star quarterback of the best pro football team in the league.

So when she asks me to be her fake date to her all-girls school reunion I am totally down to show her off to the mean girls who bullied her back then so they can see just how incredible she is.

I'll be the best boyfriend they've ever seen. The best fake boyfriend that is.

Until I find out from her slightly-stalkery classmates that she still has her v-card. I don't see how that is even possible. Not with how sexy and sweet she is. Could it be because she knows she belongs with me?

This curvy girl and football quarterback sports romance has a baddie plus-size woman who knows her own worth and a Bridgertons-meets-American-Football family you'll wish you were a part of.

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Read if you Like:

🐓 Friends to lovers

🐓 Fake dating

🐓 Librarian heroine

🐓 Sports romance

🐓 Curvy heroine

My Thoughts:

Story - I have seen this title around so I was excited to see it as an audiobook! It is an interesting combination of steamy and sweet that I think many readers will enjoy!

I loved how Chris was a famous quarterback and still, he was completely gone for the girl next door! I am a big fan of books where every other character other than the heroine knows the hero is in love with her and that was the case here! I also enjoyed the large family aspect of this book.

Trixie is a really fun heroine to read about! I love reading about librarians and I found the changes she had made to the library really interesting. I also liked reading about her being able to accept her sexuality and her mom's gifts and her chickens made for great comedy.

There were two things that didn't completely work for me about this book. The first was that it felt like it was both high spice and low spice. There was only one steamy scene although it was a very long and detailed one. All other encounters are only alluded to or are fade to black. At the same time, there is a lot of sexual tension, and sexual discussion which usually appears in higher spice books. I felt like the book might have been better with two or three shorter spicy scenes or slightly less focus on spice and a less provocative title.

The second thing that didn't fully work for me was the fact that much of the plot was driven by high school drama and insecurities. While it makes sense that a reunion would bring those issues up, I was a little torn about high school grudges playing such an important part in people's lives 10 years later.

I recommend this one to rom-com fans who don't mind a lot of spicy language. It's also a wonderful friends-to-lovers story with great plus-sized representation!

Audiobook - I listened to the audiobook version of this title and really enjoyed it! Both Stella Hunter and Christian Fox did a great job! Stella Hunter may be recognizable to romance readers as she has narrated several Meghan Quinn books, including Right Man, Right Time. Christian Fox may also be familiar to romance readers as he narrated The Deal. This story is dual POV and the audiobook is dual narrator.

Spice - As mentioned this is a book with a lot of spicy language and sexual tension, but only one open-door spicy scene. While this scene is long and detailed, it's not the amount of spice I expected given the title.

Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for providing me with this audiobook. All opinions are my own.