The Husband Experience by Maya Jean (Sweet Southern Book #1)

TITLE: ⟫ The Husband Experience

AUTHOR: ⟫ Maya Jean

RATING: ⟫ 3.5/5

SERIES: ⟫ Sweet Southern #1

BLURB: ⟫ Elijah

Being a fake boyfriend is usually pretty easy. My part time job slots perfectly into my schedule as I pursue my PhD. But when the agency sends me on a week-long vacation to play husband … I don’t expect the experience to feel the opposite of fake. Colby Smith is everything I never knew I needed. He’s sweet, he even blushes, but in the bedroom, he calls all the shots. This experience is supposed to be for him, but as time goes on, I think it’s starting to be real for me.

Colby

After losing my husband, my cousin recommended I reach out to The Boyfriend Experience to get back in the saddle, so to speak. I asked for a husband for a week and they sure delivered. Elijah Ruiz is wild, in a way that shakes my world to the core. But after a week of tender touches, of breathtaking smiles, I start to wonder if it’s really all an act. Can we make this something real after only a week of playing pretend?

The Husband Experience is the 36k novella that starts the Sweet Southern series. It features a professional fake boyfriend, a ready for love again widower, an age gap, fake husbands for a week by the beach, lots of swoon, emotional steam, and just a sprinkle of kink.

REVIEW: ⟫ This was a very sweet, sexy novella that acts as a very good introduction to the planned Sweet Southern series. Colby comes across as a self-aware man who has accepted the loss of his husband and is ready to re-enter the world of dating. However, he wants his first real experience to not be a random hook-up – he knows himself well enough to know that that is not how he operates. Hence the husband experience.

Eli comes across as a little less self aware. Initially with Colby, he tries to put up artificial barriers, constantly reminding the both of them that he is a ‘sure’ thing and doesn’t need the romance, etc that Colby keeps trying to offer. I really enjoyed the way in which Eli slowly let down his barriers and began to accept the affection and attention Colby was offering until the two men began to have an experience that perhaps neither of them fully expected. I was impressed with how much the author managed to pile into the novella, but obviously being that length it suffered a little from how ‘surface’ and superficial things had to be. I definitely enjoyed reading this story and will look for more from the Sweet Southern series.

I received an ARC from GRR.