Husband Material

by Alexis Hall

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Alexis Hall has kept us waiting from Boyfriend Material in 2020 to Husband Material in 2022 to find out Did he or didn’t he? Each title in these boy-meets-boy romances proposes to us, at first blush, that all was easy peasy in the courting department for Luc and Oliver. While you wait to find out the answer, we suggest that you say Yes, I do to both books.

"Our favourite chaos demon & stern brunch daddy return in this delicious, ridiculous, and often poignant romcom about all the ways love can grow." —Talia Hibbert, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

WANTED: One (very real) husband, nowhere near perfect but desperately trying his best

In BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends...and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc's feeling the social pressure to propose. But it'll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a hotly contested rainbow balloon arch to get these two from "I don't know what I'm doing" to "I do".

Good thing Oliver is such perfect HUSBAND MATERIAL.

"Brilliance on every single page."—Christina Lauren, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, for Boyfriend Material

"The apotheosis of the rom-com."—Entertainment Weekly, A+ Review, for Boyfriend Material

"Every once in a while you read a book that you want to SCREAM FROM ROOFTOPS about. I'm screaming, people!"—Sonali Dev, award-winning author, for Boyfriend Material

"FAKE DATING, REAL FEELINGS, BEST JOKES."—Olivia Waite, award-winning author, for Boyfriend Material

"Fresh and vibrant."—Annie Carl, The Neverending Bookshop (Edmonds, WA), for Boyfriend Material

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728250946
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Series:	London Calling
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	3,698
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Alexis Hall writes books in the southeast of England, where he lives entirely on a diet of tea and Jaffa Cakes. You can find him at http://www.quicunquevult.com/, on Twitter @quicunquevult, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/quicunquevult.

Editorial Reviews

04/04/2022

Set two years after rom-com sensation Boyfriend Material, Hall’s unnecessary sequel sends reformed wild child Luc O’Donnell and his straitlaced boyfriend, Oliver Blackwood, to four weddings and a funeral. The first nuptials belong to Luc’s BFF, Bridget, and strained comedy ensues when she fears her fiancé, Tom, is cheating on her. Next, Luc gets invited to his ex’s wedding, which fuels his anxiety but provides an opportunity for closure. It also inspires Luc to first accidentally, then properly, propose to Oliver. A work colleague’s wedding comes third, and feels the least integral to the plot. Much of the book’s humor comes across as forced, from Luc’s disastrous cooking to a running gag about a photocopier. But there is real drama as both Luc and Oliver grapple with their complicated relationships with their respective fathers, one of whom unexpectedly dies. And the heart of the story is Luc and Oliver’s debate about their own wedding, which stems from their differing styles of expressing love. The banter between them is strong as ever, and fans of book one will be glad to see them again, but the frothy, episodic plot contains so much filler that it’s difficult to invest in. This lacks the magic that made Boyfriend Material feel so special. Agent: Courtney Miller-Callihan, Handspun Literary. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Our favourite chaos demon & stern brunch daddy return in this delicious, ridiculous, and often poignant romcom about all the ways love can grow." — Talia Hibbert, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

From the Publisher

2022-05-25
A London couple navigates the highs and lows of weddings and even a funeral in this sequel to Boyfriend Material (2020).

Two years after the events of that book, reformed bad boy Luc O’Donnell and Oliver Blackwood, his buttoned-up barrister boyfriend, have settled into something resembling domestic bliss. There's still an opposites-attract push and pull between them, but they've found a way to balance each other out. Now, with several wedding celebrations on their social calendar and an unexpected funeral to contend with, the couple is put into a pressure cooker of stressful situations. From running into old exes to dealing with their sneaky feelings of grief, Luc and Oliver will have their work cut out for them if they're going to make it through with their relationship intact. Luc and his issues take more of the focus, as he hems and haws over proposing to Oliver—especially after a terrible ex-boyfriend announces his own engagement. It never feels like the couple is in any real danger of splitting up, though, which raises the question of why they needed a sequel at all. While revisiting much-loved characters can leave fans feeling warm and fuzzy, this material would have been better off as a series of bonus stories rather than a full-length continuation of Luc and Oliver’s relationship. While a happily-ever-after doesn’t stop when a couple realizes their feelings for one another, this book feels more like an excuse to put the pair into a variety of loosely connected one-off situations than a fully fledged novel.

A fine but unnecessary sequel.

Kirkus Reviews