Proficiency Bonus

Roll for Love, Book 3

By: Charlie Novak

Narrated by: Joel Leslie

Organizing yourself is harder than it looks - Lewis may be a highly proficient PA for two very successful cosplayers, but that means nothing when you’re living at your parent’s house after yet another failed relationship and trying to find some stable ground.

Jason Lu, star of Celestials, is stuck between a rock and a hard place. When the show is cancelled and his character pigeonholed into a homophobic ending, Jason must choose whether to fall in line or break ranks. But one misstep will mean bumping heads with some powerful people.

Teaming up with the very cute guy he met at Comic Con seems like a natural first step, and now Lewis and Jason must choose between heartbreak and justice. As they forge ahead, they realize there are no bonuses for navigating life’s challenges; instead, they’ll just have to fight for what they believe in.

But sometimes overcoming the biggest hurdles yields the best results.

Proficiency Bonus is a 79,000-word contemporary MM romance featuring plushies, Pokémon, and a fight for the perfect ending. It is book three in the Roll for Love series and can be listened to as a stand-alone.

©2021 Charlie Novak (P)2022 Charlie Novak

Such a fun story

I love this book and it’s unique plot… gamers and a Hollywood star and cosplayers. It’s just so different and fun. And I absolutely adore Lewis and Jason. Their friendship and relationship is impossibly sweet and SO SO sexy. And hooray for ADHD representation! Joel’s narration just takes the story to another level, as always.

Final book of this trilogy ended on a great note!

This book has some of my favorite tropes in it: texting, friends to lovers, and a celebrity MC.
Both the MCs in this book balance each other out in a lot of ways. Lewis needed someone to need him and be accepting of his ADHD and certain personality traits that come with being neurodivergent. Jason needed someone to want him enough to stay around and push him to stand up for what he believes in.
One of the best aspects of this book is that they had a texting relationship months before they met in person and decided to date. They really bonded together over liking similar shows like Pokémon, and they helped one another with their personal trials they were going through. 
Lewis' huge family felt so comforting and wholesome and the same could be said for Jason and his brother. The family elements were great to read about because often times family is left out of queer novels and I loved that their families were both accepting of them and just wanted them both to succeed.
The narrator knocked this one out of the park as well. I didn't anticipate what I wanted Lewis and Jason to sound like but they definitely sounded like I imagined. I really appreciated the sort of fast-paced stream of consciousness that sometimes happens with Lewis and how that was portrayed with the audiobook.
Overall a great final book to this series. I'm really looking forward to upcoming books that follow Lewis' siblings!

(Thank you to the author for the ARC of this audiobook!)

Love this series

I am a big fan of this series, it’s my favorite from this author. I’m a sucker for nerdy characters and they are unique and surprising. The whole series has just been fun. I love Lewis’ and the way that Jason just loves him as he is. Also the situation with the TV show could very well happen and executives need to start thinking of the impact that they can have on people not just the bottom line. I like Joel Leslie as a narrator BUT I did think that he was off his game a little with this one. I didn’t think he had Lewis nailed until chapter 5, as before then he sounded more like Edward and it was like Joel realized that he would have to voice characters from all the previous books and that Lewis needed to be a little more young and less pretentious. I’m glad for the change because I was a little put off at first, but I still loved the story so I was still going to finish it. And seriously, I hope they kept the mice!

Absolutely loved this

I absolutely loved this sweet opposites attract contemporary romance!!

This was such a sweet, steamy, wholesome and fun listen.

The narration was enjoyable and engaging


Absolutely recommend

Loved Lewis and Jason!!! Phenomenal!!

Oh my gosh! This was flippin phenomenal! I seriously was sooo freakin excited to listen Lewis’s story!! Add in Jason and it was perfect!! I understood so much of Lewis’s personality having ADHD myself. I felt so many emotions regarding the direction that Jason’s employers took their show in, made me so mad and anxious at times. I loved Jason and Lewis’s messages and texts, made them stronger starting as friends first. I loved their chemistry, it felt so real. I loved everything about this story!! Joel Leslie did such an amazing job on the narration. His distinct style made each character come alive!!

Amazing Read!!!!

OMG - Charlie has done it again - she has written another couple I absolutely adore!!!

Jason and Lewis are so sweet and adorable together! I'm not usually a fan of the slow burn but I loved how they got to know eachother slowly over a few months before dating. It was definitely what they both needed.

I know absolutely nothing about the games that are talked about in Charlie's books - but I love how they bring her characters closer together! I have now done some Google research on the games mentioned - I think the Sushi Go game sounds like fun!

The audio of this book is absolutely amazing!! I love anything that Joel narrates! His portrayal of Lewis and Jason gave the book more depth!!

Fantastic

I love this series and this is my favorite book in it. The story and characters are fantastic. The narration add that extra shine to an already great story. Joel Leslie did an amazing job.

Lewis finds his happy ever after

I was excited to see Lewis was getting a story of his own. To see how Lewis dealt with his ADHD was terrific. The story allowed readers to see one example of how different people’s minds work and the small details that they need to do to keep them self-organized. Plus, to see Lewis get the one and only Jason Lu was fantastic. You never know who you will run into when you are just yourself. Their story starts as a slow burn that goes off the charts. I also listened to this book narrated by the talented Joel Leslie. I loved how he portrayed all of the characters, and now I need to go and buy all of the other ones.

Fantastic

I loved this book when I read it. Hearing Joel bring the characters to life was phenomenal. It made me fall in love with this book all over again.

A very engaging storg

My thoughts about the narration:

I loved it so much. I had the best of time listening to this audiobook. The narration was so much fun to listen to, I really enjoyed it.

I l oved the narration for Lewis, I loved how Joel Leslie did his voice and his inner voice, it really sounded like how I imagined Lewis to sound like the first time I read the book, I loved how he made Lewis sound like he was always kind of out of breath because Lewis' brain never stops thinking of new things so this type of narration really worked for his character. As far as Jason goes, I also really liked the tone that Joel Leslie took for him, he really sounded exactly like I imagined him to sound when I read the book for the first time. And I loved how both of their voices were super distinct and made it easy to follow who was talking and when.

My thoughts about the story:

The marketing for this book is what got me to read it because if you marked a book as featuring plushies and Pokémon, I will read it, I love both of those things, very much.

I really enjoyed this, it was really sweet and low angst and I had a good time reading it. This book is the perfect read for a day where you just want to be distracted and have fun while reading a book, it’s definitely a feel good book.

Jason, 31 years old, is an actor in Celestials, a popular tv show, he which he plays a bisexual demon prince. Lewis is 26 years old and is a personal assisant for some cosplayers. They meet at a convention, play Pokémon together and then they connect again, like a year after that, over Instagram and they fall in love.

I love when the main characters in books meet on the Internet (they were long distance too, one in Canada and one in the UK, which I also love) and I love all the texting and phone calls that happens so I was happy to see it here, even if I wanted more of it, we’ll come back to that later.

The vibe of this book was just so good. I loved how low angst and fun it was, I really enjoyed my time reading it.

I really enjoyed Lewis and Jason. Lewis is just so sweet and the definition of sunshine, while Jason is so protective and such an anchor, they fit really well together.

Lewis has ADHD and I was a big fan of how it was descriped. It felt very realistic and affected everything he did.

I really enjoyed these two together. I loved how suportive they were of the other and how they never judged the other, only supported them through everything. I loved how strong of a pair they were and how there was nothing keeping them apart. Also a big fan of how Jason spoiled Lewis, that was so sweet.

I was a really big fan of how their connection grew over time. I loved how it started as a simple friendship over the Internet, then they met up and were tentative about everything to finally end up in a relationship and when they got together, that was it, no weird break-up at 80% or anything, they were solid.

I really enjoyed the sex scenes in this book, they were really nice, well described and complimented the book perfectly. It was just the perfect amount of sex scene for me and it was quality sex scenes, so I was happy.

I really enjoyed the side plot. It was a social commentary on LGBTQ+ representation in the media and how the TV network wanted to give a homophobic ending to the TV show Jason is on and how doing that would have been shitty. Anyway, it was a really interesting side plot and I really enjoyed it.

I was really really happy with how much pokemon talk there was in this book. I really enjoyed how it was a big part of the book and how it was so important in their relationship.

I really enjoyed this book, it was so so sweet and a lot of fun.

**I received a copy of this book, and this is my honest review.**