Strength Check

Dungeons and Dating, Book 1

By: Katherine McIntyre

Narrated by: Amy Kennedy

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Roller derby, board games, and love collide in this roommates-to-lovers romance.

Roxie Esposito just opened a board game café in San Francisco and should be basking in success. Instead, she's picking out shards from her last relationship and handling her perpetually drunk mother, both of which strain her finances and fuel the need for a roommate.

Melody Roberts finally got the promotion she'd been aiming for - across the country in San Francisco. The perfect escape from her stagnant life and the toxic relationship with her now ex-boyfriend.

The moment Mel answers Roxie's ad for a roommate, the connection between them is explosive, warm, and real - everything they've both been longing for. Between horror movie marathons, board game nights, and deep talks, Mel and Roxie are falling for each other hard. Except the only problem with romance is they both seem to fail every single time, and when the grenades of exes, family drama, and their own insecurities drop, neither will escape unscathed.

Roll the dice on romance at Tabletop Tavern...

©2021 Katherine McIntyre (P)2022 Katherine McIntyre

Ok

In general I found this audiobook to be ok. The narration by Amy Kennedy was good, though it was difficult sometimes to figure out who was talking.

This is a super slow burn book full of inner monologues, miscommunication, misconceptions, and matchmaking. The pop culture and gamer geek background is a lot of fun and so are all the side characters. It has really good bones with two MCs that have emotional scars that need to be healed and both are dealing with difficult issues in their lives with family and work. This makes for a decent book with hurt/comfort and found family vibes. It’s actually a nice relationship when they finally realize their feelings towards the end of the book. It just takes a long time to get there and there are so many words and repeated ideas that the parts between “events” is hard to work through.

I received a copy of this audiobook and this is my honest opinion.

So cute together

okay so when this book came out I had read it and I absolutely love this book. now I am going to admit that when I saw it came out on audio I was so super excited to get it. I'm going to say though it took me a little bit to get into it. the reason being I don't know for me the voice the narrator had for like the first chapter or two it just sounded very metallic I'm not sure how to word it I just I didn't like the voice but I knew I loved the book so I kept listening. and I'm so super glad I did because I ended up falling in love with the audiobook as well it just took me a little while to get used to the sound of the voice I don't know why for me it just sounded off it didn't sound like somebody reading me a story it sounded like a robot or a computer or something I'm not sure how to word it but anyway I absolutely fell in love with the audio and I absolutely love the buck so I do recommend this audio. Just give it a few to get I to it.

Fantastic Series!

This first book in the Dungeons and Dating series is great! The story really draws you in and keeps you engaged. I loved the series when I read it. The narrator did a good job bringing the characters to life. Excited to listen to more of this series.

Finding Your Forever One

Strength Check is book one in Katherine McIntyre’s Dungeons and Dating series (which is now complete with book 6’s recent release).

This slow burn ff romance provides the canvas for fans of D&D gaming, as Roxie and her two best friends open their ‘Tabletop Cafe’ where customers become family and found relationships blossom.

Amy Kennedy voices both Roxie and her romantic interest, Melody, and does a good job narrated each character’s personality and anxiety. Both have been hurt and are looking for their special someone.

McIntyre has a bright voice in her writing that screams honesty and understanding and allows her characters to grow and flourish, even when they feel like the are struggling.

Strength Check is genuine and a hard earned Happy Ever After!

ᐯᗴᖇY ᘜOOᗪ!!

I really enjoyed 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘩 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬, it was very well written, with fantastic characters, and a believable storyline. The narration was enjoyable as well.

The slow burn, friends to lovers, build up was excruciating in the best way.

When they finally arrived there, the s€x scenes were 𝑺𝑶 𝑯𝑶𝑻.

When i read this book it inspired me to research both board taverns and roller derbies anywhere near my home!!

Decent story

3.75 ⭐️ book
3 ⭐️ narration

Overall I enjoyed the story. The spice, when it finally hit after 80%, was phenomenal. I loved the found family, and the times spent with them were some of my favorites. The secondary characters were well developed, and I look forward to seeing more of them and Tabletop Tavern.

There was a lot of back and forth/pining that became excessive. Also, the author uses an awkward amount of metaphors. There are some good ones, but the sheer amount gets overwhelming and distracting. The narrator doesn’t pronounce several words correctly, which pulled me out of the story. She also uses a ditzy voice for Mel that makes her sound unintelligent and frankly a bit annoying. I did enjoy her inflection.

Every city needs games & noms

Slooooow burn. Lack of communication and assumptions galore. I wanted to sit Roxie & Mel down and teach them how to communicate. They both need to earn how to advocate for themselves.
I was really bothered by Mel’s continual tolerance of bad behavior. Will’s, her coworkers, her former friends. Her being sad that all her old friends “left her behind.” SHE is the one that moved away and discovered they weren’t true friends anyway. Why the shock?
Roxie seemed to find a backbone as the story went on. I did really enjoy the camaraderie of the game tavern and look forward to reading stories of the other characters.
I listened to the audio of this book. The narrator was not working for me. Sometimes I felt like I was being read to like I was in first grade. So many words were mispronounced too. I started keeping a list too late. But some examples are brooding, azure and citrine. Overall that diminished my enjoyment of the story too.

I love this series

I absolutely love this whole series. Roxie and Mel are great characters and all the folks at Tabletop Tavern are like found family. This hits all my geeky fan buttons and was a great story to boot. My only problem was with the narrator. I liked her voice but her inflections and pauses were all off like she was reading without regard for punctuation or anything.

Great cast, story is a super slow burn

This is a cute story between Roxie and Mel. I loved the characters and all the people at Tabletop Cafe. What I liked the most was that Mel really wanted Roxie to see how awesome she truly is and Roxie gave Mel a space to meet people and to make some really awesome connections. There's a lot of good scenes between these two and I do believe in their relationship. That being said, this is a loooong story and I did feel that it dragged on for a bit longer than needed in the middle. This is a slow burn...and I'm going to put the blame mostly on Roxie for her low self-confidence and fear of talking to Mel about what she really wanted. It kind of stalled a bit and I wanted to shake them both to see what was in front of their faces. I liked the narrator, but I did think that there were times when she could've shown more emotion and some parts just felt a bit flat to me. I also had a bit of a tricky time differentiating the voices. It's by far the worst performance, but I think the flatness along with the slow pace of the story kept the pace from moving at times. I am excited to see what's up with others at the Tabletop Cafe as they are such a wonderful example of found family!

DnD WLW contemporary

Surprisingly cute and nerdy wlw romance! One MC owns a board game cafe, loves DnD, and has a very sweet found family of other nerds. The other MC recently moved to the city, rents a room from the other MC, plays roller derby, and is getting out of a crappy relationship.

This had roommates, strangers to friends to lovers, found family, board games, and some sweetness, some strap on shenanigans. Also, Amy Kennedy is a new to me narrator that I enjoyed.

I'm just riding out my 2024 slump, and this was readable (listenable?) for me, which I'm calling a win.