Not in the Cards

The Beaufort Poker Club, Book 5

By: Maggie Gates

Narrated by: Gideon Frost, J. Y. Kora

Melissa

I was done with internet matches and swiping left and right. The dating pool needed a lifeguard. But just when I decided that love wasn't in the cards for me, the boy I'd always had a crush on walked into my ER and flashed a smile that told me he wasn't letting me slip away. I just had to keep his sister's secret a little longer.

Jason

The military was my ticket out of Beaufort, North Carolina. After a career of flying fighter jets for the Navy, I rolled back into my hometown and found the one who got away twenty years ago: my sister's best friend.

Contains mature themes.

©2022 Maggie Gates (P)2022 Tantor Media

Melissa & Jason

Talk about hitting all of your emotions! This story grabbed me right away and was intense at times. Not in the Cards is the kind of book you dive into head first, heart pounding, and butterflies fluttering, and come out feeling completely astounded. I was completely engrossed in this one. It will pull on your heart strings and not let go until the very end. 
 
J.Y. Kora & Gideon Frost do an amazing job portraying the characters, bringing them to life and humanizing them with their emotions, attitude and personality. They do more than giving their characters their voices, they fall into the roles and become the character.

If you love The Black Savior Trope then you’re in for a treat 🙄

So I purchased this book off the strength of one of the narrators JY Kora. She’s great, even the male narrator was awesome. And that’s where my praise ends.

The book started out as a cute IR long lost Friend to lover story. Then it digressed into The Black Savior trope.

And if you don’t know what the black Savior trope is here’s summary:

The Black Savior Trope—often studied in ThinkIR research—features Black characters functioning primarily to rescue, teach, or reform other characters, usually white protagonists or marginalized individuals

THE ENTIRE STORY CENTERS ON A BLACK WOMAN, SAVING A WHITE WOMAN. A BLACK WOMAN RISKING HER NURSING AND RELATIONSHIP TO SAVE A WHITE WOMAN WHO HAPPENS TO BE HER FRIEND, BUT SHE’S A HORRIBLE FRIEND.

The white friend literally puts her black friend in harms way physically financially and emotionally. But don’t you worry here comes the black woman to save the day. The lead is a black woman, and this is her story, but there was nothing tangible about her. Her story centered on saving her friend. Now don’t get me wrong the touches on DV and I think it’s a worthwhile topic, but to have the black woman literally make her entire story arc about her friend who has her risking her nurses license to keep a secret even though she’s a mandatory reporter. This black woman she has no family to speak of no internal triumphs, except that she’s short strong( which is a whole other trope) and can’t find a man until an old friend shows up. Like this is the worst of the worst you can tell that this story was written by a white person. Because the entire story has the black female lead centering, her white friend who she has to save and basically Risk her whole life to do so…

Skip this story if you want a good IR romance because this isn’t it.