Today we have the release blitz for MATZAH BALL SURPRISE by Laura Brown! Check it out and be sure to grab your copy today!
Title: Matzah Ball Surprise
Author: Laura Brown
Genre: Contemporary Romance
This Passover is starting to feel like the ten plagues might be coming back to haunt them before the weekend is over…one hilarious misstep after the next.
Gaby Fineberg just wants to get through Passover Seder without her “well meaning” family playing matchmaker. She needs a date, just for one simple meal—that includes singing, the history of her forefathers, and not one bit of yeast. The hot guy at her gym would be perfect. He probably hates bread, anyway, with a body like that. But when she finally works up the nerve to ask him…he doesn’t hear a word she said.
Levi Miller is deaf and happily single. Initially, he doesn’t know why this beautiful woman is talking to him, but it’s clear she needs help—and suddenly so does he. In a very complicated situation, Levi finds a simple solution. Gaby will pretend to be his new girlfriend to bail him out, and he’ll return the favor. But he didn’t bargain for a family dinner quite like this one…
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He held up a thumb—no skin off his back—and eyed the new app on his phone. He switched to Gaby’s message thread.
Levi: Can you test something out for me? My friend gave me a new speech-to-text app to try, but I have no clue how well it works yet.
Gaby read, then looked at him and nodded. He opened the app, waited for the program to load, then showed it to Gaby. She bit her lip, eyes flickering upward in thought, and all he could focus on was that plump bottom lip dented by teeth.
He really wanted a taste. Could that be part of the ploy?
She started speaking, and thinking dots appeared on his app. He waited for words to show up, but nothing did.
Gaby had stopped, and he held up the empty screen to her. She frowned, then held the phone closer to her mouth, speaking again, and he got transfixed by those lips again, until words appeared on the blank app screen and forced his attention to shift.
Let’s see…not sure…what food…lucky as fucking.
Levi blinked, then blinked again. What the hell? He stopped paying attention to the app, looking at Gaby, whose lips still moved as if she talked about the sky, not…
He swallowed, the off handed suggestion crawling under his skin. But it couldn’t be right. Could it?
She stopped talking, eyebrows lowered, and he turned the phone for her to see. Her gaze roamed over the screen, then her lips burst open and curved and her shoulders shook. She leaned forward, laughing hard enough her cheeks turned pink.
So, she didn’t say fucking.
Gaby collected her phone, shoulders still bouncing as she typed.
Gaby: Wow, that program is bad, huh? I didn’t know what to say so I mentioned food. I believe that was the “we’ll have turkey not stuffing” line. While turkey can be lucky, I don’t put it on par with fucking. Chocolate, maybe, but not turkey.
He made the mistake of locking eyes with her. Something simmered below the good humor, and thoughts of chocolate and Gaby and very little clothing filled his head.
He closed the app. Time to focus on their mission.
I was beyond excited when I saw that there was a romance coming out that incorporated Passover as a main theme in the book. In fact, I may have squealed and shot off a rambling email saying that I NEEDED the book right now! LOL.
Passover is my favorite holiday ever. It incorporates all my loves: tradition, history, memory, community, family, story, and song. And now I finally get to read a book that takes place at the Passover seder in my favorite genre — romance! Thank you so much, Laura Brown, for this gem of a romcom. I truly hope to see more books like this from you in the future!
Matzah Ball Surprise is a fun and flirty read. This romcom hits all those great spots… wit, laugh out loud moments, and believable characters that you could see sitting down and sharing a meal with.
Gaby needs a date to her family’s seder (ceremonial meal to celebrate the start of Passover) in order to get them off her back. So she decides to ask the hunk that she has been ogling while she works out. She gathers up the courage to ask him to be her fake date (what a fun trope!), but… he doesn’t hear her. Levi, it turns out, is deaf. Let the fun and shenanigans ensue as this unlikely pair try to fool Gaby’s family for the holiday.
I loved how Laura Brown seamlessly integrated both Levi being deaf and the Jewish holiday into the story. Neither seemed like just a prop or setting… both were integral to the story itself. I could just imagine how easy it would be to feel like an outsider at a seder when conversation and songs flow around the table the entire time. I appreciated how this experience with his fake date’s family made him appreciate his own family that much more. I think it is so natural for us as humans to focus on what isn’t right, what could be better, that we sometimes don’t appreciate how good we have it.
The characters in this book were great. I loved how their imperfections made them so much more realistic. From our main couple to the family and friends they were surrounded by. These were characters you could imagine bumping into in your own life. And can we talk chemistry? Gaby and Levi had it in spades! I couldn’t wait for them to rip off each other’s clothes and realize how good they truly were together.
I found Matzah Ball Surprise to be a delightful read. One that I can see myself re-reading next year just in time for Passover! I am hoping (begging) that we can see some of the side characters get their own story (I would love to see books with Meyer, Monica & Izzy!)
After spending her childhood coming up with new episodes to her favorite sitcoms instead of sleeping, Laura Brown decided to try her hand at writing and never looked back. A hopeless romantic, she married her high school sweetheart. They live in Massachusetts with their two cats and son. Laura’s been hard of hearing her entire life but didn’t start learning ASL until college, when her disability morphed from an inconvenience to a positive part of her identity. At home the closed captioning is always on, lights flash with the doorbell, and hearing aids are sometimes optional.
Connect with Laura:
Love Affair With Ficti 