Pub Date	September 26, 2024
Publisher	Orion
Page Count	448 pages
Genre	Romance, Contemporary, Adult
Goodreads Star Rating	4.06
My star rating	2.5

The Wingman Book Summary

The Wingman by Stephanie Archer is a romance novel about Darcy, who broke up with her fiance recently and moved in with her hockey star best friend, Hayden. All she wants to do is find herself and have some fun, so she enlists Hayden’s help in finding one night stands. However, Hayden has feelings for her, and she has feelings for him — only neither of them believe they can ever be together. 

The Wingman Book Review

The older I get, the more I like friends to lovers romance. I don’t know why, but it’s true. And it’s only when you start actively seeking this trope that you realize how little of it there actually is out there. 

So when The Wingman came up on my Kindle store, I was delighted. Two friends falling in love while actively trying to do the opposite — what could be better? And there I was, settled in for a fun, cozy day reading, only to be sorely disappointed. 

True, this book is ostensibly friends to lovers. However, these friends have had feelings for each other the whole time, for the entire eight years of their friendship, through long-term relationships and one-night stands. And while some may find this romantic, I really don’t. 

How can you even stay in a relationship with someone when you clearly have feelings for another person? Why even start that relationship — because the heroine confesses that she hoped the “friend” would ask her out instead of the boyfriend. I’ve been on the other end of this, and it’s neither fair nor pretty. 

But anyway, my personal history and the characters’ emotional cheating aside, this is not the friends to lovers I like. They were already halfway in love when this book started. What I like instead is watching two friends discover all the reasons why they would be great together. I like them to start out not really having all these feelings, but unearthing them as they start seeing each other in a new light. 

Perhaps it can start physical — in this case, that would have worked — and then slowly develop into more. 

Instead, this book starts at where it should have been at 50%. 

It doesn’t help that the characters are unbelievably ridiculous. 

Darcy, the heroine, just ended an 8 year long relationship with her fiance, and a week later, she’s out in bars looking to hook up. Far be it from me to judge how someone processes their emotions, but even if she was done with the relationship months before she ended it, there should usually be a grief period. It’s not just about ending a relationship, but also the fear of the future, grief for all that lost time, for all the things that were also gone along with it. 

But no, our heroine plans to hook up as much as possible. And yet, she’s so inexperienced that she enlists the help of her incredibly handsome best friend. Because, wouldn’t you know it, he’s a “player” — god, I’ve grown to hate that word over the course of this book. 

Darcy just wouldn’t stop saying that Hayden, the hero, is such a player, he sleeps around so much, he’s such a womanizer he can’t possibly be good enough for a real relationship. And she says all of these things to his face, even though it’s very clear it’s hurting him.

She keeps pestering him to go out and sleep around because that’s who he is — even though it’s pretty clear that he prefers staying home and watching his favorite TV show. Everyone around her says so, but Darcy, being the genius she is, just won’t believe it. As if Hayden can have no depth to him at all. 

And Hayden is not a saint either. He becomes such a caveman about Darcy that I don’t know how anyone finds this attractive. There are jealous outbursts, possessive moves — all he wants is to mark her, and buy stuff for her and keep her away from any man who will look at her. Including his best friend. Even though it’s clear that the best friend couldn’t care less about Darcy and just wants to get Hayden to admit his feelings. 

These are grown adults, by the way. 

Both of them are so oblivious. Hayden has to go masturbate in the shower any time he touches Darcy, so she assumes that he’s… grossed out by her? He clearly tells her she’s beautiful multiple times (and is clearly horny), she thinks it’s just because he wants to boost her confidence. He drinks wine and knows how to pick it out and order it at a restaurant (which is somehow surprising to her), and she assumes it’s because he’s so used to wining and dining supermodels. 

And Darcy is so innocent, just so sheltered that she doesn’t know how to pick out, much less use a vibrator — so Hayden has to do it for her. Yes, even use the vibrator on her. 

He openly admits that he’s wanted her for eight years and is incredibly infatuated with her, and yet Darcy somehow still spins it into “oh well, he’s just a player, and even more importantly, my wingman”. 

Don’t even get me started on the wingman thing. Ignoring the fact that all people are not seduced the same way, she’s a conventionally attractive woman in her twenties, looking for casual fun — she would have no issues finding someone. She doesn’t need a wingman, and furthermore, Hayden being present for most of her would-be dates kind of ruins her chances more. So the whole premise of the book is pointless. 

Here’s a more believable one: Darcy and Hayden are just friends and have been for ages. They move in together when Darcy breaks up with her boyfriend. She tries sleeping around, but the partners prove disappointing or creepy. Hayden is in a similar situation, and it might be hard to sleep around freely because of his fame. So one night, one of them suggests sleeping together because it would be easier. And they start doing it, but they also start developing feelings. 

There! A plot that actually works. 

And if we could remove the boyfriend that forcibly gets turned into a villain, that would be great. True, he wasn’t perfect, but most of his sins were that he didn’t like going out and wanted to sleep early. At this point in my life, he’s more relatable than Darcy is. 

Hayden and Darcy, the dummies that they are, spend the majority of this book being absolutely oblivious while simultaneously being the most obvious people on the planet. Even when one or both of them clearly state their feelings, this gets ignored in favor of unnecessary angst. 

The prose was equally disappointing. I don’t mind the first person point of view, but this was not done well. The dialogue is cringe, the inner monologue is unrealistic and awful. This book as a whole was just unenjoyable. And I’m not beyond reading stuff like this just for fun, because the Wattpad factor of it all is just as alluring as it’s always been. Heck, Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas is one of my favorite romances ever. 

But this book committed too many sins and was just too badly done. 

So, would I recommend this? Sure, it’s on Kindle Unlimited and it could be a fun way to pass the time. Especially so if you haven’t read that many books of this type. But if you read many hockey romances, or have already read a few “she’s an innocent good girl, and he’s her player best friend, so he’ll show her how to seduce men, but oh no, they fall in love” books (trust me, it’s a whole genre at this point), then you might want to skip this one. 

This is also a part of a series, and I haven’t read the previous books. I wouldn’t say it’s necessary to read them at all. There is no overarching plot so you won’t miss out on anything. And from what I hear, the previous two books are very similar to this, though people seem to like the second one the best. 

If you want some fun, swoony romances, check out my favorites here and here.

Highlights & Notes 

• The Wingman is written in first point of view, from both Hayden and Darcy’s perspective
• It’s a part of the Vancouver Storm series (it’s third installment)
• The Wingman is spicy, especially so from about 40%. I found the spice generally boring (so much so that I started asking myself the philosophical question of why is intercourse even a thing humans do). 
• Check the trigger warnings before reading. It’s not especially offensive or triggering, but there’s emotional cheating, some manipulation and generally shitty behavior from the ex, possessiveness and jealousy from the main love interest and more.