Review: Real Men Will – Victoria Dahl

Real Men Will by Victoria Dahl
Series:  Donovan Brother Brewery #3
Release Date:  October 25, 2011
Publisher:   HQN Books
Page Count:  
Source:  NetGalley

It was meant to be a one-night stand. One night of passion. Scorching hot. Then Beth Cantrell and Eric Donovan were supposed to go their separate ways. That’s the only reason he lied about his name, telling her he was really his wild younger brother. Hiding his own identity as the conservative Donovan. The “good” one.

But passion has its own logic, and Eric finds he cannot forget the sable-haired beauty with whom he shared one night of passion. When Beth discovers that Eric has lied, however, she knows he cannot be trusted. Her mind tells her to forget the blue-eyed charmer. If only every fiber of her being did not burn to call him back.

When we last saw Eric, he had reluctantly agreed to letting Jamie add a pizza kitchen to their family brewery.  Eric, always the brother in control, was still resentful of how Jamie handled the incident a few months ago with a potential partners daughter which resulted in a break-in.  He made no attempt to hide his disappointment and sometime contempt for Jamie.  

Fast forward to the beginning of this story and the only thing I could think was:  my how the mighty have fallen!

At a conference for local business a few months prior, Eric lets another conference attendee believe he was his brother when they sealed their deal for a one night stand.  Figuring he could cash in on Jamie’s reputation, he could do whatever he wanted that night and not have to worry about being the responsible Donovan sibling.  He didn’t count on his one night stand finding out who he was.  But find out she did.

Terrified when he date took her to Donovan’s Beth Cantrell nervously looked around the bar hoping to avoid “Jamie”.  They had sworn they were only going to have one night and she didn’t want him to think she was stalking him.  Fate had other plans for Beth, since she ends up running into “Jamie” as she was leaving the restroom.  After a brief, awkward moment, they go their separate ways.  But Beth is still troubled by the meeting and starts doing some digging on Jamie.  She discovers that the man she was with that night was not Jamie, but in fact Eric.  Humiliated and drowning in memories of another time she was humiliated, Beth confront Eric.  Let’s just say, it goes downhill from there.


There was a lot of “whoa is me” going on in this story.  Unlike the previous two heroines, Beth spent a lot of time carrying on about how she wanted to change and get over the past but she never really did (until practically the last page).   Likewise, we had Eric fighting with just about everyone but never really doing anything to fix what his problem was (even when he had an idea about what would change his outlook).  In both cases, instead of talking things through these two characters internalized EVERYTHING which practically ate them alive.


While the sex scenes were out of this world, it seemed to me these were two rather angry people taking out their hurts on one another in the bedroom (or the kitchen table, hallway, bathroom, etc).  I wasn’t really sure how either of them got to the love part of the story based on some of the stuff that went on before hand.


Based on the previous two books, I had higher hopes for Eric’s story.