A great successor to Hibbert’s ‘Get a Life, Chloe Brown’! I love how the author creates complex characters and allows them to explore mental health issues like anxiety in a way that doesn’t diminish or mock them. The romance is cute and occasionally a little steamy, while also being incredibly funny. A talented writer and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

I read Get a Life, Chloe Brown last year and was delightfully surprised by how much I liked it. I'm not usually drawn to romance, but, as I discovered, Talia Hibbert's books are much more than that.

I LOVE the diversity in Talia Hibbert's books. Dani and Zaf are both people of color, and Dani is bi. Zaf struggles with an anxiety disorder as well as grief from past trauma. He reads romance novels as a way of keeping hope alive and teaches young boys how to be emotionally vulnerable and to prioritize mental health. What?? That's awesome.
Dani is a brilliant academic who is just looking for a friends with benefits situation. She is confident, loves herself as is, and refuses to compromise her integrity for others.
What starts off as a mutually beneficial fake romance slowly turns into the real thing. The chemistry between Dani and Zaf is hot, and I enjoyed watching them fall in love and bring out the best in each other.

I can't wait for the next installment! Talia Hibbert never disappoints.

ake a Hint, Dani Brown
The Brown Sisters #2
by: Talia Hibbert @taliahibbert
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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I received an ARC of Take a Hint, Dani Brown from @NetGalley and @HarperCollins. *The Pub Date is 6/23/2020.* I read this immediately after finishing Get a Life, Chloe Brown, and I enjoyed it just as much if not a little more. (Y’all should know by now how much I love series. I blame The BabySitters Club for this.)
Dani is an PhD student, and Zaf is the security guard at the building where she teaches. They go viral as #DrRugbae after a drill leads Zaf to rescue Dani from an elevator. They agree to fake date to help Zaf’s Tackle It program. However, even though Dani doesn’t do relationships, she may or may not break all of her rules for Zaf.
I laughed out loud several times during this book! I thought it was super funny, a little sweet, and a lot steamy.

I loved the first book in this series, "Get a life Chloe brown" and loved this follow up! Talia Hibbert is such a talented author, I will read future books of hers!

Take A Hint, Dani Brown is seriously addictive. The steamy, sexy romance between Zaf and Dani was absolutely FIRE. I enjoyed reading through the fake relationship and watching their relationship blossom. I also love how Talia Hibbert writes with pure humor despite the heavy tones of sensitive topics like general anxiety disorder and family death. She really knows how to mesh so many feelings and topics into one, cohesive piece of writing. Can't wait to read book #3!

Let me tell you about my experience reading Take A Hint, Dani Brown. I've been in a bit of a reading slump. My kids are home with me all the time - my prime reading time used to be the hour before I picked them up from the bus, after I'd gotten all of my work done for the day. For the most part, I read digitally - can't be helped, especially with ARCs and a limited book budget and a very active digital library card. But I spend a LOT of time on my phone in front of my kids - usually, looking up recipes to feed their ravenous hunger (a pandemic is obviously the time for a growth spurt!), trawling Pinterest for ideas to keep them occupied (the sidewalk chalk obstacle course was a big hit) or just trying frantically to keep up with emails, social media, and other communication involved in my life. Also, posting pictures of food on Instagram, which is obviously VERY IMPORTANT. All of this is to say that I'm not exactly a great model of 'hey, you shouldn't be staring at a screen all the time' for my kids, and with them home all the time, staring at a screen in front of them even more to read in solid chunks of time has seemed like maybe not a great idea.

Plus, there's the never-ending dread and existential despair to deal with, you know?

So anyway, I've had a hard time picking up a book to read. Nothing has held my attention, even though some of the books waiting patiently on my TBR pile are ones that I have looked forward to for AGES. Finally I dug out my Kindle (reasoning that a DIFFERENT screen was probably okay? I don't know), and pulled up my library, to which I had downloaded several ARCs from NetGalley right before the entire world exploded. I reasoned that Talia Hibbert would never steer me wrong (spoiler alert, I was right), and pulled up Dani Brown. I read the first sentence, and was deeply charmed and finally! ready to end my reading slump! And then my Kindle battery died.

And then I had to learn how to make homemade bagels, and order meat from local farms, and plant a garden, and approximately eight million other things most of which I have posted about on Twitter and Instagram because I'm a compulsive oversharer. And then eventually I remembered that my Kindle was probably charged by now, and sat down to read while my kids watched TV, because frankly there are some days when Spy Kids: Mission Critical is the thing that keeps the entire household running.

And then I read, and read, and read, and paused to make dinner as quickly as possible, and read some more. I finished the thing in a few hours and looked up and discovered that I was BACK, BABY. If you're going to break a reading slump, this is the book to do it with. I can't imagine another book more perfectly tailored to making me feel good.

First of all, the writing is just so good it makes me want to swear. Like, from the first page, I kept wanting to pluck charming, delightfully-written sentences out of their paragraphs to cackle excitedly about them on Twitter - but there were so many of them that I would have essentially been copy-and-pasting the entire book. Which, uh, is against the rules. Talia Hibbert has always had a fantastic narrative voice but she just keeps getting better and better; I loved Get A Life, Chloe Brown (the first book in this series), but this one is, like, exponentially better. Yes, some of this has to do with the fact that the author apparently read all of my diaries and carefully crafted both protagonists to be EXACTLY MY TYPE, but it's also because the writing is crisp, witty, and just leaping off the page with sensuality in all the right places. (The sex scenes are EXTREMELY GOOD, friends.)

There's a lot to love about this book. Zaf is the hero we all want; he reads romance novels in a much more self-aware way than the boys of The Bromance Book Club - and clearly reads a significantly more diverse selection of them (there's a shout out to Beverly Jenkins right in the text, AS THERE SHOULD BE). He's a brawny former athlete with an anxiety disorder who teaches kids - particularly young athletes - about mental health! Like, I want to hire him to teach at my kids' school. WHY ISN'T HE REAL. And Dani is EVERYTHING. She's kind, confident, and absolutely brilliant - and she's aware that she isn't always in line with social expectations but realizes that she doesn't need to be. Both of the protagonists are damaged in ways that don't necessarily show on the surface - and don't necessarily make them lesser people. They might have issues, but they're still fully realized people who occupy a place in the world that doesn't rely on them being 'fixed.' This is the kind of thing I want to see more of in romance. Make your characters real people who have to navigate a real world, with professional careers and lives that don't revolve around them finding love.

Hibbert does the same thing here she did in Chloe Brown - love improves the characters lives, but doesn't define it. They're able to grow as individuals on their own - there's an incredibly rewarding moment in Dani's professional story arc that made me shriek with glee for her growth as a person, and Zaf wasn't even in the room. And like all of Talia Hibbert's books, this one neither shies away from tough topics nor makes them the basis of the story; mental health, race, religion, and body size are all touched on (thoroughly, in dialogue, narrative, and more) as matter-of-fact parts of people's real lives, because they ARE, but the story isn't ABOUT them. It's about Zaf and Dani.

I honestly didn't have a single complaint about this book (unless you count the fact that the sneak peek of Eve's book wasn't in there, since it was an ARC - I can't wait for book 3!). The way that Hibbert used romance novels as a structure to both emulate AND discard with critical analysis was absolute perfection. My emotions were caroming through an absolute whirlpool of feelings as I read through the climax and finale, and just when I thought I'd caught my breath, the epilogue (the epilogue! not a place you expect to be wrung out to dry!) caught me up and threw me in again. I loved everything about this one.

Dani is a bi Phd student and is not looking for a serious relationship. She always have great banter with Zaf, the security guard at her university. When he is captured rescuing her on video, they go viral on social media. In order to help Zaf's side project, she agrees to be his fake girlfriend, since the viral video is bringing him a lot of positive attention. The thing is Zaf is already really into Dani, so this is not going to end well. I love that Talia Hibbert writes about such diverse characters, I cannot wait for Eve's story.

I loved Get a life, Chloe Brown, and was so excited to get my hands on the next installment in the Brown sisters trilogy. Dani's journey was very different from Chloe's, but each got their HEA. I loved the story; it was just the distraction I needed in these stressful times. Hibbert writes with heart and humor, and I love spending time in the world of her characters.

I was lucky enough to receive an advanced readers copy of Take a Hint, Dani Brown right after finishing Get a Life, Chloe Brown so I was able to be immersed in the Brown sisters for a while. The second book did not disappoint! I loved the contrast between the sisters, but that you can also feel their sisterhood. I really appreciate the different cultural viewpoints represented in these characters. Although they are from different ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds those differences are not the cause of issues between the couple, just a part of who they are. Often times in literature overcoming these identity differences are the focus of a couples story, but this book simply presents two people who are ethnically dissimilar who fall in love. The author's approach of not portraying the characters as physically "ideal" is really refreshing as well. As an avid reader of this genre you become accustomed to most character descriptions being chiseled muscles and tiny waists, etc. But Dani and Zaf don't necessarily fit those stereotypes, nor are body insecurities an issue, which is outside the norm of most romance novels in the best way possible! I thoroughly enjoyed Take a Hint, Dani Brown and am looking forward to reading the third Brown sister story, which, to this reader, is the highest compliment a book can earn!

This was a very solid Romcom effort, with likable protagonists and a pretty sweet, if predictable story arc.

A new book in the world of the Brown sisters! I really enjoyed Get A Life Chloe Brown so I was looking forward to this next book! Not a sequel, a new story about Chloe’s sister Dani. Romantic, sexy, touching & funny - I recommend this book (as well as the first, read it if you haven’t already)!!

I can’t believe it, but this was just as good as “Get a Life, Chloe Brown”. Introspective, emotional, and unbelievably adorable. 10/10 Would read again. #DrRugbae forever.

Take A Hint, Dani Brown is a funny, adorable, quick read that I couldn’t seem to put down. The characters seem so real, like people you would meet in every day life. I loved getting to know Dani and Zafir and watch their romance grow.

Talia Hibbert is an essential addition to your romance collection. Her voice is distinct, her characters unique, and her stories fresh and addictive.
This contemporary is the second in the Brown Sisters series, and features a fake relationship, a too busy for love heroine, and a grumpy romantic hero.

Oh my goodness, I finished this book in under two days. It is a rom-com and tons of fun with truly likable characters. It is a little coarser than some other books in this genre; The Wedding Date series comes to mind, but that is part of its charm. This is a feel-good, diverse, book that hits it right.

Danika Brown is a teacher at a university where Zafir is a security guard. Every morning, she brings him a coffee and he gives her a protein bar, and they have a little flirtatious banter. She doesn't want a relationship, doesn't believe in happily ever after. He reads romance books and wants his HEA in the worst way.

I think we can all see how these characters are going to play out, but I liked the extra dimensions. Dani is bi and confident in herself. She is successful, has a great family life, and seems to know what she wants for now. Zaf is Muslim (but not practicing) and also very close with his family. His father and brother were killed in a car accident a number of years ago, which threw him into a depression and caused him to leave his career as a rugby player. So now he works his day job and volunteers with kids, teaching them the sport and helping them deal with anxiety, depression, and feelings, in general.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

Danika Brown knows exactly what she wants in life: to be a full professor by the time she is forty, and a no-strings relationship. Her first boyfriend and subsequent partners made it clear that she isn’t any good at the non-physical parts of a relationship, so she doesn’t bother. Zaf Ansari also knows exactly what he wants: to put his past as a professional rugby player behind him, get his non-profit off the ground, and to fall in love. In the meantime, he works as a security guard in the building where Dani teaches. Their friendship and mutual admiration society take a turn when a video of Zaf carrying Dani out of the building during an emergency evacuation drill goes viral. All the good press has sent donations skyrocketing, and Dani is willing to help out and play the fake girlfriend, especially if she can use the time to seduce Zaf. The rules? No real feelings, and it ends in a month. That may be more complicated than either of them expected.

This is the second novel in the Brown Sisters series by Talia Hibbert, though it can easily be read as a stand-alone work. Both Dani and Zaf are multi-dimensional characters, and their mental and emotional health difficulties are treated with respect. The plot was fun, and there was no villain in the story, which is definitely a plus. So why only three stars? The book was too explicit for me, I lean more towards the “cozy” end of the romance novel spectrum than the erotic. Can you skip over the explicit scenes and not lose the plot? Definitely, but you’ll be skipping over sizeable portions in the middle of the book. Dani and Zaf are interesting characters and I feel like there was space for a lot more plot in the story. That all being said, if you are looking for a feel good romance novel with steamy content, I can’t recommend this highly enough.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

I liked Get a Life, Chloe Brown. I LOVED Take a Hint, Dani Brown. This is such a great series. The characters are diverse (like actually diverse: I’m talking black bisexual female lead and a Muslim man who openly discusses mental health!!!!) and real and so, so lovely ❣️ This series keeps getting better and better. I can't wait for Eve's story!

After reading Get a Life, Chloe Brown, I was very excited to read this book.

I was hooked immediately, and stayed that way up until the very end. Dani is a tough character, but I loved her all the same, and Zaf was such a cinnamon roll that he was impossible not to love as well.

While the book is hilariously funny and beautifully written, i found myself laughing out loud so often throughout the book. It also addresses issues such as grief, loss, difficulty expressing emotions, and generalized anxiety disorder sensitively. Toxic masculinity is addressed as well, and I think my favorite part of the book was how Dani and Zaf do not conform to traditional gender roles in relationships. The intimate scenes were super hot, too.

The witty banter between ALL of the characters, not just Dani and Zaf, was like my bread and butter. I bonded with both Dani and Zaf early in the story, and was rooting for them right from the start. It was a relationship I wanted to see succeed, and Talia Hibbert definitely did not disappoint.

Thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC copy of this book available to me.

I did enjoy this book, just not quite as much as I did the previous book (Get a Life, Chloe Brown). I think I was just a bit too annoyed with Danika Brown, although I really enjoyed her romantic partner (Zafir) and his extended family. I did grow to like Danika a bit more toward the end of the book, and the book has a very satisfying ending and epilogue. I did think the book dealt nicely with Zafir's anxiety issues. And we also get to see Chloe, Red, Eve, and even Gigi in a couple of short scenes.

It appears that sister Eve's story will be covered in the next book, but some of the supporting characters from this book would also make nice main characters.

I fell in love with Talia Hibbert’s writing with Get a Life Chloe Brown and had high hopes for the next Brown sister’s story. I was not disappointed! Talia has a knack for creating diverse characters that charm you. On top of that, she creates tension and chemistry, leading to delightful intimacy. I also really love that the men in this series so far have been free of toxic masculinity. The unique Brown sisters are full of wit and sass, creating endless entertainment throughout their stories. Highly recommend!