Flirting With Fifty by Jane Porter

ARC provided by Berkley via Net Galley. Releases 5/24/22.

“She didn’t need a man telling her what to do, or where to be, or what time to be home. She didn’t want to ask for permission to meet friends, see a movie, or take a barre class. She was turning fifty at the end of September, and she was done asking. Done getting permission for anything. Done compromising. And relationships were just one compromise after another. “I don’t hate men. I just don’t need to spend a lot of one-on-one time with any of them.”

Paige is content with her life. She loves her job as a math professor and her three grown daughters have their own satisfying lives. She has been out of her terrible marriage for eight years and has no desire to get back into the relationship game. (Being divorced in my fifties, I can so relate!)

When Paige gets recruited to co-teach a class with a visiting professor, she is not happy about the added work. Then she realizes that the professor is the same sexy Aussie she hooked up with thirty years ago, and not knowing what to do, she pretends to not know him. Of course he remembers her….

Jack is an Indiana Jones type of guy who travels the world doing field study. He is a widower with a grown son. The biology course they are co-teaching also includes a 3-week field study, so I enjoyed the different settings the book takes us to. But it was a little slow for me.

It was a slow-burn romance, which works for the age of the characters, as well as the workplace situation, but it just made the book itself a little slow as well. There wasn’t really any important conflict or anything overly exciting that made me want to rush to read and find out what happens.

Likes:

Older, smart characters.
Parents of grown kids.
I liked getting to go to Tanzania.
It was different than most books I read.
I loved Jack.
There was none of the stereotypical middle aged characterizations.
They mentioned the Pandemic instead of pretending it didn’t happen.

Dislikes:

It moved a little slow for me.
Needed some more of a conflict.
Not a fan of the cover.
She had a kind of strange relationship with her grown daughters.
I felt very ambivalent towards Paige. I didn’t love her or hate her.

The Down & Dirty:

I love reading about mature couples! Flirting with Fifty had so much potential but there was just something missing. It was a relaxing, easy read, but it was a little slow and needed some more conflict. I had mixed feelings about Paige. For me, I almost always need to LOVE the heroine to love the book, and we were in her head too much. Still, I enjoyed the read, I loved the hero, and really enjoyed the different settings and realistic older characters. I recommend it for someone who is specifically looking for older romance.