Book Review: Out of Practice

Title: Out of Practice

Author: Piper Finley

Date: 2025

Publisher: House of King

Quote: "Well, if anyone can spot early recovery signs, it's you."

Emma is a physical therapist who thinks outside the "box" both of hospital practice and of her stuffy boyfriend's social expectations. 

Although it was marketed as a romance, this "prequel" to a series of romances is actually what I used to call an anti-romance, and wish there were more of. "Book boyfriends" are usually about as believable, or not, as their "book girlfriends," but the whole idea that physical attractions always lead to happily-ever-after is not believable. Don't any of these women, I used to think after reading a few of what used to present themselves as novels "with a love interest" and read like romances, ever notice that even men who look attractive aren't necessarily all that we ever wanted in life? Where are the stories about the relationships that don't have to lack good will, but are not and will never be True Love? Publishers used to allow women to be rescued from marrying Mr. Wrong only by meeting Mr. Right, and romance publishers, especially, didn't make a clear difference between the two.

So, Out of Practice ends with a promise that Emma is going to meet Mr. Right in the first full-sized novel in the series; what happens in this mini-book is that she recognizes that the co-worker she's been claiming as a boyfriend is not someone she wants to marry. Hospital protocols are too narrow to work for some of her patients, and his family, although apparently a good family, are too image-conscious to offer much hope that living with them will be fun. 

As a woman who likes to read what other women really think about life and relationships, I liked this novel. Women who like to read romance novels as a marital aid may want to skip ahead to the full-length book about Emma and the man she will decide to marry.