From the shared world of Tuft Swallow
Nick “Odd Duck” D’Onofrio is a thirty-eight-year-old retired, undefeated MMA fighter with four goals: open a gym in his hometown of Tuft Swallow, learn to play cornhole without embarrassing himself, amass the largest collection of rubber ducks the world has ever seen, and start a family. The first three are coming along nicely. It’s the last one he’s having a hard time with. No matter what he does, he just can’t seem to find “the one”.
At least, he couldn’t–until he ran into the woman of his dreams. Literally. He slammed right into her in the middle of his morning jog, and it was pretty much love at first sight. For him, anyway.
Tina Falcone has never wanted the responsibility that comes with a family of her own. For Tina, the key to happiness lies in running her own pizza place, listening to true crime podcasts, creating miniature cemeteries out of thrifted pottery, and staying single. No man-child husband or crapping babies needed, thank you very much. She doesn’t even mind that she’s bucking years of Falcone family tradition to live her life this way. (Just don’t tell her meddling mother that.)
So what happens when one Odd Duck seems intent on breaking Tina’s spinster-streak? She has to admit, something about his giant grin, huge muscles, squishy belly, and tiny running shorts intrigues her. And the rubber duck tramp-stamp? Well, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t at least a little intrigued by that, too.
This book discusses several difficult subjects with what can occasionally seem like callous disregard. I promise it’s not because I don’t think these are serious issues. Truthfully, it has more to do with being an adult child of an alcoholic who’s never addressed my own trauma beyond adopting a dark-ish sense of humour and denying the existence of my own feelings for far too long. So when you read about how Carson and Jared feel about their relationships with their parents, for example? Some (but not all, because I was lucky enough to have an amazing mom) of that is based on my own history with my dad.
My dad isn’t in my closet, though. He’s on my grandmother’s mantle.
Anyway, read on for the content warnings. (And, in case it’s not clear, most of these are only mentioned in passing, but better safe than sorry.)
Death of parents; house fires; death of parents in house fires; alcoholism and drug addiction; underage drinking; past child neglect; child abandonment; foster care and the foster system (I’ve done my best to portray this as accurately as possible within the limited scope and time-frame of this book. Despite all the research I’ve done for this book, I am not an authority on foster care or the foster system, and should not be looked to as a reliable source of information on the subject); past criminal activities of bumbling mobsters; sex trafficking; potential SA; serial killers and their crimes; references to incels, red-pillers, alphamales, and alpha doms; body shaming and fat shaming; theft and consumption of underwear by a goat; testicle mashing by that same goat; the world’s tiniest running shorts; so many rubber ducks (however many you’re thinking, it’s still more than that); what some may consider an excessive number of bird puns (but what the other Tuft Swallow authors and I have determined it to be the exact right number); and possibly more that I missed (if you come across something that you think should have been listed here, please email admin@chantalroome.com and we’ll do our best to add it).
If a loved one’s alcoholism or drug use has affected you, al-anon.org or smartrecovery.org may have resources to help.