House of Cards: An MM Unexpected Single Father Romance (Not in the Cards, Book 1)

Omg House of Cards by Courtney W. Dixon is one of my fav books 2026! Calvin aka Cal & Seth are one of my fav books couples ever! 🥰😍🥹 This book made me swoon, laugh & cry! 🥰😂😭 This book is a great start to a new series. 🥰😍 I love this single dad romance & frenemies to friends to lovers and opposites romance.🥰 Yes these two neighbors were destined to be together it just took them a while to to get there. Tragedy, 😭 brings them closer when single bachelor Cal gets custody of his best friend's son Braeden. Cal need help from his cute single dad of 3 children Seth. Cal & Seth are so prefect together.🥰 I love that Seth helped Cal with new his role as Braden's guardian. The kids were awesome Braedan, Emily aka Hellcat, Harrison, and Sawyer were all awesome. Gizmo is such a cute cat too. I love the growth of Cal & Seth in this book. 🥰🩵💜 The found family scenes and the bonding scenes between Seth & Cal and also woth their kids was beautiful. Cal & Seth are good dads and made sure to be there for there kids no matter what. Through the ups and down. 🥹🥰 I loved all the guys in the Dad's poker club too. ♣️ The guys are great group and so supportive of Cal & Seth getting together. Cal being protective of Seth was so good and hot too! 🥰 Omg Cal & Seth dancing together, their first kiss and they spicy scenes and the pet names Tiger & Joker were so damn! The spicy were good. I felt the heat between these two! 🥵🫠😍😏 Wow a cliffhanger sucker punch ending to start…

What a delightfully surprising and touching book House of Cards is! Once again, Courtney W. Dixon has challenged my assumptions and created an emotional and marvelous story, full of robust characters that feel real and stick with you long after you’ve closed the book. Neighbors Calvin and Seth could not be more different. Seth’s a single father of three, running on caffeine and barely controlled chaos, trying to heal from his partner abandoning him. Calvin’s a confirmed bachelor, nearing 40, and recovering from his own toxic relationships - both romantic and familial. Both men are successful business owners, though their worlds seem to be chasms apart. Calvin’s world is turned upside down with the arrival of a teenage boy - the son of his friends lost to a tragic accident - and the only person he can turn to is Seth. Through exhausted confessions, childcare support, casseroles shuttled across front yards, and a poker group of sassy and supportive single dads, Calvin and Seth learn how to lean on another person again, how to create a family, and how to love and be loved. Oh, what a lovely book! Both Seth and Calvin have been through truly wretched romantic relationships, and are clearly doing the best that they can. As a parent, the feelings of being overwhelmed, constantly unprepared, and running on empty can feel so under represented in literature, and Courtney captured all of it perfectly. Parenthood is so often both the best and worst days at the same time and Seth’s…

What a lovely story in every way! It is not your typical romance of meeting, falling in love, a drama of some sort, and then the happy reunion…No, this story begins with hurt and loss and struggle that quickly unfolds into one of support, care, humor and community. There are some real, and realistic, plot turns along the enitre arc of the story, but they help us know many of the members of the story even better. I love this book and highly recommend it! I read a LOT of M/M romances, and this one easily stands out as one of my favorites because of Courtney Dixon’s creativity and care in bringing us this wonderful, affirming and hope-filled story.

I enjoyed this story. I liked Cal and Seth. It was nice seeing how their friendship grew into more. I loved how Cal stepped up and took care of Braedon and was trying hard to be there for him in however he needed. Their story was sweet. They had great communication and no break ups which I really liked. There were a couple of nighted that annoyed me a bit. I love nicknames in a story but I didn’t really like “Tiger” and “Joker”. They were used A LOT. Also Seth always talking about being Vanilla got a bit tiresome. Overall I enjoyed this story and I will be checking out the next in the series. I’m interested to see the timeline and how that plays out.

This book was a beautiful journey not just to Seth and Calvin’s HEA, but to creating a HEA for their family. We meet Seth and Calvin as neighbors who don’t completely get along and then after life throws some pretty massive lemons their way they begin to build a friendship that turned into so much more for them. I think my favorite thing about this book was being apart of the complete journey with these men! I feel like I got to see the whole story of their relationship with this book rather than just the tip of the iceberg of their relationship. These men go through a lot and I don’t want to spoil those moments for anyone but it was important to see how these two helped each other through those moments and how they also grew themselves and handled the situations. I adored Seth from the beginning because his character is so strong and brave as he navigates his life that didn’t go as planned after a divorce and being a single dad. He faces a lot in this book as he navigated his past and the situations he found himself in throughout the book. However he always showed such kindness and compassion that I couldn’t help but cheer him on and was so happy that he got his HEA and his moment with Harrison that I cried. Calvin honestly took me by surprise. I struggled initially to connect with his character because he just felt self absorbed to me at first but fudge was I wrong. Calvin ended up being so much more than I thought he was. His ability to be honest, open, vulnerable, and…