NEW ADULT MONDAYS: The Deal (Off-Campus #1)

The New Adult genre - their bad boys and big problems and epic loves make them engrossing tales that are so easy to lose yourself in. What's not to love about that? And, now, thanks to the cool chicks at Bewitched Bookworms, we can show these books the love they deserve in a weekly feature - New Adult Mondays.

The Deal (Off-Campus #1), by Elle Kennedy
Publish Date: February 24, 2015
Publisher: Self-published
Format: e-book, purchased
Genre: new adult contemporary romance
To Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Rating: 5 STARS

(Synopsis) She’s about to make a deal with the college bad boy... 

Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice…even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date.

...and it’s going to be oh so good.

All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.

I've got my new adult mojo back! After falling into sort of a funk and a general disenfranchisement with the new adult genre as a whole there for awhile, I finally succumbed to intense peer pressure and started to read The Deal. I really dig sports-themed books, and I had heard nothing but good things about this series from sources I totally trust. The Deal was one of my Christmas Amazon gift card purchases, and I have to say it was one of the best (so far, anyway). 

The deal is an example of one of my favorite tropes - the smart-girl-falls-for-the-cocky-jock story line will always be one of my favorites. Mostly because I love it when these womanizing BMOCs meet their match in the most unexpected person. 

Garrett Graham is the most popular boy on campus. He's hot, smart and a phenom on ice hockey skates. He's been pigeon-holed by Hannah Wells, a girl in his philosophy class. She assumes he's a dumb jock who has no brains except for the one he keeps in his pants. But, he can help her get the boy she really wants, and she can help him keep his philosophy grade up so that he can keep playing hockey. And so their relationship begins. 

There is a definite progression in Garrett and Hannah's relationship, and I liked that. There was definitely no insta-love. Hannah had her sights set on another guy, and Garrett only liked Hannah for her brains. They clashed constantly. Hannah was the first girl who didn't fawn all over him, and Garrett just doesn't know what to do with that. But, slowly, the animosity between them grew to friendship. Then, to so much more. And that's when Garrett is REALLY thrown for a loop.

I never expected her. Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don't know how you ever lived without them. How you went about your day and hung out with your friends and fucked other people without having this one important person in your life.

The banter between Hannah and Garrett was my favorite part. It was so smartly written, too. Totally believable and adorable, the snark and snappy comebacks that constantly flew between these two kept me smiling and laughing even when things threatened to get heavy. 

The Deal is written in dual POV. The sex is about what you would expect from a new adult book. It's not excessive, but what there is is pretty hot. 

The biggest indication that I loved this book is in the fact that, immediately after I finished, I went online and bought book 2, The Mistake. If you're one of the few who, like me, had heard talk of The Deal, but haven't yet pulled the trigger, please go do it now. You won't regret it. 

NEW ADULT MONDAYS: Make It Right (Bowler University #2)

The New Adult genre - their bad boys and big problems and epic loves make them engrossing tales that are so easy to lose yourself in. What's not to love about that? And, now, thanks to the cool chicks at Bewitched Bookworms, we can show these books the love they deserve in a weekly feature - New Adult Mondays.

Make It Right (Bowler University #2), by Megan Erickson
Publish Date: September 9, 2014
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Format: paperback, borrowed
Genre: new adult contemporary romance
To Buy: Amazon * Barnes & Noble

Rating: 4.5 STARS

(From Goodreads) Max Payton lives by two rules:
Size and strength win any fight, and never show weakness.

When a rash of assaults sends Bowler University for a tail spin, Max volunteers to help teach a self-defense class. One of the other instructors is the beautiful pixie-faced girl he keeps butting heads with…and who challenges everything he thought he knew.

Lea Travers avoids guys like Max - cocky jocks who assume she's fragile because of a disability caused by a childhood accident. She likes to be in control, and something about being with Max makes her feel anything but. But during the moments he lets his guard down, Lea sees a soul as broken inside as she is outside. Trusting him is a whole other problem...

When the assaults ramp up and hit close to home, Lea and Max must learn, before it’s too late, that true strength can come from vulnerability…and giving in to trust is sometimes the only way to make things right.

I gotta admit - Megan had her work cut out for her with this one. After how he treated both his girlfriend (well, now EX-girlfriend) Kat and his BFF Alec, I wasn't sure there was any way Max could be redeemed. After reading Make It Right, I've learned never to doubt Megan Erickson again. 

At least Max realizes what a jerk he was, and in the beginning of Make It Right, we see him overcompensating for that. He's feeling awkward around Kat and Alec and their friends after what he did, and to keep from being seen as weak or uncomfortable, he's lashing out at all of them. To make matters worse, Max's relationship with his father is awful, and his dad has backed him into a corner where his future is concerned.  It's really no big surprised that Max is as grouchy as he is. 

Lea has a hard time with large and in charge guys like Max. If she only dates men who are more... submissive... she can keep her feelings for them at a minimum. She has a disability that hinders her ability to walk and includes a nasty scar. Some guys get freaked out by that, so the less attached Lea is, the better. I loved Lea. She's a plucky, strong heroine who doesn't take crap from anyone. I loved the scene in the book where Max walks into the self-defense class he was to assist with and discovers that Lea is not an attendee, but rather an instructor. She blew him away and solidified his attraction to her all at once.

I loved watching how Max's and Lea's relationship develops. In the beginning, they don't really like each other much at all. Well, Max likes Lea, but he doesn't want to like her. It's the same for Lea. So, they dance around each other for awhile, neither willing to admit to the attraction they both feel. But, of course, eventually they both give in to it, and the chemistry between these two was off the charts.

I loved the side story of Max's relationship with his brothers and his dad. He's very close with his two older brothers. They feel for him because they know that he doesn't want to work at the family auto garage, but he's too afraid to tell his father that. Max has some things to work out regarding his relationship with his dad, and we see him struggle with that throughout the course of the book.

The threat of the on-campus stalker is an exciting mystery that results in a scary ending. It was a great catalyst for Max's and Lea's story too.

I'm loving the Bowler University series so much. I'm so sad that there's only one book left now. If I had extra hours in the day, I would definitely spend them re-reading this whole series - it just gets better and better.

RELEASE DAY NEW ADULT MONDAYS REVIEW: A Shattered Heart (Fractured Lives #2)

The New Adult genre - their bad boys and big problems and epic loves make them engrossing tales that are so easy to lose yourself in. What's not to love about that? And, now, thanks to the cool chicks at Bewitched Bookworms, we can show these books the love they deserve in a weekly feature - New Adult Mondays.

A Shattered Heart (Fractured Lives #2), by Tiffany King
Publish Date: September 28, 2015
Publisher: A. T. Publishing, LLC
Format: paperback, provided by the author
Genre: new adult contemporary romance
To Buy: Amazon * iTunes

Rating: 4 STARS

(From Goodreads) A Shattered Heart is the story of Kathleen "Kat" Darby who discovers that although you can run away, you can never escape the ghosts from your past.

Physically, Kat Darby walked away relatively unscathed from the tragic car accident on the night of her high school graduation. Emotionally, her scars run much deeper from the loss of two of her best friends and her longtime boyfriend, Dan. Unable to face the constant reminders of the person she thought she would love forever, Kat leaves for twelve months to study art in France before returning home to start her life again.

Life in Florida proves more difficult than Kat anticipated with remnants of the accident still lingering. The only solace she can find is in her love for art until she runs into Brian, the younger brother of her deceased former boyfriend. Finding they can lean on each other, Kat and Brian find comfort in their emotional common bond. When an unexpected romance develops, Kat must decide if she is willing to face the ghosts from her past in order to love again.

A Shattered Heart picks up where book one in Tiffany King's Fractured Lives series, A Shattered Moment, left off - with Kat Darby standing on the doorstep of her former best friend's house for the first time in nearly two years. I knew after having read A Shattered Moment that A Shattered Heart would be even more heartbreaking, more tear-jerking, and more angst-ridden. I was totally right. Surprisingly, it was also way more frustrating. 

To catch you up, the Fractured Lives series starts in the past - with an incredibly tragic car accident involving six of the closest friends there ever were. The survivors of the accident are left with some serious physical and emotional scars, and all of them are finding it difficult to move on in the wake of something so devastating. 
  
On the surface, it seems like Kat is the one who lost the most. She lost her soul-mate Dan and her closest girlfriend Jessica. Unlike Mac and Zach, who both have serious physical limitations due to the accident, Kat's scars are all of the emotional variety. She had these big plans for her life, and every one of them involved Dan. Now, faced with a life without him, she's completely lost and floundering. She's not happy doing anything she used to enjoy. She shuns everyone who cares about her, because it hurts too much to let people in when you could just lose them later. She has no regard for her personal safety, because there are times when she thinks death would be a better alternative to the life she's living now. 

You know, it has to be monumentally hard to write a character like Kat - to allow her to be angry and guilt-ridden and sad (all justifiably so), without turning her into a total bitch. And, to allow the reader to empathize with her and hope for a better future. And, there were definitely moments that I did those things. I shed more than a couple tears at Kat's plight, because everything she went through sucks so much. I can't even imagine what it's like, and I can't believe that I would've handled things much better than she did. But, I also spent a lot of time being pissed off at her for how she treated nearly every person around her - especially Brian, the boy she spends much of the book trying not to fall in love with.

And, I get it. Brian reminds Kat so much of his older brother, which is exactly what Kat does NOT want, especially when she develops feelings for him. And, yet, there's this pull to him that can only be born out of a comforting sense of familiarity. This is someone who knew her before, and probably the only other person who could come close to understanding her loss. And, Brian was wonderful with Kat. He was patient and understanding and careful with her feelings. He also was one of the few people who didn't walk on eggshells around her and had the guts to call her on her crap. 

It's for that reason that I was so frustrated at Kat a lot of the time. She so obviously was having trouble getting over what happened. She was so angry at everyone - at Mac for actually moving on, at Brian for not allowing her to continue wallowing, at her therapist for making her face the things she wanted to keep buried. And, Kat responded to all these people with seething rage that caused her to lash out with hurtful words and uncalled for physical reactions. There was this one scene on Dan's and Brian's birthday that had me actually having to close the book for a bit and walk away because I was so angry at Kat's actions. 

As always, Tiffany King's writing is wonderful - goodness, I love it. Despite my issues with Kat, I did love Brian. He was a good balance to Kat, and much needed for the story. I'm so glad he wasn't a Dan clone. Although the brothers were only one year apart, they were very different in appearance and personality. I thought that was important to the story. 

I loved catching up with Mac and Bentley. And, I especially loved the growth in Zach's character. He still has a ways to go, and I'm hoping we get his story next. 

Be prepared for an emotional ride. Have a box of tissues at the ready, and when you reach those frustrating parts, just breath through them. I promise there's all good things on the other side.