Love, when it came for me, did not creep. No, it walked up to me, bold as you please, you know, just in case I wasn’t paying attention. It did, however, slap me upside my head.
If you’re looking for your next NA Romance that’s guaranteed to make you swoon, make you sweat, and make you smile, then you have definitely found your next read. Kristen Callihan is a new to me author, but will now be gracing my auto-buy shelf because she weaved a story that technically should have been ‘been there, read that’, yet managed to suck me in so thoroughly that I couldn’t bring myself to put it down.
Now if you’re a half-assed blurb reader and occasionally make assumptions like me, you probably read this:
The rules: no kissing on the mouth, no staying the night, no telling anyone, and above all… No falling in love.
and just assumed that this was referring to another man-whoring hero as opposed to the heroine. No? That was just me then? Well…this is awkward. But I digress…
Meet Anna Jones
Anna just wants to finish college and figure out what she wants to do with her life. She’s not looking for a relationship, and she tends to have a type…of the poetic and emo variety. So when the school’s football golden child and resident playboy starts sending her the lusty eyes, she wants none of it…or so she tells herself.
Meet Drew Baylor
Star quarterback, and the hot commodity on campus that can have any girl he wants without even trying…except Anna. Inexplicably drawn to the prickly redhead, Drew finds himself tongue tied and blushing whenever their cross path, and it certainly doesn’t help that Anna never spares any feelings to cut him down at the knees. He’s not her type, he gets it, he just can’t seem to stay away from her.
But chemistry like the one they have, can only be denied for so long, and when something burns that hot it’s bound to explode eventually, right?
What first begins as a scorching hot hookup, soon begins to develop into something so much more, something that Anna is not ready to face.
The author did an amazing job building a sexual and emotional tension and chemistry that is so palpable you can almost taste it. It’s not often when I’ll pick up a book where the MCs are going at it pretty much straight away, but that sexual tension continues to not only remain but build between them. The writing was that good.
Drew was such an endearing character, I fell for him straight off the bat. He wasn’t perfect, and he wasn’t at all what he seemed. He was not the asshole playboy that Anna assumes he was, he’s sweet and charming and at times his emotional struggles never failed to pull at every heart string I had.
Anna was a different story. This is a girl that due to her dysfunctional family dynamic avoids relationships as a rule…especially with guys like Drew. Throughout much of the book she attempts to keep him at arm’s length and with a very clear ‘hook up only’ label. But before she knows it, she begins to see the man beneath her initial assumptions, and she can’t help but start to fall for him.
I was not expecting this book to be as hot as it was, but the sex was never too much. The chemistry between Drew and Anna was absolutely sizzling, and the best part? It was like that every time they get together.
Their path to a real relationship was not easy and not without struggle, and I just gobbled it up. Luckily all of the emotion and angst was fitting and there was no manufactured drama that ever took away from the story. By the second half I was so invested in their relationship, I couldn’t bring myself to put the book down.
This is definitely a book I would recommend to any fans of the NA genre, and a series I can’t wait to continue with. Really looking forward to Gray’s book next. But don’t just take my word for it, read this book and find out for yourself what all the fuss is about. You won’t regret it, I promise.
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