Review: The Deal

Posted October 21, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Review: The DealThe Deal by Elle Kennedy
Series: Off-Campus #1
on February 24th 2015
Also by this author: The Mistake, The Score, The Goal, The Chase , The Risk
(358 pages) • GoodreadsAmazon Barnes & Noble
four-stars

Content warning: because of its genre and/or because it has older characters than you normally see on my blog, it may contain sex, drinking/drugs, and/or violence.

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.

my thoughts pinkThis book was exactly what I needed at the time. I had recently finished a few “heavier” books with stronger sci-fi/paranormal or just plain crazy themes… so I wanted something relatively mindless and fun. I’m so happy that this book delivered that for me!

Hannah is coerced into tutoring the school’s egotistical hockey star, Garrett, in exchange for his help in getting her crush to notice her. The two of them end up moving beyond the “fake relationship” stage into something much more. Two of my favorite tropes were here in full-force: slow-burn and hate-to-love. Garrett is cocky and annoying to Hannah at the beginning, but the two of them clearly have banter-filled chemistry. I loved getting inside both of their heads, as this book alternated between their two points of view. Some New Adult books with the guy’s point of view tend to annoy me, at least at first. Garrett was a typical NA guy in the beginning: very focused on how hot she was and all sorts of bullshit about her tits and ass. I generally don’t like reading it, but usually see some good character development that enables me to look past that stuff in the beginning. This book was one of those, thank god.

As I said, the hate-to-love romance trope is usually full of banter, teasing, and sarcasm. Their chemistry oozed off the pages from the very beginning of the book. If you’re looking for a steamy New Adult that doesn’t have as much drama and has no insta-love, you’ve come to the right place. The relationship had a few complications at the end, of course, which were actually worked through pretty well. I was impressed! I hate too much angst and lack of communication; this book held back on some of that.

I don’t know much about hockey and luckily this book didn’t have too much on that front. I love the Rusk University series because they’re NA books about football, but apparently any sports-centered NA will work for me! (Scoring Wilder was another hit along the same lines.)

feels from friends pink

rating breakdown pink

Plot & Premise
four-stars
Characters
four-stars
Writing Style
three-half-stars
Pacing & Flow
four-half-stars
Feels or Swoons
four-half-stars
Addiction Level
five-stars
Overall: 4.3

2 responses to “Review: The Deal

  1. This was a great book. One of my favorite books. Have you read The Mistake? It features Logan, Garrett’s best friend. It’s another good one.

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