Slick’s review & Book Bonanza author spotlight ~ Boyfriend Bargain by Ilsa Madden-Mills

Broke and desperate, Sugar Ryan has no use for arrogant, bad-boy athletes . . . until she’s forced to bargain with the cockiest of them all.

If only he knew she was alive.

Her mission? Get on this hockey player’s radar any way possible.

Zack Morgan is the king of the ice and the bedroom, but nothing prepares him for the mystery girl who shows up everywhere he does–frat parties, his favorite bar, and finally his front door with an offer he can’t refuse. The only rule in her boyfriend bargain: no falling in love.

But after one (um, two) smoking-hot hookups, he’s done with pretending and vows to make their fake relationship real. Too bad she can’t trust a player with a reputation for breaking hearts.

Will this hockey star score his forever girl, or will this boyfriend bargain end in heartbreak?

I’m headed to Book Bonanza this week and I challenged myself to read 5 new to me authors before attending.  Today I’m sharing my thoughts on Boyfriend Bargain by Ilsa Madden-Mills. 

Boyfriend Bargain is a new adult hockey romance; the hero is a hockey phenom who stayed to play his senior year hoping to help his team win the college championship before moving on to the Nashville Predators who he has signed with already; he has some big time skeletons in his closet and panic attacks that threaten his career. The heroine is a shy young woman whose life has been far from easy; she’s spent most of it clawing her way forward with her eyes on attending law school at Vanderbilt just to show her “sperm-donor” father that she is good enough.

First off, I have to commend Ms. Madden-Mills for the way these characters were developed. While she did dole out their backgrounds in small bits they had depth, something that is often lacking in a lot of new adult romances.  Sugar (yes, that is the heroine’s real name) needs Zack’s help to move off the waitlist for Vanderbilt law school. They don’t know one another and other than they have a class together they don’t move in the same circles.  They meet at a party, have words, have more than words <wink> and then she leaves without even asking him for the favor she needs and she knows she can’t after what happened.

This is a hard book to review because I don’t want to give too much away. Zack feels a connection to Sugar and in truth she does too and he manages to worm his way into her life and she explains what she wants from him and they agree to a “pretend relationship” so girls will leave Zack alone and he will go with her to the event and pretend to be her boyfriend. Thing is Zack is pretty sure he wants more with Sugar and aims to get it, but Zack has a big secret and by not revealing it to Sugar it becomes a thing.

There was quite a bit of angst in this one, more than I normally like but a lot of it came from outside sources. Zack’s past was causing him problems, a mean girl from his past kept trying to get in the middle of him and Sugar, and Sugar’s father causes her some pain as well, something she really didn’t want to deal with.  Yes, this affected their relationship, but it wasn’t like they were playing games these were two wounded individuals and their past hurts had them making choices and doing things that spilled over into their relationship. Every time I read a new adult romance I have to remind myself that these are basically kids who are learning life’s lessons the hard way. I get frustrated with the characters until I remind myself that they don’t have the experience to deal with what is being thrown at them.  Both Sugar and Zack are amazingly mature, but they are young and they do make mistakes and communication is not always their strong suit, but they get there with help from close friends who are more like family.

I enjoyed The Boyfriend Bargain; Ms. Madden-Mills penned a well thought out story with characters I enjoyed getting to know. I’ll be checking out some of her other works to see if she has any with characters a bit older, her writing style appeals to me but I think I’ve gotten to a point where college aged stories just don’t work completely for me anymore.