It’s true. I’m not what most people would call “pretty” and, well, high school was rough. Fast forward ten years and life is good… league.
But then he kisses me. And we totally forget the room, the crowd, everything.
Then he tells everyone we’ve been dating for months.
Soon everything starts to feel too real, from adorable fights over “necessary” tools to fix my broken porch to surviving a free-for-all dinner with his six siblings to picking up where our last kiss left off.
But there’s something he’s not telling me about why he’s really hanging around, and I’m pretty sure it has to do with my mob-connected brothers.
Because this is not a make-over story, and Cinderella is only a fairy tale…
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Avery Flynn’s Butterface is the perfect RomCom to make you laugh and happy sigh. Pick up your copy today!
As always, Avery Flynn delivers!!
I love the heck out of this book! It’s super fresh and hysterical. An adorable and refreshing romantic comedy with a fabulous twist on an unconventional heroine. Add a super swoony, endearingly awkward hero and you have the perfect romance that challenges your views of typical beauty.
Avery Flynn writes hot romantic comedy so well – you definitely want to grab this one!
Avery Flynn’s sense of humor comes across in this book.
I love how original this one is! Great characters and a unique conflict. I applaud Avery for writing a heroine who’s imperfect. As we all are. It’s a breath of fresh air.
My Review
This book gave me the feel-goods!
When Detective Ford Hartigan walks out of the shower in his hotel room and finds the wedding planner he’d met earlier that night undressing- for his benefit- he’s all for it, until he discovers it was a trick put together by some other officers.
His explanations justifiably fall on deaf ears as the young woman escapes with her pride in tatters. But, then Ford learns that she is the sister of a couple of low-entry mobsters and it changes everything.
Regina (Gina) Luca is used to being dumped by men who can’t see past the nose on her face so why should she be surprised when the guy she decides to take a chance on, makes a fool of her instead?
No guy wants to date a Butterface.
This book is everything a good, sexy romance should be. Ford is a straightforward, hotter-than-sin hero and Gina, far from being a damsel in distress, knows who she is and is just fine with that- even though there are scars from the past she can’t quite ignore.
A couple of my favorite lines:
Disaster was bearing down on her like a midtown bus with busted breaks. There was no way she was gonna get out of the way in time. She was about to be a bug on the windshield of life.
Flynn, Avery. Butterface (A Hot Romantic Comedy) (The Hartigans Book 1) (p. 136). Entangled Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
The woman just did things to him. She shook things up. And he liked it. A lot. Probably too much. He should probably be worried about that. He wasn’t. He was too busy wondering how, when they’d first met, he’d missed how her eyes twinkled when she smiled, how the curve of her high cheekbones perfectly highlighted her dark eyes, and how the nose she hated so much gave her a unique look that was so much her own that she redefined what beautiful could be.
Flynn, Avery. Butterface (A Hot Romantic Comedy) (The Hartigans Book 1) (p. 172). Entangled Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
There were a couple of minor editing mistakes, but it in no way diminished the story for me. I love this book and will definitely be adding it to my re-read list!
Absolutely adorable and totally unique! I loved that Butterface wasn’t one of those stereotypical ugly-duckling-to-swan books where all she needs is a makeover and she gets her happily ever after. That wasn’t the message at all, and I love that Gina embraced her flaws and loved herself for who she was, and that Ford did the same. Fabulous book!
I didn’t read the blurb before purchasing (yes, I know) because I really want to read the sequel and I prefer to start series at the beginning. If I HAD read the blurb, I wouldn’t have bought this book – even though the premise is great! – because the hero is a police officer, and I don’t read cop romances. However, I’m very glad that I accidentally read this one.
I love romantic comedies, but every rose has its thorns, and the rom-com genre’s is an occasional overreliance on cruelty and punching down. This book turned that issue on its head with a heroine who, due to her apparent ugliness, is usually a victim of such ‘humour’. The laughs in this book came from the shenanigans of loving but annoying families and sweet but ridiculous characters, not from others’ pain.
And, coming back to that ‘ugly’ heroine – the whole point of this book is that Gina the strong-willed, sweetheart wedding planner is a butterface. Y’know, everything’s hot but her face. I like the explicit description of her facial flaws and her own scathing acknowledgment of the ‘makeover/remove her glasses’ trope. This is not an ugly duckling story. It’s not an ‘A Star is Born’ (aka she’s not even ugly) story. This is a story about a below-average-looking heroine who doesn’t need to change because, gasp, there is nothing wrong with being less than gorgeous, and physical ‘flaws’ =/= unattractive.
Think about it – there are certainly heroes in the romance genre who aren’t conventionally attractive, facially speaking, but they’re hot anyway because of their big strong hands or their smiling eyes or whatever. And everyone accepts that phenomenon. How come it doesn’t really happen with heroines? Well, we know why, but I didn’t realise how refreshing it would be to read about.
Aside from that whole situation, this book is just so much fun. While Gina definitely has insecurities about her appearance, the crux of this book and the key obstacle doesn’t revolve around her being too ugly for him or whatever. That idea is present, but it’s not the plot. Butterface is an interesting and compelling story about family ties, duty, trust, honour, and an Italian dessert I have never tried but clearly need to. Also, the sex scenes were great.
(Note: heat-wise, I’d give this book three flames out of five, which is not ‘bad’, just my sliding scale of quantifying explicitness and frequency of sex scenes.)
If you couldn’t tell from this essay, I wholeheartedly recommend Butterface. Yay!
With a female lead deemed “not pretty” and a hot hero with his own vulnerabilities, Avery Flynn has created a novel that not only rattles society’s standpoints, but knocks the freaking walls down on beauty!
Regina ‘Gina’ Luca is insecure. You could blame it on her eyes being a little too big for her face, the nose that her grandfather, Big Nose Tommy passed down to her, or the nickname ‘Butterface’ scarring her emotionally. Either way, she’s accepted that she’s not the girl hot guys, especially hot guys like Ford Hartigan like or even date, let alone marry. She may be a wedding planner, but Gina is not a hopeless romantic.
Ford is the black sheep in a big Irish family where all the men become firefighters. Well, except him! He’s a follower of the law, a by the book detective with aspirations of becoming the youngest police commissioner in Waterbury one day. This man that could have easily been portrayed as cocksure was full of quirks and little ticks, and he carried the burden of wanting to measure up to his six sibilings.
One of the things I loved about Butterface was that Avery Flynn clued us in to Ford’s secret early on and we didn’t spend the book wondering and guessing what he kept from Gina. We knew up front, and we knew his character as well, so we never questioned his intentions because not only were they clear from the start, but we watched Ford fall for Gina. The connection between the two was also evident within the first chapter and it was palpable. I mean seriously, the disaster that was the impromptu Kiss Cam led to one of the hottest first kisses I’ve ever read in romance! Add in the family dynamic of the rambunctious Hartigans, the overprotective Lucas with ties—those ties creating a forbidden aspect—to the Esposito crime family and Avery gave me a romantic comedy that was not only full of heart, but had an impacting message, and was in fact just as romantic as it was funny!
Filled with charm, oh so tempting, lighthearted, and downright humorous— Butterface is a one-off, a sure thing, sexy romance with it’s very own distinctive voice!
If you love books that make you smile and feel good, don’t miss BUTTERFACE by Avery Flynn, out NOW!!!
Read this on vacation this month. Avery’s stories always make me smile and this was a winner. Can’t wait to read Muffin Top.
Loved this one!
Gina Luca is a wedding planner. She is very insecure, having dealt with the cruelness of the pretty crowd growing up. Curse with the nickname “butterface” she was never able to believe in herself or others. But hey 10 years later and life is good. She has her own successful business and home to renovate. That is till it all comes crashing back when a kiss cam puts her in the spotlight to kiss a hot guy.
Ford Hartigan always gets shit from his family. In a big Irish family full of fire fighters, what do you expect when you want to be a cop. But hey he loves his job and his family. Mr. No Rule Breaker Hartigan. Then he kisses Gina and his brain can’t keep up. But she is a Luca.
When he gets assigned to watch over her to gain info on her criminal brothers rules start to blur. The more time he spends with her the harder it is to not want to break those rules. What happens when he does?
These characters were outstanding. Each with their own insecurities, but with hearts of gold. What happens when you just want to fit in and be loved for you? This is what Gina is faced with. Having been ridiculed all her life and to this day still gets hurt by others on a daily basis, she finds it hard to believe in herself. But just because you don’t fit in the box of pretty does not mean you are unlovable. This is where Ford comes in.
“When you look like I do, you get used to people treating you as if you were just a punchline and not an actual human being. So yeah, people have tossed me into the boys locker rooms, walked away from me mid-sentence when someone hot walks into the room, and—oh yeah—sent me to a hotel room when I hadn’t been invited. Stuff like that has happened to me for pretty much my entire life. I guess that’s why my brothers are so overprotective of me.”
Ford is a very handsome and sexy man. At 6’2″ he is the smallest of the Hartigans, but he is no less a man than his brothers. He believes in rules and follows them to a T. But he is also caring and loving. He sees past Gina’s so-called ugliness. But convincing her is going to be tough.
The whole Hartigan family is awesome. I love them. They are a big, loud Irish family. But they love each other infinitely. They are loyal and have each others back. A family that makes you feel welcome and loved. I can’t wait to read more stories about this family.
Overall this book was wonderful. It was a unique story on a subject that is not often touched for books. Dealing with being the ugly person in the room is a real thing. Something some people don’t really want to explore and I am so glad this author did. This book really puts things into perspective for you. Plain Jane meets Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome. A beautiful story.
This book is fun, sweet and sexy. But even though it is all these things, it is serious and downright truthful. The characters are great and the story is meaningful. The author has a wonderful story line going with this series and it will be interesting to see what she has in store for the rest of that crazy Irish clan. This series is off to a good start. I am looking forward to Muffin Top book 2 in Hartigan series, when it releases sometime in September. So if you want a book that is fun and serious rolled into one, then you are sure to love this one.
I freaking adored this book! I can’t recommend it highly enough!
A funny, delightful romance with a unique story. Must read!
I got totally sucked in by the gorgeous cover and do not regret it one bit. This was such a wonderful romance with a great girl next door heroine, a hot as cop hero, a whole lot of chemistry, along with a dash of action and intrigue. Avery Flynn is a new favorite for me.
You cannot go wrong with a book from Avery Flynn and Butterface is NO exception. This book needed to be written and Avery NAILED it! MUST READ!
So good!!
OMG the Hartigans are wild!!! After listening to Muffin Top, I had to come back to Butterface to learn more about Ford and Gina’s story. This book was a hilarious roller coaster. I can’t wait to start the third book!!
All the Feels
Oh this book was the perfect antidote to get me out of my reading funk. Avery created lovable characters who you couldn’t get enough of. I love Ford and his strong, silently brooding personality who looked past everything to see the person inside instead of making choices by the outside package. I wish there were more people like that in real life. Perfectly crafted story!