Harley lost the bet and now it’s time to pay up. This loner will have to face her greatest fear…and say yes to a date with the quarterback. After years of being bullied and ignored at her old school, Harley isn’t about to make waves at Talmore High. She knows better than to mess with the cocky jerks on the football team. When the lead alpha starts to single her out she’s sure that it’s just a … she’s sure that it’s just a joke at her expense. There’s no way he could really be interested in a geeky art nerd like her. After all, Tristan isn’t just a quarterback, he’s larger than life. He’s the school’s most revered athlete, the guy all the girls drool over. He might as well be a superhero in disguise. An ancient god come back to live among mere mortals…
The guy was basically Thor.
But the more she gets to know him, the more she has to wonder just how wrong she’s been about the guy she’d thought was an untouchable god among men. Maybe he wasn’t what she’d thought at all. Wonders of wonders, the handsome hottie quarterback might just be…nice. And somehow that’s the scariest thought of all. A jerk she could handle. But a good guy? He might just be the one to break her heart.
Author’s Note: This is the second part of a duet. While this romance is standalone, it’s filled with spoilers for book one.
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Heartwarming and humorous, YA, G-rated, romantic comedy
Harley is suffering through the dual misfortunes of gaining an unwanted stepmother and stepbrother, Conner, who is her same age, and moving to a new town and a new school in the middle of her junior year. Her father very recently remarried, and the move came about because her stepmother got an outstanding job offer across the country.
Harley was a nerdy, artistic outsider at her old school who had been teased and bullied far too often over the years. Conner had been extremely popular, as a handsome, charismatic guy with the glossy distinction of being a member of a local rock band. Here at the new school, in a bizarre twist of fate, their roles have inexplicably become reversed. Connor is treated like a reviled parish, and Harley has suddenly been elevated to the stratosphere of high school popularity because a god among men, a gorgeous, ripped senior named Tristan, who is quarterback of the football team, has been pursuing her in the halls and the lunchroom at school. Wonder of wonders, he has even asked her to prom!
Harley is not sure which scares her the most: That Tristan really doesn’t like her at all and will end up humiliating her by announcing to the world that he’s just been messing with her–which horrifyingly happened to her before at the hands of another good-looking jock at her old school. Or that he’s truly sincere, and he really does care for her and is offering her an unprecedented chance at a romantic relationship that she hasn’t a clue how to deal with.
This is both a humorous and poignant romantic comedy with two terrific romantic leads. The story is told from alternating first-person point of view of both Harley and Tristan which, from my perspective as a longtime romance fan, is ideal. It gives the reader the opportunity to deeply get to know and respect the romance hero as well as we know the heroine.
This book is the second of two books in a duet. The two stories are told simultaneously in terms of their story events. Which means that the events in this novel involve spoilers for the first book, so they need to be read in order.
The first book is told from the point of view of Harley’s stepbrother Conner. I greatly enjoyed that book, and I enjoyed this book just as much. And possibly even a bit more, because I am a sucker for YA romances that pair up an introverted, quirky nerd and a sexy jock who has unexpected depths.
Though this story is G-rated, these two highly sympathetic protagonists have a tremendous amount of exciting emotional and physical chemistry. They are great together, and I very much enjoyed that they bring out the best in each other.
I rate this novel as follows:
Heroine: 5 stars
Hero: 5 stars
Subcharacters: 4 stars
Romance Plot: 4 stars
Family Drama Plot: 4 stars
Writing: 5 stars
Overall: 4.5 stars rounded to 5 stars
I already fell in like with Harley in book #1, and I was very much looking forward to reading her story.
I adored both Harley and Tristan, and the developing romance was beautifully written and thoroughly swoon-worthy (as is par for the course in Maggie Dallen’s books). Case in point:
“And then I was kissing her, and I lost touch with reality for a long, sweet, blissful moment. She was warm and soft beneath me, her lips parting for mine like this was something we’d always done. It was familiar and totally, shockingly, perfectly new. She tasted like honey, and when I cupped her face in my palms, she let out a sigh that I’d hear in my dreams for the rest of my life.”
Le sigh. Le swoon…
Besides the “swoonery”, it was fun getting Harley’s version of the “Conner drama” – and to learn that she’s not above a little Schadenfreude to see her new stepbrother taken down a notch.
I love Maggie Dallen’s books and scrambled to read this one (we are ya liking binge-fest here; it’s past 2:30am and I’m writing this moments after finishing it). I adored its predecessor, Charming the Cheerleader (separately reviewer) and thought it was the perfect high school YA romance. As great as it is, though, I was wrong as this book is better. Harley and Tristan are wonderful complex characters who have an emotional growth in this book that’s incredibly appealing. Having said that, this book manages to be total fun at the same time. Pretty amazing when dealing with sins weighty stuff, such as the emotional cost of becoming the caregiver / “responsible adult” while still being a kid (even if a young adult), or the emotional baggage of loss if parent, isolation and betrayal. Tough things – but they’re in the background and mold the two leads. This is not, however, some “deep” or “emo” tale. It’s fun high school YA romance and totally enjoyable to read. Seems like a split personality, I know, but that is what is so incredible about this book, and about this author that she could pull it off. Highly recommended is an understatement.
This second book in the duet was really good reading! Harley challenged her stepbrother and he made a bet with her. If he got the cheerleader to go with him to homecoming, she had to go with the quarterback! This story tells how Harley changes from the geeky artsy non-social pupil to become the quarterback’s date. That guy really had his work cut out for him to convince Harley he wasn’t a bully trying to trick her. But, of course, Maggie Dallen makes it work out by homecoming!