VIVIAN: I’m in hell. Three months ago I got dumped and it sent me into a downward spiral of red wine and pie. Now my Type A sister is getting married and she’s hired me a personal trainer so I can look respectable standing next to her as the maid of honor. The good news: she’s paying for the hottest hard-ass personal trainer in town. The bad news: he used to be the fat kid at my high school, the … kid at my high school, the one my popular friends bullied. He was my friend, the first boy I’d ever kissed, and he claimed I broke his heart.
The worst news: He is now the hottest man I have ever known, still hasn’t forgiven me, and I have never wanted anyone more in my life. But I can’t erase the past any easier than I can get rid of those stubborn last five pounds.
BRAD: A fat boy’s best revenge is to work out, get hot, and then get all the women. In high school, I only wanted one girl. Fate has brought her to my gym, and I am going to make her feel the burn like she’s never felt it before.
My plan is to torture her with ab work, get her to fall for me, then blow her off and break her heart, like she did to me.
But she’s making it so damned hard…to do that last part.
I hope she doesn’t figure out that deep down I’m still Fat Brad, the book nerd who eats his feelings and would do anything just to kiss her.
Every Inch of You is a standalone funny sexy second chance romance with lots of laughs, plenty of steam, an HEA, no cheating, no cliffhanger. It’ll work your heart, your core and your glutes!
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“Nobody ever tells you when you’re a kid that the guy who makes you feel comfortable and good about yourself is the one you should give your heart to.”
I LOVE Kayley’s books because they feel so special and unique, and I just want to devour them.
This is a friends to lovers with a few years in the making, and a second chance story. I understand it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love books whose characters I can relate to, and whose characters feel real.
“I could think about was what flavor ice cream Brad Mitchell would be, and then I realized he’s a Hot Fudge Sundae with everything on it—and he would never let me eat him.”
First thing you need to understand is that Kayley’s writing is both serious and seriously funny at times. I found myself laughing out loud at times because I couldn’t help it.
So Mitch… Mitch is Brad Mitchell, Vivian’s best friend in high school. He was a fat kid, and not very popular. But still, he was popular with Vivian, who chatted with him about books, movies and other nerdy stuff, and spent time at his house. Which was where the kissed for the first time, and a few times after that. But then Vivian changed, broke his heart, and Brad ran away, never looking back.
When Vivian changed in high school, it was because she became popular. So she left Brad behind. Well, not so much, because she kept trying to get in touch with him over the years. And now, she got cheated on by her boyfriend and she’s gained some weight over eating her feelings, and she needs to lose that weight.
And Brad… well, he’s not fat anymore – he is, in fact, the personal trainer who’s been hired to get that job done.
“He kissed me softly, slowly, and then he kissed me hungrily, like I was the Cheat Day meal he’d been looking forward to all week.”
Let’s face it – Vivian was mean. She shouldn’t have broken his heart or done what she did, even if it was high school and we all know we did some stupid stuff back then. I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t. Maybe karma did catch up to her, but no one deserves to be cheated on, or made feel undeserving or not enough, regardless.
When you read this, don’t get caught in the past- focus on what’s going on now. Yes, he was fat and now he’s not. Yes, she was popular and now she got dumped by her boyfriend and she’s on the chubby side. None of that matters.
What really matters is getting Brad to forgive, and getting Vivian to realize what’s been there all along.
“‘Do you understand that? I love who you are and I love who you were.'”
Life separated them, but then life circled back, bent over, and did push-ups and jumping jacks to get them back together again, in the same town, at the same gym. Maybe life realized she made a mistake too. So they get this chance to make it all worth it. A second chance at love with the person who was always meant to be, and to love each other with every inch of themselves.
This is a story about a man, a personal trainer, who still has trouble shaking the child within—a sweet chubby kid who was ridiculed and bullied. He conquers his fitness problems, but still hasn’t conquered his hurt and insecurities, so it leads to complications in his relationship with Vivian. Vivian on the other hand still feels guilty and sad about the way things went down in their senior year of high school, aaaaand……now he’s really hot so she is all of a sudden attracted to him. She is reeeeeally aggressive at first but he keeps her at a distance by being all clinical with fitness science, and that allows him to stay angry at her as opposed to admitting that he had and still has romantic feelings for her. How they finally resolve all that and find their HEA is the journey that we take along with them. This is a really sweet couple that you can’t not love and root for.
One thing that I really like about Kayley Loring’s writing is that she always includes little bits of wisdom in her stories. Some nuggets from this book:
Larry: “Who cares? You want her, go get her.”
Larry: “A broken heart is an open heart.”
Winston Churchill: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
No matter how I feel during the reading of a Kayley Loring book, at the end I’m always saying “Aww”. Her stories might take you on a roller coaster ride, but they always have heart, and the epilogues always make me melt.
This story was no different. First I was laughing, then mad, then wistful, then touched, then sad, and finally my heart was warmed and I said “Aww” when I closed the book. I wasn’t really sure how many stars I was going to give this book until those last few chapters, but as Brad would say, they were “just everything”.
So if you want something light, funny, cute and steamy, with a sweet HEA, this is a good one.