Rough and tumble bad boy mechanics.
Living fast-loving hard.
Johnny Devlin’s a charmer with a checkered past. He has had his eye on scorching-hot bartender Lara Valley for ages, but she’s rejected him more than once. That doesn’t mean he won’t come to her aid when some dirtbag mauls her. When she asks him on a date as a no-strings-attached thank you, he can’t say no. ;And then he’s saying … saying nothing but hell, yes.
Body Shop Bad Boys:
Test Drive (Book 1)
Roadside Assistance (Book 2)
Zero to Sixty (Coming Soon)
Praise for Marie Harte’s McCauley Brothers series:
“Packed with sass, sensuality and heartwarming emotion…an absolute delight!”–Romance Junkiesfor What to Do with a Bad Boy
“Funny, addicting, and full of hot sex scenes.”–Booklist ;for ;How to Handle a Heartbreaker
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** spoiler alert ** Marie Harte is one of my new favorite writers. I loved the McCauley Brothers series and it looks like this series will be another go to read.
Johnny and Lara have chemistry and sexy times. They also have some personal issues that need to be sorted out. At first, you think Lara can’t put Johnny ahead of her family who needs attention and help and nursing school that needs her commitment. Then, you worry that Johnny is just like his father, who after Johnny mother dies has an affinity towards a revolving door of women who don’t stay around.
They are both strong people who are fiercely loyal to family and friends, now they get to be that for themselves…forever.
I’m not sure how it happened but I managed to post a review on the wrong book. I can’t seem to remove my star rating but I did delete the text of my review. I was reviewing L.A. Witt’s Test Drive, not Marie Hart’s.
Thank you to Ms. Harte for letting me know about the mistake. I’m sure her book is great, too.
I really enjoyed this book ,i rented it on a whim and i ended up loving the story and the characters 🙂
Omg Johnny is the best ,he’s smart,sexy and so funny 🙂 plus he is so freaking sweet ! i loved that he never gave up on Lara ,he had a thing for her for years and everytime he asked her out she turned him down but then he saves her and she finally gives in and goes out with him and he is way more then what she was expecting ,she thought he was a meat head but he is kinda a sexy geek and the more she gets to know him the more she starts to fall in love with him 🙂 he is so awesome and i totally understand why he has such a hard time with serious relationships ,he never saw a stable one growing up and now he thinks he’s not worthy of one but he couldn’t be more wrong 🙂
I really liked Lara but at times she was kinda mean to Johnny and i didn’t get it ,he was always so nice to her but finally she agrees to a date with him and everything she thought she knew is blown out the window because Johnny is smart and kind and just an all around good guy, i liked that Lara was putting herself through nursing school and that she cares so much about her family and wants to help them ,i get why she thinks about money a lot with how she grew up but at the same time she acts like she doesn’t care about the money ,like she’s made that her parents always bring it up but then she does the same thing at times ? like i didn’t get it but besides that i loved her and Johnny together ,they make an awesome couple and they add so much to each others lives .
Love love love the side characters and i can not wait to read all the other books in this series 🙂
If you are looking for a book that features the typically tattooed bad boy then you’ll be surprised when you read Test Drive. This book isn’t your average gritty book about hard core alpha males, inked from head to toe, and full of attitude. Oh, this book has all that but it is so much more!
Johnny Devlin has had it bad for Lara Valley from the moment he set eyes on her. She refuses to succumb to his bad boy charm though, and Johnny can’t get her to go out with him. So, there he sits, in the bar that she tends, watching over her like a hawk. When he comes upon Lara being accosted in the lot outside the bar, everything in Johnny snaps. He becomes a protective alpha, bringing feelings to the surface that he didn’t think were possible. Yeah, he’s had the hots for Lara – BAD – but what unfurls at the site of Lara and her attacker surprises both of them.
Lara comes from humble beginnings. Her family has worked extremely hard to make ends meet. She refuses to live her life the same way. She is pushing herself through nursing school, which doesn’t leave much time for a social life. After being rescued from an attacker by hot Johnny Devlin, Lara agrees to a no-strings-attached date. This no-strings-attached date quickly creates many ties that bind.
The best parts of Test Drive are the emotional layers that make up Johnny. He is a lot more than just a pretty face or sexy bod. He has personality, charm, wit, and charismatic. The author does a fantastic job giving Johnny real emotions, opening him up to the readers, and delving into his past without making his story seem like an after school special (not that there’s anything wrong with after school specials, but this book isn’t the place to write about them).
I enjoyed Lara’s character also, but not nearly as much as I enjoyed Johnny’s. Lara is a down-to-earth heroine that wants to make something of herself. She watches her family work hard just to stay afloat and her sister is a disaster. She is written realistically and with depth and emotion. She has goals and her heart finds out the hard way that sometimes the path to those goals doesn’t follow the map you’ve constructed for yourself. After her no-strings date with Johnny all bets are off and she jumps head first into the world of the Body Shop Bad Boys.
The secondary characters add different aspects to the book that help support Johnny and Lara. They each have their own support team willing to do whatever it takes to protect them. These support teams meddle sometimes, too.
The story is engaging from the beginning and kept me captivated. The plot was well thought out and organized. I loved reading about the bad boy who finds his match.
The moment Lara Valley waltzes into Johnny Devlin’s view he’s instantly smitten with her, and left with an insatiable urge to gain her attention and a convince her to go on a date… but she’s has no intention of landing herself in the famed players bed, so she turns him down flat. So, while he tries to figure out a way to win her over he decides to try the friendship approach in an attempt to get on her good side and possibly warm her up to the idea of a date. What he doesn’t expect though is for his “friendship approach” to turn into a long four year obsession without the reward of a date. He knows that they have chemistry, every time he is near her he can feel it surging between them, so, he just can’t fathom why she wouldn’t want to explore it and give him a shot to prove to her that he is more than the reputation that precedes him. But she stands her ground, and is quite adamant about not letting herself fall under Johnny’s charming spell… that is until he comes to her aid and saves her from being manhandled by her sisters’s dirtball ex-husband. The minute he sees her in trouble, he becomes enraged and possessive and she sees a side of him that she has never seen before, and it has her reconsidering her no dating policy…
The minute Lara Valley met Johnny Devlin she knew he was going to be hard to resist, there was just something about him that continued to pull her in every time he was near, but she decided early on that she would never date someone who frequented the bar…which meant Johnny was off limits. No matter how many times he asks her for a date she always turns him down, he has a playboy reputation that’s a mile long and she isn’t about to join that less than prestigious list, not to mention the fact that she doesn’t have time to date anyone. Between caring for her family, working and taking nursing classes her schedule is pretty much filled up, and she likes it that way, then she doesn’t have to worry about putting her heart at risk or making time to date anyone. But after Johnny comes to her rescue, and she gets a glimpse at the man underneath the reputation she begins to see she may have judged him totally wrong, and with her sister’s encouragement she decides to give the playboy what he has been asking for the last four years… a date!
To say that I have been dying to read this book is a complete understatement, since first learning that Ms. Harte was planning to expand on the McCauley Brother’s series and bring readers the Body Shop Bad Boys I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of their stories!!!! Meeting the McCauley brothers was complete literary heaven for me, and so I knew that if the Body Shop Boys were anything like them I would absolutely love them too…AND I DID!! The minute Johnny waltzed onto the page he had me hook, line and sinker, and he kept me at his mercy until the last page was turned. There is just something about him that could not be denied, I was instantly sold on his confident swagger, sexy one liners, and unwavering devotion to provide complete satisfaction! He will DEFINITELY be joining each of the McCauley brothers amongst my elite list of favorite alphas, and I am quite certain his co-workers will be joining that list very soon as well!! LOVED every minute of this story and I look forward to getting up close and personal with more of the men from the Body Shop Bad Boys in the very near future!
If you like an alpha who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and is dedicated to providing complete satisfaction then I suggest you wander into the Webster garage and get yourself acquainted with the able bodied mechanics of the Body Shop Bad Boys series!! The aim to please, and are sure to leave you with a smile!!