The Sinner: A High School Bully Romance (Haven Grace Prep Book 1)

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I’ve read this book last year and is a new author to me. I almost give this a 4-star grovelling for the grovelling that that happens in the last 90% mark of the book.

And I can say this is a good HS bully romance, all the elements are present. I love how Savi and Gray’s relationships blossom even at a young age. I like the friends to best friend to young love element in the narrative.

Storyline-wise it was fast-paced and flows innately. Across the board, I had a great time reading this.

Would I recommend this series:
Would I re-read this book: ,
Would I read future books by this author:

#newadult #highschoolromance #bullyromance #childhoodfriends #kelseyclayton #havengraceprep #angst #hatetolove

My first read by this author and it started off with a bang! I’m a sucker for a good bully romance despite how cliche it is. When it comes to enemies to lovers romance, I’m ALL IN! I love this world and I’m slowly becoming obsessed with the entire gang!

I am absolutely blown away by this book! Omg. This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I’m addicted. The writing was crisp and clear. I felt like I could see each scene. The characters were so well developed I felt like I knew them. The plot was fast-paced and so full of angst and chemistry and HEAT! I will definitely be recommending this book to everyone!

Yes!!!

Holy Moly y’all!

I loved this book! Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down.

Childhood friends who are soul mates that get separated. Deceit tears them apart. The line that tethers them together is still so strong when they meet again. Strong Female, moody alpha male. = Snagged me hook, line, and sinker.

I was gone. Done for.

I enjoyed the angst. I also really appreciate that this book isn’t super dark as other bully romance. No major lines are crossed. Obviously our man candy Gray is a complete jerk face, but not so bad that it can’t be forgiven. Some bully romances, I just can’t see their actions forgivable. Plus he redeems himself at the end.

I also love our heroine. Savi is strong, sassy, a fighter, can throw a punch, and is likeable. While a Queen B. I don’t think she is a B*. Her friends respect her straightforward ways. Boy, I LOVED, that she made Gray work for it. Yes Girl!!!!

The tension and chemistry is just about perfect.

I can’t wait to read about what happened next with other characters!

Kelsey was a new author to me but after reading this book she will definitely be a regular favorite author I read. Savi and Gray’s story is one you will love. It’s about 2 best friends growing up somehow end up enemies for some reason. And move away from each other when there still young but now there in high school and back in the same school and Gray is out for revenge. But revenge is hard when you still love someone and these 2 characters go through twists and turns and omg moments throughout the story. That’s all I’m saying because you just ha e to read this book it’s that good and I dont want to give away to much. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series. Also to see what else Kelsey had in store for us.

High School Bully Romance

The Sinner by Kelsey Clayton is book 1 in the Haven Grace Prep series and can stand alone. It’s a high school bully romance/childhood friends romance with a lot of emotion, angst, and deceit. For the most part I really liked this book. I’m always itching to get mt hands on a great bully romance and this one ticked many boxes for me. In addition to this, the writing style reminds me of Ella Fields new adult romances mixed with Penelope Douglas (Bully). This is a great combination, right? Some parts of the book got on my nerves (I’ve always hated a mean girl with an elitist attitude) and couldn’t STAND one particular character who needed a punch in the face, but the rest of the novel was great and filled with some gnarly tension. There’s a bit of a secret in this one that readers will be anxious to find out about, but for the most part it’s a story about two people who must learn to coexist in a sea of sharks. It’s a book about revenge, high school kids who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, and a lot of sexual chemistry between enemies. This is a fairy quick read and I breezed right through this one in a matter of hours. Soaking up the sun and warmth while reading a great book? That’s what I call a GREAT day!

If you’re looking for a new series set in the world of elite high schoolers, then this may be the perfect series for you. Each book has its own romance and revolves around different tropes. This is a bully romance and the next on is an enemies-to-lovers! I’m excited to read it.

5 *GREY&SAVI* STAR

How could I be such an idiot that I didn’t read before this book? HOW?

We can read this story multiple timelines from Greyson & Savannah’s POV. This is a high-school bully romance with dark elements. The story was a start-up in slowly then it was faster and faster after a while. The story so sucks with me! I read it in one sitting.
Savannah is a brave, strong, and sweet heroine who keeps her secrets. I was admired her strength, her courage. I was very proud of her!
Greyson is a stubborn, dominant hero who has a huge heart. (He just had to learn to use it xD) He was very angry and he wanted revenge. His character has improved a lot. I felt in love with him!

So I really recommend this book to everyone who loves twisted, bully romance stories. Guys! You need to read it!

Well, hello, Kelsey Clayton- where have you been on my TBR? This is my first reader experience with Kelsey, but most certainly won’t be my last!

This book has so much of what I love – the bully + second chance romance trope, that delicious new adult vibe, deeply nuanced and scarred characters trying to put the fragments of their souls back together after extraordinary tragedies befall them, and a delicious buffet of side characters who I will happily load up my plate for, calories be damned!

This is the story of Savannah and Grayson, former childhood best friends that have not seen each other since they were 10. Both of their lives have since tragically been ripped apart. We discover right away that Savannah has been hiding her trauma- every day putting on a public persona that both protects her from the feared ridicule she worries she’ll receive and also serves as her way to cope, to hide from the harsh truths of her reality. By day, she’s the school queen B of a lux private school, every girl wants to be her, every boy wants her, and she’s an accomplished dancer, pouring her pain and hopes into her art. At night, she’s the embattled daughter of the alcoholic stranger that she once called father. Her world seems to halt when her childhood best friend appears at her school- and he seems to hate her, when all she wants is her best friend back. Grayson has had the beautiful life he loved shattered- his father dead, his life uprooted, and he blames Savannah, the girl he fake married when they were 10. He’s back with one thing in mind- destroy her in the way he destroyed him, break her into as many pieces and she broke him.

Grayson quickly infiltrates her friend group, and we have a prolonged game of cat and mouse- both unclear what the other is thinking, both orbiting each other without acting, us waiting for Grayson to either get over it or strike. The tension mounts and Clayton let’s them settle in, and interspersed flashbacks and dual POVs help us juxtapose the Savi-Gray of the past with the Savannah-Grayson in front of us now. Trouble is- they can’t quite reconcile this, and they are both drawn to each other by the lifelong connection deeply sewn in their hearts.

Savannah really grew on me, once I felt I could know the REAL Savannah vs. the Savannah she projected, and particularly once she reconciled with Laney, their other friend from childhood. She’s incredibly resilient, and despite being a Queen B (and the bully treatment of another girl- who arguably deserved it), she was mostly kind and charming. When she’s at her lowest (won’t’ give away why), you feel deeply from her- her pain is our pain, and that is the sign of empathetic character development.

Gray also took a moment for me to swoon over, but I did. We spend a lot of time with him in the hateful, cruel phase (and even later he still revisits this)- and one of my least favorite bully tropes is the “past misunderstanding/no one even bothers to get the full story” device. We have that here- and we swim in it for a while. But, once we start to see Gray open his heart some, start to question his own hostility, and we get to see dirty-steamy gray, I was a goner.

Their chemistry is really fantastic- sometimes I don’t actually FEEL the connection between “second chance” characters without prolonged backstory. We do have some flashbacks, but most of what we learn of the character is the present, and I FELT the magnetic tug between, I bought their soulful intertwining. Clayton makes them fully realized and nuanced characters, but also helps us feel their need for their other half- the two broken souls who can really only be repaired when their pieces are interconnected.

The first half of the book didn’t fly for me like the second half. The “angry-vindictive”/”we don’t know what is going on” phase of the book lasted longer than I wanted and was a bit repetitive (and Gray actually didn’t’ do MUCH to her- this was less about actual bullying and more about the looming threat of it), but once we got over that hump, I was hooked for the second half- where I felt like we finally dialed into them as individuals and as a interconnected pair, we get some answers, and action picks up. The emotion dials up really beautifully and believable, we see characters surprise us with their maturity and responsibility, and this woman can write a steamy scene! Have mercy! Also, probs for writing a case of side characters that don’t actually fall into the predictable patterns (won’t reveal much, but they surprise you). Given the strength of the back half, and how intense that resolution was (plus that easter egg in the epilogue!), I’d give this 4 stars, and I’ll be excited to read more of the books.

This was the first book of Kelsey’s that I have read, and it will not be my last!

We meet Savannah who is the queen of the school, and demands respect from everyone who gets in her way. Re-enter Grayson the boy from her childhood who she loved and lost. Grayson is back with vengeance, and is looking to take Savi down. We soon find out that everyone is not what it seems at school, and Savi is not as comfortable as she pretends to be. Soon Grayson learns her secrets, and holds them over her head.

Someone else learns her secrets, and exposes her in the name of knocking the princess off her thrown. Everyone is given a look into Savi’s life that is hard, cruel, and abusive. Grayson learns that there is nothing he will not do for his girl as they fight to have a future together.

The Sinner by Kelsey Clayton

Savannah is the popular girl, the captain of the cheer squad and a talented dancer who all the boys lust after. The picture perfect life she has built around herself is far from her reality at home.

Grayson is the star quarterback who’s back in town for his senior year. He came back on a mission to destroy his ex-best friend, but the sexual tension between the two threatens to derail his master plan.

I’ve never really been much of a fan of bully romances in the past but Kelsey Clayton may have just swayed me to the dark side! I loved everything about this book and couldn’t wait to sit down and get reading after work each day. Definitely looking forward to the next in this series.