Tuesday, March 24, 2015

ARC REVIEW: Breaking the Bachelor (Smart Cupid #1) by Maggie Kelley

Title: Breaking the Bachelor
Series: Smart Cupid #1
Publisher: Entangled Lovestruck
Published: March 24th 2015
Format: eARC | Pages: 211
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Publisher
★★★ (3/5) Stars!

Maggie Kelley | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

This time, Cupid’s playing dirty…

Goaded by her competition, matchmaker Jane Wright makes a very public bet that she can find the “perfect” match for Manhattan's hottest confirmed bachelor—sexy-as-sin bartender Charlie Goodman. Unfortunately, Charlie is also Jane's ex-lover, a man she broke up with on a cocktail napkin. With her company on the line, Jane has no choice but to convince the man of her most impractical dreams to dive back into the dating pool.

Charlie doesn't want to see Jane's business fail. He just wants a little revenge. Determined to prove to Jane that chemistry always beats compatibility algorithms, he plans to drive her crazy with desire...then walk away. And his plan is working. A little too well, actually. Because even as Jane scrambles to calculate Charlie's best match, the heat building between combusts. But Charlie's been so busy outsmarting Cupid that he hasn't noticed he's the naughty cherub's next target... 



I received a copy of this book, from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. In no way did this sway either my review or my rating.

I got Breaking the Bachelor desperately wanting to love it. I thought the title was cute, the blurb had me very excited and intrigued and yet as I read it there was a lack of that certain something, the wow factor that would normally have me fully embracing a story and it's characters. Instead it was fun at times and there were cute aspects to it but it didn't grab me like I had hoped it would.

I think the thing I found the most enjoyable was Jane's character. More often than not she actually had me laughing pretty hard. You see, Jane has these quirks...food related quirks, that in some ways I could relate to them and in others were extremely humorous. I feel like she must have an impressive metabolism because that woman stress eats, actually it's more like she inhales her food than takes the time to eat it, like nothing I've ever seen. I swear in one tiny scene she went through at  least 4 candy bars alone. I won't give away all her wacky food rituals I'll leave the rest for a surprise. Other than that I don't know I guess I just have this thing were I am loving all of these logical, smart, analytical female characters lately and Jane fit that mold perfectly.

Charlie was an okay character. A bit on the cocky side at times but all the same very likable. Really there wasn't anything terrible or annoying about him. I just didn't feel Charlie and Jane together. Whenever they flirted or kissed or played their little seduction games, when I should be feeling that sexual tension skyrocket I just felt nothing. In fact I legitimately thought from the opening of the book, "Huh. I sort of wish Jane was going to be hooking up with Adam instead..." Adam is that competition/business rival mentioned at the start of the blurb. I mean, truly Charlie is great but I think Jane and Adam could have been sizzling.

I'd definitely suggest giving this book a chance. The storyline was solid, other than a couple of very brief moments of cheesiness, and there was lots of humor. My issue with it all seemed to be personal and I allowed my brain to latch on to the wrong guy from the beginning and couldn't seem to let that go even though I knew for a fact that it wouldn't go anywhere. So I was doomed from the start. I do think a lot of people are going to like this one though. There was enough of the good stuff to have me interested in keeping an eye out for the next book in the Smart Cupid series. There were quite a few secondary characters that I enjoyed so maybe, hopefully it will be about one of them.

Thanks to Entangled Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book!




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