4.5 Smooches
Synopsis
Strong. Arrogant. Hard.
Ryder Cole is the King of Atlanta’s nightlife — and the one man who can erase my past.
I’m running from secrets that could destroy me and there’s no room in my life for someone like him: too damn cocky, and sexy as hell. I should keep my distance, but smart goes out the window the minute he looks my way. And when he puts his hands on me … A girl could forget her own name.
But what happens when the past catches up with me, and all the things I’m hiding from tear our lives apart again? I can’t keep running forever, and Ryder always wins.
He’s not the kind of guy to let me go gently, Ryder will give it to me Hard.
Review
I love getting excited over a brand spanking new series and that is exactly what I am over Eve Jagger’s Sexy Bastard series and what a feakin’ fantastic title. The first book Hard, sees nightclub and underground fight club entrepreneur Ryder Cole clash with Cassie McEntire over her brothers unsettled debts towards Ryder, a problem that is soon rectified by Cassie offering to work as the accountant for Ryder’s nightclub business but that is also more complicated as the sexual tension and innuendo flares between the two.
The initial surprise meeting between Ryder and Cassie was crafted to perfection, it was downright hilarious and executed to its full potential and what made it such a great comedic element was Eve’s use of snappy dialogue between her characters, the bantering and one-up-manship, trying to verbally trounce the other as well as communicate the simmering heat and attraction between the two sparring leads and this is something that is consistently entertaining the whole way through the book. It makes great use of that old adage that there’s a fine line between love and hate.
‘He approaches, bends toward me, putting his hands on either side of my hips. “Promise me one more thing.” he says. His lips almost brush my ear, the proximity a tease, like a ghost of a kiss. “That the next time you try to suffocate me, you’ll use your thighs instead of a pillow. It’s be a much more pleasant experience for us both.”
Ryder is utterly flawless. Even when he’s being an arse and saying the wrong thing you just know that wasn’t how he intended it to sound and when he admits he’s wrong the man knows how to apologise, there’s no dragging out the misunderstanding for longer than necessary. He’s gorgeous, fairly humble for being so filthy rich and he has a terrific dry sense of humour. I need Ryder off the page and in my life NOW please. Cassie is the type of female protagonist I love to read about, she has a serious amount of sass, sarcasm and spirit in her but has an abundance of compassion and loyalty especially when it comes to family. Eve Jagger managed to take a fantastic flirty and fun story and add an element of danger and realism to it to in the form of domestic abuse, something she accomplishes with sensitivity and aplomb and what makes Cassie an even more heroic figure in my eyes is the fact that she never concedes or admits defeat when threatened, she’s strong and just the type of girl you could be friends with in real life.
Hard is the start of a brilliant new series and I cannot wait to get my hands on the next bachelor! The writing flows with fun and drama in equal measure bringing in side characters to the fold and creating a fantastic group dynamic between the girls and the boys and paving the way for further stories. The only small problem I had was the abrupt ending. I feel like it needed an extra chapter or an epilogue to tie up all the loose ends for Ryder and Cassie’s happily ever after.
~Nicole
