She’s about to make a deal with the college bad boy... 

Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice…even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date. 

...and it’s going to be oh so good. 

All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him


Spoiler free



After reading so many terrible New Adult books, I actually said to myself 'Look. Stop wasting your money on these atrocious books, they're all the same'. I went onto GoodReads to find myself a quick read and I came across really high praise for The Deal. One of my favourite authors, Colleen Hoover, was also raving about it, so I thought I'd give it a chance.

I'm glad I did.

I loved this book.

Sure, not everyone enjoys these kind of books but I will admit, they're a guilty pleasure of mine. But the thing with New Adult is that you have to kiss a few frogs to find your prince, and when I say 'kiss a few frogs', I mean 'read some complete crap' and the prince is a book like this. Or Garrett Graham, shall I say?

Of course he's the token man-whore, every guy in a New Adult book is a man-whore, but he was a lovable one. He was honest, charming, smart (although the summary said he's failing, but only this one class) and he's also funny, considerate and very humble. He's the son of a famous hockey player, so Garrett has to live up to his father's expectations. 

FYI - his father is a total arsehole. Just to get that out there. But that makes Garrett appreciate what he has and work hard so as to not end up like him. He is determined not to turn into his father, and I loved that. He has to put up with this dick all the time, and Garrett is still as tough and as confident as he should be. He doesn't let that get him down, and he does what he can to make himself a better person. Including study. 

Enter Hannah.

Hannah was awesome. She's a smart, brave and confident girl who is exactly what he needed. Garrett needed someone to basically tell him how it is sometimes, a woman to be herself around him and not to treat him as if he was some kind of 'superstar', as he is the star hockey player at the school. 

Hannah has had a really rough past herself. Having been accused of so many things after such a terrible ordeal, she came out on top, and I truly love that she was so strong and able to admit what had happened as it must have been incredibly difficult.

Hannah and Garrett's relationship had a lot of playful banter, their conversations and time together was very enjoyable and written so adorably that it made me love these two separately as well as together. They had their individual personality traits that were realistic and quite lovable, and although they're quite different as people, they were attracted based on their mutual understandings and very likable personalities. I would say it's a 'friends to lovers' scenario, but they weren't really mates, so it was more of a 'I know of you to lovers' thing.

All in all, these two were perfectly matched, written well and incredibly easy to read about. I enjoyed both their different POVs, which were written so both the male and female thoughts were very unique. Their individual voices were not at all written identically, with the 'her' and 'him' changed around to separate the two. Each was unique. And it was believable. 

All the side characters were wonderful. I love that they weren't just there to be telling everyone how much Garrett and Hannah should be together. They had their own thing going on. Even so, they supported Garret in many things, and were also supportive of Hannah when we got some twists and revelations. They took her under their wing and were just as sweet and protective of her as they are with Garrett.

Another interesting part of the story was Logan. I don't want to reveal any spoilers, but that was a cool little add-on for the book, and I liked it. I know that book two, The Mistake, is Logan's story, so I'm excited to see what he has to say about certain things. And I hope he finds a lovely girl that will make him happy.

The story has obviously been done before, but if you can take a repeated idea and make it better than all the rest - you're laughing. I've read a few 'tutor the school jock and they fall in love' stories before, but this one is definitely one of the better ones. If you like these kind of books, then I highly recommend The Deal. It was paced very well, and to be honest, I liked the characters so much that I wasn't bothered by much! That's new for me.

I was also impressed that there was a Natalie in this book that wasn't a bitch. Whenever there's a girl with the same name as me, she's always the mean girl. We're not mean, I promise! Elle Kennedy wrote a nice Natalie in her book and that makes me so happy.

And I feel like I have to quote this one part of the book. If this doesn't get you reading, I don't know what will.

“Penises! Sweet Jesus. Penises everywhere. Horror slams into me as I register what I'm seeing. Oh God. I've stumbled onto a penis convention. Big penises and small penises and fat penises and penis-shaped penises. It doesn't matter which direction I move my head, because everywhere I look I see penises.” 

It's a very laugh-out-loud book. The inner thoughts, the banter, the friendships and romance in this were all just fantastic.  I loved it.



So you want to read this? Good. You should because it's really entertaining. I'm looking forward to book two. Here are all the links you need to find the book as well as contact us. Let us know what you think!


The Deal by Elle Kennedy
GoodReads
Amazon UK
Amazon US

The Mistake by Elle Kennedy - released June 2015.
GoodReads