Review: Hard to Handle by K. Bromberg
Hard to Handle by K. Bromberg Published by LLC on 30th June 2020
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Sports
Pages: 362
Format: eARC
Source: the Author
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New York Times bestselling author K. Bromberg is back with an all new second-chance, standalone hockey romance.
At first, the request seemed simple—sign a new athlete to the agency.
Then I found out the new athlete was none other than the most wanted man in hockey today: Hunter Maddox
Gifted. Sexy. At the top of his game. And the only man who has ever broken my heart.
If signing him will help save our family business, I’ll swallow my pride and do what’s asked.
But when it becomes clear his uncharacteristic antics off the ice are a hint of something deeper, keeping things strictly professional between us becomes more than complicated. But I know better than to cross that line.
I’ll never date a client. Not even for him.***Win the Stanley Cup and do it before time runs out.
Not a small feat, but it’s what’s motivated me since the start of my career.
And time is running out.
Enter Dekker Kincade.
Feisty. Dogged. Damn gorgeous. The one I let get away.
I have no idea why she’s traveling with the team, but hell if resisting her is going to be easy.
But I have a job to do, and I refuse to lose sight of that end game. Even if she confuses me. Even if she sees parts of me I’ve hidden from the world.
I can’t lose focus. Not even for her.
Almost but not quite 3 starsÂ
I really struggled with this one, which is such a disappointment to me because I was really looking forward to reading it. K. Bromberg can can really write engrossing reads which is still the the case here.
I did enjoy the early 25% of the book and the after 75% of the book, it just the middle I just didn’t like at all.Â
Things I didn’t like:
Maddox’s behaviour is understandable at the start. He’s being an arse, but he’s aware of it and he’s into much pain to really care and I felt for him but then we have this flashback thing with Terry and I was not at all happy about that, while I understand he’s 16 (and people make mistakes) and young but he knows what he’s doing is wrong and he does it anyways. He doesn’t really feel remorse in that sense after it as well, sure he’s worried of what his brothers gonna do but not really sorry?? It just left a bad taste.Â
Then lets come to the fact that he’s complete arse to Dekker in front of her clients and his teammates and never once does he actually apologise to her. Not for acting like an arse before and especially not for his behaviour then. He apologies to his teammates for his behaviour later on but she doesn’t even get that.Â
On one level this book really succeeded in making a full range of emotions, on the other hand I was just going along to get Dekker’s HEA because she deserved it. Even though her issues, start taking more of second place compared to Maddox.Â
They way the family dynamics were in this book is also something that was putting me off. Dekker’s sisters were just very I don’t know how to describe it but confrontational for no reason at all. Apart from one scene with Brexton and her relationship and talks with her dad. I didn’t really care about her family because of how they were acting. Maddox whole family needs therapy, especially him. The man has been bullied his entire life by his parents, he felt like his twin was the only person who cared for him (tbh I didn’t feel his twin was any better, I’m talking pre accident we only have one scene and it doesn’t really come across as him caring for his little brother, obviously this might be different and I do understand that he was a kid himself but then again even after the accident he was clearly aware of how shitty things were for Maddox yet he never spoke about it, didn’t even tell him that it wasn’t his fault etc which he is what he thought apparently but lets not go into that, because that’s a whole other issue). But I’ll give his twin a pass because he’s in a bad condition…
Another thing was the pacing, it takes ages to actually for them to have a relationship and even then it doesn’t really feel like one.Â
Dekker kept trying and Maddox kept just being an ass. If there was away to summarise this book this would be it.Â
I didn’t find the funny bits funny with Dekker and her family. It was weird how they talked about her family just talked her sex life esp in a meeting in front of her dad. I guess I didn’t really connect with humour aspect of it. She is worried what people will think etc so it was weird the way that went down. At least they didn’t have other employees there during those meetings or emails.
Honestly there’s a bunch more stuff, but its gonna make me frustrated again so I’m not gonna go over all the issues but there were parts I liked, where Maddox wasn’t being an ass and Dekker didn’t have to suffer, feel guilty one way or another. They definitely had chemistry and in some scenes you could clearly see the fun/soft side of their relationship, it just wasn’t enough of it there to keep me really invested in them as a couple.
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K. Bromberg can write, she can write really well and make the characters and couple really work so I was expecting more ? which probably contributed to me feeling disappointed. I do think people who like sports romance with angst and asshole heroes will probably enjoy this, it just wasn’t for me.
About K. Bromberg
New York Times Bestselling author K. Bromberg writes contemporary novels that contain a mixture of sweet, emotional, a whole lot of sexy, and a little bit of real. She likes to write strong heroines, and damaged heroes who we love to hate and hate to love.
She’s a mixture of most of her female characters: sassy, intelligent, stubborn, reserved, outgoing, driven, emotional, strong, and wears her heart on her sleeve. All of which she displays daily with her husband and three children where they live in Southern California.
On a whim, K. Bromberg decided to try her hand at this writing thing. Since then she has written The Driven Series (Driven, Fueled, Crashed, Raced, Aced), the standalone Driven Novels (Slow Burn, Sweet Ache, Hard Beat, and Down Shift), and a novella (UnRaveled). She is currently finishing up Sweet Cheeks a standalone novel out November 14th.
Her plans for 2017 include a sports romance duet (2 books: The Player, The Catch) and the Everyday Heroes series (3 books: Cuffed, Combust, and Cockpit). She’s also writing a novella for the 1,001 Dark Night series that will be out in February 2017.
