The Score by Elle Kennedy

Title: The Score (Off-Campus #3)

Author: Elle Kennedy

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: January 11, 2016

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

He knows how to score, on and off the ice.

Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn’t have the first clue about what she’s going to do after college. To make matter worse, she’s nursing a broken heart thanks to the end of her longtime relationship. Wild rebound sex is definitely not the solution to her problems, but gorgeous hockey star Dean Di Laurentis is impossible to resist. Just once, though, because if her future is uncertain, it sure as heck won’t include the kind of one-night stands.

It’ll take more than flashy moves to win her over

Dean always gets what he wants. Girls, grades, girls, recognition, girls…he’s ladies man, all right, and he’s yet to meet a woman who’s immune to his charms. Until Allie. For one night, the feisty blonde rocked his entire world—and now she wants to be friends? Nope. It’s not over until he says it’s over. Dean is in full-on pursuit, but when life-rocking changes strike, he starts to wonder if maybe it’s time to stop focusing on scoring…and shoot for love.

In 2015, Elle Kennedy became one of those authors where I drop everything when I get my hands on one of her books. And then I proceed to do nothing else until I’ve finished reading said book. And I’ve yet to be disappointed by any of those books. In fact The Score might just be my new favourite.

Allie might not know what she’s going to do after graduation but she knows one thing for sure: she’s ready to put her broken heart behind her and move forward. The way she figures, rebound sex with someone she couldn’t possibly want to be in a relationship with is the perfect way to do just that. And Dean Di Laurentis is the perfect candidate. Or at least he would have been if he would stop trying to get her back into bed after that first night they spent together. Dean never expected to want more than one night with Allie, he’s not usually one for repeat performances with girls after all. But there’s just something about Allie that makes him want to keep going back for more. If he really wants Allie though, Dean is going to have to go beyond his usual tricks in order to get the girl. 

When I first read The Deal close to a year ago, it was an instant favourite. I mean, how could I not fall in love with Garrett and Hannah? They were just so freaking adorable and perfect and they just put a big, goofy smile on my face. Then I read The Mistake and though I loved it, it didn’t displace The Deal as a favourite. I fully expected things to go the same way with The Score before I started reading. It’s just one of those things, the first book in a series always seems to be my favourite. But I was wrong. I was really, really, really wrong. Because The Score? Totally my favourite out of the three. I did not expect to feel this way about Allie and Dean’s story at all. I mean, I knew I was going to like it, but I had my reservations about what might happen with them. Those reservations went straight out the window about three pages into the book. I got sucked into this story in no time at all. It made me laugh (a lot), put me in a slightly awkward position when I was reading certain parts in public, and definitely broke my heart a couple times along the way. But the end result made it absolutely worth it. And by the way, if you reach the end of this book and don’t immediately need the next one, I don’t understand you. At all. And we might not be able to be friends anymore. (Just kidding. Well, mostly.)

Before reading The Score, Allie was just Hannah’s best friend. I had kind of seen her in passing but didn’t know all that much about her beyond her theater background. Now I can say that Allie is such a relatable character. There were so many times while I was reading that I would think to myself “Yes! This! This is what I mean! Allie gets me!” And nowhere was that more true than when it came to her feelings about casual sex versus sex in a committed relationship. The way she would struggle with the idea of just having casual sex, not because she thought there was anything wrong with girls (or people in general) engaging in casual sex, but because of how the world made her think she should feel about it. That internal struggle just felt so real and so relevant and it’s one that most girls, regardless of their age, but especially when in college, struggle with. Add to that all the other aspects of Allie’s character, and it was pretty much impossible for me not to love her. And don’t even get me started on Dean. Dean hadn’t exactly made a fantastic impression on me in the previous two books. And the first time I saw him in The Score, that impression didn’t exactly improve. But about two chapters later, I was like Allie, and well on my way to falling in love with Dean. Dean just took me completely by surprised. And much like I loved Allie’s inner struggle with casual sex, I absolutely loved Dean’s fierce stance against slut shaming. It was pretty freaking fantastic to see a male character take a stand against it and it only really made me love Dean that much more. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, Hannah and Garrett are still just as adorable as ever.

So The Score? Totally my new favourite Elle Kennedy book. It was just everything to me. Though based on what was revealed at the end of this one, I have a strong feeling that The Goal might give it a run for its money. But for now, I’ll just stick to having ALL the Allie and Dean feels.

Mini Reviews - The Deal & The Mistake by Elle Kennedy

Title: The Deal (Off-Campus #1)

Author: Elle Kennedy

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: February 24, 2015

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

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 expected 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.

Every so often, I hear a about a book so much that I just have to read it. Even if I know next to nothing about it and it wasn’t on my radar until everyone started talking to me about it. That was what happened with Elle Kennedy’s The Deal. I went from not knowing it existed one day, to telling everyone I knew to read it the next because it was just that good.

As much as I’ve been reading about football players lately, I hadn’t yet read a story about hockey players, where sports-themed NA was concerned. After reading The Deal, let me just say that I am sold on hockey players if they’re anything like Garrett Graham was. Because, guys, for real, you all need to meet the amazingness that is Garrett Graham. I don’t really know how to put him into words other than to say that he was probably one of my favourite boys I’ve read about in the last little while. And don’t even get me about Hannah. She was just so adorably charming and I loved her, plain and simple. So Hannah and Garrett together? There were moments when I couldn’t handle all the adorableness. Like that was a thing that happened. They were just too adorable. The whole time I was reading The Deal I just kind of had this goofy smile on my face, I just couldn’t help it. I loved this story, a whole lot more than I ever thought I would and I couldn’t be more thankful to whoever it was that put this book on my radar.

Do I really need to say that if you love NA and adorable romance you should read Elle Kennedy’s The Deal? I feel like it should be implied based on all the gushing about the book I just did. But in case you need me to say: if you love NA do yourself a favour and read The Deal because I can pretty much guarantee you won’t regret it.

Title: The Mistake (Off-Campus #2)

Author: Elle Kennedy

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: April 28, 2015

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

He’s a player in more ways than one…

College junior John Logan can get any girl he wants. For this hockey star, life is a parade of parties and hook-ups, but behind his killer grins and easygoing charm, he hides growing despair about the dad-end road he’ll be forced to walk after graduation. A sexy encounter with freshman Grace Ivers is just the distraction he needs, but when a thoughtless mistake pushes her away, Logan plans to spend his final year proving to her that he’s worth a second chance.

…now he’s going to need to up his game.

After a less than stellar freshman year, Grace is back at Briar University, older, wiser, and so over the arrogant hockey player she nearly handed her V-card to. She’s not a charity case, and she’s not the quiet butterfly she was when they first hooked up. If Logan expects her to roll over and beg like all his other puck bunnies, he can think again. He wants her back? He’ll have to work for it. This time around, she’ll be the one in the driver’s seat…and she plans on driving him wild.

As much as I loved The Deal, I was worried that The Mistake wouldn’t possibly be able to live up to everything I had built it up to potentially be in my mind. I mean, how could anything possibly top the adorableness that was Hannah and Garrett. I really shouldn’t have worried because Grace and Logan were just as freaking adorable as the other two.

This whole review could basically be me gushing about Logan and complaining about the fact that no hot hockey player ever came by my dorm room by mistake when I was in university. Because The Mistake certainly made me wish that would have happened. I mean, my university had a hockey team, what happened to Grace could TOTALLY have happened to me. Except probably not, but in my head it could have, okay. And whoever would have shown up would have been the real, live embodiment of Logan. That’s just how it would go down in my head. Anyways, that’s all to say that I loved Logan just as much as I loved Garrett in the first book. Whenever I had seen him in The Deal I could clearly tell that there was something going on with him but I just didn’t know what. So it was really great to find out all about him in The Mistake. And it was especially great to see him do a lot of that with Grace. And I loved Grace. After what initially happened with her and Logan, she wasn’t afraid to make him work for it. She stood up for herself and that made me love her that much more. And I’m not going to lie, some of what she made Logan do was completely ridiculous but oh so enjoyable to read. So moral of the story, I loved Grace and Logan.

The Mistake was just as great as I had hoped it would be and it made for a great follow-up to The Deal. If I’m being honest, I could keep reading about the guys on this hockey team forever. But for now I’ll just be sitting here waiting for Dean’s story because that’s bound to be an entertaining one.