Handle with Care by Nina Croft

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Title: Handle with Care
Author: Nina Croft
Series: Saddlers Cove #1
Published by: Entangled: Amara
Release Date: July 30, 2018
Format: eARC
Pages: 372
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Release Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

Blurb:

What if all you want is the one thing you can’t have?

First grade teacher Emily Towson always does the right thing. The sensible thing. But in her dreams, she does bad, bad things with the town’s baddest boy: Tanner O’Connor. But when he sells her grandmother a Harley, fantasy is about to meet a dose of reality.

And then he goes and calls her “sensible”...

Tanner can’t believe sweet Emily is standing in his shop. Yelling and waving her hands and looking so god damn sexy he’s having trouble focusing. He’d spent two hard years in prison, with only the thought of this “good girl” to keep him sane.

He really should send her away...

Before either one thinks though, they’re naked and making memories on his tool bench with apparently the oldest condom in history. Now Tanner’s managed to knock-up the town’s “good girl” and she’s going to lose her job over some stupid “morality clause” if he doesn’t step up.

But can this bad boy teach his good girl they’re perfect for each other in time?

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

4 stars — This book had a lot of really great stuff going for it, but it had some major flaws as well.  But in the end, the parts that surprised and impressed me balanced out the things that bugged me and left me with an overall enjoyable reading experience.

I will admit, the “bad boy who just wouldn’t try” got a little old after awhile for me…it just dragged on longer than I expected.  Actually everything about the bad boy got old.  Initially in the book Tanner was legit mean…some of the things he said to Emily were totally asshole-ish.  I’ve never been attracted to bad boys, so that went down like a lead balloon with me.  I mean, Emily even says that she wants to be treated mean, and I really don’t fucking get that.  In the end she doesn’t want that, she wants someone who cares about her.  The things she ends up falling in love with are those of a sweet man, not a bad boy, so I don’t get what the attraction really is there.  I just don’t get the bad boy image, like, AT ALL.  What about him was bad?  That he wanted to be himself?

And I started to get annoyed with Emily and her thoughts about Tanner.  She supposedly is attracted to this bad boy, but then she’s also judgemental towards him.  I mean, I got what she would say about his attitude.  But then she’d be all wishy washy about the other “bad boy” stuff about Tanner, and I never really got why that was.  It made me disappointed in her, that she almost behaved like the townspeople on occasion.

Back to Tanner, him not growing some balls and figuring his shit out earlier was annoying too.  Like, was it really that hard to put himself out there for the woman he loves?  It’s hard to love a hero who is *that* frightened.  Some scared is endearing…that much is just disappointing.  It wasn’t that I didn’t feel for him and the way he grew up, how that affected him and made him who he was, and the way the people treated him.  I got it to a point, but as I said above, it dragged on too long.

But on the other side of the coin, I really did love the two of them together when they weren’t butting heads and being idiots.  They could be sweet, and I loved the way they were both genuinely excited about the baby.  Those parts of Tanner were seriously endearing and I loved them.

I, strangely, ADORED the side story of Mimi and Josh.  I was completely surprised to get parts from each of their POV, but I actually felt like they really added to the story.  The whole concept of institutionalization was fascinating, and I loved having a character to empathize with in that struggle.  Seeing someone so wronged by society was heartbreaking.  I LOVED how strong Mimi was and how she didn’t take shit from anybody.  I cheered for her and how she wore Josh down.

I even liked some of the side stories I can see will be coming in later books…  I have a feeling the series will look at all the O’Connor boys, and it makes me wonder who’s going to be their love interests.  I loved seeing little Keira with these 3 clueless men trying to do their bests to provide a home for her.

So yeah.  A bit of a mixed bag, and without those things I loved, would be a 3 star at most.  But the addition of the other little stories really ended up interesting me a lot.