Blurb: Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamourous family’s mansion. The next items?
Enjoy a drunken night out.
Ride a motorcycle.
Go camping.
Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
And... do something bad.
But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.
Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.
But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior.
Review: Ah, a breath of fresh air character-wise. Heroine of color. Chronic illness. The hero is from the abusive relationship. A red-headed hero. Really, Talia Hibbert just checked all the boxes to the "How to Make Your Book Stand Out" guide. Aces, really.
Red's a sweetie with a foul mouth. Perfect. A deep, soulful artist with a sense of humor and talented fingers. Okay, sign me up. Not to mention, it was really quite wonderful to see him be so supportive and understanding of Chloe and her illness without infantilizing her. Snaps all around for the buff, tattooed ginger.
I really loved that Hibbert saw fit to give Chloe an invisible disability because I've never read a romance novel with a character who had to navigate life with those difficulties. Getting a peek into her mind and her lifestyle was truly eye-opening. And I absolutely adored her dialogue. The way she talks is so proper and adorable and hoity-toity.
And the best part was that just because Chloe has a disability doesn't mean she's a perfect heroine. I feel like often authors give their characters a difficulty (abusive relationship survivor, a disability, a traumatic past experience) and then feel that they can't give them any additional problems, but both Chloe and Red aren't perfect characters, not by a long shot. Just regular people who've had some shit hands dealt. Oh, and the sex is great.
Chloe's sisters are dope as heck and I cannot wait to get to their books. All around a really entertaining, amusing, hilarious read.
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