Off Campus book 1
Hannah Wells is a music major with a huge crush on the newest, and gorgeous, member of the football team. Unusually, he makes her nervous and she’s struggling to get his interest.
Garrett Graham is the hockey team captain who wants to go pro. However, he’s failing in one subject and needs a tutor. Hannah is one of the few people managing to pass the class and he is relentless in trying to persuade her to tutor him.
Hannah is not interested in tutoring who she believes is just another privileged, dumb, (who cares if he’s gorgeous?) jock, but in the end she makes a deal. She agrees to tutor him in return for a fake date to get her crush’s attention. Obviously, this will all work out fine. Until they start to like each other a bit too much, of course, and end up doing more than a bit of tutoring.
I like Hannah, she’s experienced so much trauma (she was drugged and raped in high school) but she’s worked through it, even though she’s still battling some lingering fears. But she’s not a victim, she’s trying to get on with her life and I really respect her for it. She just has a confidence problem with this one crush.
Garret is interesting too, he’s not just the dumb jock who swans through college on his reputation, or just the popular sports hero who sleeps around. He’s clever and he works hard to keep his place on the team both on and off the ice. That doesn’t mean he’s not a player though, but he appears to have a conscience about it and doesn’t lead girls on. He’s decent and he’s the first to admit that the girls that sleep with him do so for the bragging rights, not because they actually care about him personally.
Oh, they are so cute together. The reader is a witness to their journey: the reluctant acceptance of their deal, the morph into friendship, the banter, the attraction and the stronger feelings that grow between them, then the realisation that they’re much more than friends fooling around. They are so good together, so very understanding and supportive of each other, and turned me into a yummy mush of awww.
Here’s a snippet:
‘“Baby, I could watch you watching paint dry, and I still wouldn’t be bored.”
Garrett Graham, my own personal sweet-talker.’
This book gives the full feels and it’s not disrupted by jerky prose or grammatical errors. It flows so nicely and is easy to read. The sex scenes are also the perfect combo of heat and emotions. I only had one little niggle which was a little disappointment at the overused plot device of blackmail by the narcissistic parent, which I felt Hannah succumbed to far too easily.
All that’s left to say is I love this book: I love the characters, I love the plot, I love the yummy, cosy feels I got throughout.
Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Feels: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Heat: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
