Alexandra Florence Books: A Kiss by the Book by Christy Hayes

I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review in any way.

There's just one glitch. Hi girlfriend is in love with his younger brother and breaks up with him in the middle of his senior season. Shocked, betrayed, and embarrassed, Zach turns to the only woman he can trust: his nerdy tutor.

Tutoring college athletes at Southeastern State University is more than a job for Jenna Peterson; it's a way for her to pay it forward after long-ago tragedy struck too close to home. SE State's golden boy, Zach Chamberlain, isn't the first jock Jenna's tutored with cover-boy good looks, and he won't be the last. When he asks for her help with statistics, Jenna assumes he's as egocentric as the other athletes on her roster. A wildly inappropriate and lackluster kiss at the worst possible time doesn't do much to disprove her theory.

Zach will do anything to save face in front of his family, and he uses Jenna's bleeding heart and unfortunate circumstances to enlist her help over the holidays. Jenna begins to realise Zach is more than a pretty face as his storybook life begins to unravel. When a sprig of mistletoe provides the perfect opportunity for Zach to affirm his skill, the searing kiss pits the playmaker against the rule maker in a kiss to the end. When secrets are revealed and the game's on the line, will they follow the script, improvise, or throw the book out the window?

I'm going to start this review off by saying that I was a HUGE fan A Kiss by Design, and when I say that I mean it kick-started a new adult college awkward relationship binge. I was team Dylan and Emily, I didn't think much to Zach, he seemed very self-absorbed and not a good boyfriend. I suppose that makes it rather awkward when the second book in the series is following Zach and Jenna's relationship.

The book kick's off with the breakup of Zach and Emily, it overlaps with A Kiss by Design, showing us Zach's perspective on how things went down. Definitely a very clever idea of Christy Hayes, seeing it from Zach's side made me warm to him immediately, although I did still prefer Dylan and Emily.

Zach is the star quarterback at his uni, he's great in school but feels that he needs support with Statistics. Enter Jenna, his tutor. We briefly met her in A Kiss By Design when Zach launches himself at her in Emily's kitchen. I liked Jenna, although in my opinion she got a bit too involved in the Emily/Dylan/Zach situation. That leads onto my next point, it felt like Zach did not stop bitching and moaning about Emily. I liked her in the first book, so that didn't sit well with me. Obviously being dumped for your younger brother is going to hurt, but he actually acknowledges that they weren't working out that well!

If I cast aside the moaning about Emily and Dylan, Zach is actually a pretty nice guy. A Kiss by the Book changed my opinion of Zach, turns out he's caring and compassionate, he just needed the right girl.

That girl turned out to be Jenna, she's intelligent and hard working, she also has a family past that involves football. She held this information back from Zach, and nearly ruined everything. I'm not sure I understood her reasoning behind this, but hey-ho it is how it is. Christy Hayes paired two people together that didn't sound like they'd aesthetically fit together, Zach is a blonde god-type, while Jenna fits more into the realm of the small brunette with a boyish figure. By doing this Hayes illustrated that Zach's a lot deeper than some might think, he doesn't just care about appearances, and I liked that.

Christy definitely delivered once again with A Kiss by the Book, I'm not sure if there's going to be anymore books in the series, but if there is you can count me in!

A Kiss by the Book by Christy Hayes | Review