For men like us, trust doesn’t come easy.
In this village, I’m an outcast: Griffin Everett, the scowling giant who prefers plants to people. Then I meet Keynes, a stranger from the city who’s everything I’m not: sharp-tongued, sophisticated, beautiful. Free. For a few precious moments in a dark alleyway, he’s also mine, hot and sweet under the stars… until he crushes me like dirt beneath his designer boot.
When the prettiest man I’ve ever hated shows up at my job the next day, I’m not sure if I want to strangle him or drag him into bed. Actually—I think I want both. But Keynes isn’t here for the likes of me: he makes that painfully clear. With everyone else at work, he’s all gorgeous, glittering charm—but when I get too close, he turns vicious.
And yet, I can’t stay away. Because there’s something about this ice king that sets me on fire, a secret vulnerability that makes my chest ache. I’ll do whatever it takes to sneak past his walls and see the real man again.
The last thing I expect is for that man to ruin me.
Work for It is 80,000 words of hot, angst-filled, M/M romance featuring a cynical city boy, a gruff, soft-hearted farmer, and a guaranteed happy-ever-after. No cheating, no cliff-hangers, just love. (Eventually.)
Review:
This book was AMAZING. Seriously, Talia Hibbert, I’m perfectly okay if you never leave that “bedroom full of books” you mention in your author info, as long as you keep on writing like this. I wouldn’t leave mine either, except that I absolutely cannot do my job from home (it would involve strangers coming in, wanting to take my books away, so NO…I barely trust my friends to borrow them).
I loved Olu and Griff–such wonderfully complicated characters, and so delicious together! In so many ways this is an opposites attract story (beautiful, rich city guy meets giant, supposedly ugly small town farmer) but underneath they actually have a lot in common. Depression has made an impact on both of their lives, and they both deal with often-crushing self doubt, though it manifests itself in vastly different ways for both of them. Communication isn’t always easy for either of them, but this doesn’t turn into one of those annoying if only they’d have a good chat, they’d be able to fix all of their problems stories because they both truly need to work things out for themselves before they can open up to each other.
Which they do–eventually. But–GAH–it takes most of the book. Ms Hibbert clearly believes in making us all work for it (ha! See what I did there? Pun wasn’t actually intended); but honestly her writing is so delicious I didn’t even mind. I started highlighting all the bits that made me smile or made me snort-laugh or made me swoon, but soon realized that roughly 75% of the book was going to be highlighted and just resigned myself to having to re-read it again to get all the “good bits”…
Jess on When in Romance has been going on about how awesome Talia Hibbert‘s books are for as long as I’ve been listening to the podcast, and up until now I’ve only read a novella of hers (which I loved) in Rogue Nights –you’d better believe that’s going to change ASAP. I’ve already added the other books in this series to me TBR (this worked fine as a standalone, though) and can’t wait to get my hands on her next book Get a Life, Chloe Brown …
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.