Beauty and the Book Boyfriend by K.M. Galvin
ARC received from Netgalley for a fair review.
“Light golden skin is stretched tightly over his muscles, and even though he is wearing a loose work out tank and track pants, I can tell he’s hard all over. I can tell because that’s how I wrote him. I’ve known him for almost ten years now.”
Okay, this book was stinking cute. To be honest, as soon as I read the synopsis I was like eeeek yay. Bellamy Strong is a successful writer and is setting out on a tour for her series for the first time. Her publishers decide that along with book signings they would have her star as the heroine and find a model that looks like the hero of her book for the tour. Shy Bellamy has to deal with her expectations of her come to life hero and how to get out of the shell she has built around herself and grow.
The idea of the story was stellar. The entire time I pictured someone like SJM getting to go on tour with a Rhysand look alike. *The most beautiful man she’s ever seen* Gosh, just the idea is swoon worthy. Can I please have a three month tour with a hottie of my making by my side? I loved that the book boyfriend was nothing like the character that Bellamy had imagined and in fact had his own personality.
Caleb, the guy who is hired to model as the character Max is a hottie & the sexual tension that builds between him and Bellamy is hot. I love that they didn’t hit it off and have to be friends before they can even move onto romance. The initial hotness of course is scoured as soon as he opens his mouth. But it’s not until they are forced to sit in a car together for the lengthy road trip that they get along by some sort of peace treaty.
One of my qualms with the story is that their relationships progressed rather quickly so there was a slight lull in the middle. Luckily, the last 20% skim by really fast, and not in the ‘well that ended abruptly’ sort of way. In a, eek, this is hot, flip flip flip, awwwww, flip flip flip, ending. And though it ended the way I anticipated it ending, it was still rather sweet.
My other qualm with the story was the lack of bickering. I would expect that spending nearly every minute with the same set of 4 people would cause some sort of animosity. Instead, the characters just grew closer and closer. But really, even with the people I most adore, you have to have some personal space. I would have liked it a little bit better if tempers rose and people got a little tired of being with each other. It would have seemed a little more realistic.
