THE DEAL (Off Campus Book #1) by ELLE KENNEDY – REVIEW & EXCERPT

“I’m broken, and I wanted you to fix me.”

BOOK LOVE! We haven’t wiped these happy dopey grins off our faces since finishing The Deal and yep, we were well and truly in book heaven from start to finish and everything in between!!!

If you’ve read the synopsis and thinking to yourself ‘oh I’ve read this type of story before‘, then think again because Elle Kennedy managed to make this NA story feel refreshing and new.

This author has such a beautiful fluidity to her writing, we couldn’t help but get be swept away in her words. The Deal was delivered with sweetness, emotion, heartache, tonnes of humour  all wrapped up in a heart-warming story that had us in fits of giggles one minute, welling up the next and melting in a swoon worthy puddle throughout.

‘Sometimes people sneak up on you and suddenly you don’t know how you ever lived without them.’

We were thrilled this author chose to tell Garrett and Hannah’s story in dual POV as each character’s voice brought a new depth to the story and their inner monologues were priceless and these two characters were ADORABLE! One thing we really loved was that Elle Kennedy gave us a bloke’s pov that actually sounded like…well, a bloke as often it’s difficult to differentiate between the two. Not so in this case. Hannah and Garrett both had such distinctive voices that allowed us to completely lose ourselves in their story.

“Exactly how old is your penis?”
“He’s twenty, like me…but he’s way more mature than I am.”

Hannah is smart, sassy and beautiful, not to mention cute and a bit goofy with a vulnerability that utterly endeared her to us. Hannah isn’t one of the ‘cool’ kids but in our eyes, she was pretty bloody spectacular. Having lived through something horrific it is testament to this young lady that she is as level headed and caring as she is. We loved her!

“You won’t let anything bad happen to me, will you, Garrett?”

Garrett Graham….let’s just pause a minute to remind ourselves of everything we loved about this cocky, smart, loyal, gorgeous (just ask him, he’ll happily tell you haha!) beautiful soul of a man who strives to live up to the constant pressure of being the son of Hockey legend Phil Graham. Garrett stole our hearts. The secrets that lay behind his happy go lucky façade broke our hearts!

“When I’m on the ice, it’s the only time I feel….alive….”

There wasn’t anything we didn’t love about The Deal. The banter between Hannah and Garrett was brilliant and Garrett’s consternation over Hannah’s questionable music tastes had us grinning from ear to ear.

“How do you feel about Lynyrd Skynyrd? Or do you only like bands where the guys coordinate their outfits?” – Garrett

The chemistry sizzled – the backstories were heartbreaking on both sides but the author didn’t dwell on these, instead she delivered them with heartfelt emotion and warmth, while entertaining the reader with some of the wittiest banter we’ve read. The humour didn’t detract from the emotion of the story and the emotion didn’t weigh down the flow of the story either. In fact, it was all balanced beautifully.

“Trust me, the pressure I put on myself is nothing compared to what I had to deal with growing up.”

But you don’t want to hear us go on about it. Grab this book for yourselves and be prepared to lose yourself for a while. We can’t think of a better escape. The Deal can be read as a Standalone but you can bet we’ll be coming back for more!

**ARC copy provided by Omnific Publishing in exchange for an honest review**