Review: A Kiss by the Book by Christy Hayes

Title: A Kiss by the Book
Author: Christy Hayes
Format: Ebook
Publisher: CAH LLC
Publish Date: April 2, 2014
Source: I received a copy from the author; however this did not affect my review.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "College senior Zach Chamberlain’s charmed life has always gone according to script:
Date the prettiest girl in high school, check.
Football scholarship to a division-one school, check.
Heisman contender, check.
Buy engagement ring, check.
On track to graduate with honors, check.
There’s just one glitch. His 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."

My Two Cents:

"A Kiss by the Book" is the second book in Christy Hayes' "Kiss and Tell" series. It's a new adult romance surrounding Zach, an all star college football player, who gets dumped by his girlfriend for his dorkier younger brother. I loved the first book in the series so even though I didn't like Zach in the first book (he acts sort of terrible), I was willing to give this book a shot. I love when an author can surprise me and Hayes definitely delivers a surprise - I actually really loved Zach in this book. I loved how Hayes was able to change my whole perspective!

Even though this is the second book in the series, this book would work fine as a standalone. That being said, if you do want to read this book, I would go back and read the first book. It's a great love story and reading "A Kiss by the Book" first will take away some of the elements of surprise if you go back and read the first book. It is definitely best to read in order but if you don't, you will understand this book just fine.

I love when authors are able to make me feel different emotions about a character. As I mentioned, I really did not like Zach in the first book. My feelings totally changed when I saw how he really fell for Jenna, who is only supposed to be his tutor. Zach ended up being a pretty nice guy who really tugged on my heartstrings. It definitely made for a much more interesting story for Zach to be much more than he appeared in the first book. Jenna was a really good character as well. I liked that she was allowed to be smart. It seems like there is an over-abundance of dumb girls in romances and new adult books sometimes.

This book was really cute and I am looking forward to more releases by Christy Hayes!