Reviews with content warning for Grief - Bad Boys After Dark: Mick

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Bad Boys After Dark: Mick by Melissa Foster

2 reviews

allingoodtime's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Carson and Tawny seemed to have spent their whole relationship with missed opportunities and crossed signals. They were the best of friends in college and madly in love with each other, but neither admitted as much for fear of losing their friendship. Yet at some point in their relationship, they started setting aside one day a week to explore their sexual appetites with each other. But only for that one day a week and every other day they acted as though there was no other connection between them.

While Carson has always been attractive and charismatic, he wasn’t quite the player Tawny thought he was in college. She ended up realizing she couldn’t handle being one in a line of other women and broke their relationship off. Not just the steamy side of things, but their friendship as well. Ever since she’s compared every potential relationship to Carson and vice versa. So when these two meet back up after ten years of no contact, sparks fly. And it’s a beautiful, sweetly awkward, emotional reunion.

For the most part, I enjoyed this story. But I felt there was a huge missed opportunity. Carson is a security expert with a hugely successful company. At one point in the beginning, before the couple is back together, Tawny talks to her ex-husband who is concerned about her as they’ve remained friends after their divorce and he knows her history with Carson. I kept waiting for the ex to be a jealous stalker-type presence in her life but nothing ever came of that. It was kind of dropped. It just seemed odd to me that the ex and his caring nature and the fact they were still close and talked often was brought up a lot in the beginning and then never talked of again.

I enjoyed the chemistry between Tawny and Carson and the way Carson’s family helped Tawny to let go of her inhibitions. The Bad family is fun but also has a lot of emotional hardships in their past, which make them an interesting bunch. So this story was a decent and solid read for me.

Content Warnings

allingoodtime's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

While the first book in this series got its hooks into me and kept me turning the pages, this one just didn’t do it for me. I can’t seem to pinpoint what the problem was and it leads me to believe it may have been my mood more than anything else. The characters are great, their story has emotional depth and plenty of heat, and there wasn’t even a lot of pushback like I expected with the FMC being so high-powered and business oriented.

Tiffany and Dylan meet at his brother’s wedding, although she’s not actually a guest and just happens to walk into the bar they are at. But she does know Mick and his bride and falls into an easy banter/flirting with Dylan right away. She’s looking to blow off some steam, a quick wham-bam-thank you ma’am. While Dylan is not averse to those types of encounters, he’s always been on the lookout for the one he can settle down and build a life with. He feels an instant connection with Tiffany and believes she may be the one for him. Tiffany feels this, too but has never seen herself as the settling-down type. Her career takes up too much time and she isn’t really in the market to let someone in behind her walls. She doesn’t do emotional.

Dylan is very sweet and patient and understanding. I love that he understands how important Tiffany’s job is to her and that her drive and determination are part of what makes her who she is, so he’s not looking to change her. But he does want some of her precious time. Tiffany is resistant at first, but quickly finds herself craving time with Dylan and realizing that she hasn’t been letting anyone in, not even her dad and brothers. She’s determined to find a more balanced life while still going after what she wants in her career.

There are some wonderfully steamy scenes in this story, including a phenomenal phone/facetime scene that shows how hot such a thing can be while also being super intimidating and awkward. Both characters are excited and nervous and it’s just a delicious scene.

That being said, there is some language used that I felt was misogynistic and some attitudes toward certain sexual proclivities that I wasn’t on board with. Understandably, Tiffany would have a bad taste in her mouth about certain things due to what her ex-boyfriend did, but when the conversation comes up about this it seems both characters are so dismissive of alternative lifestyles. Plus, Dylan uses a term for a female body part to describe himself when he’s feeling weak more than once. It happens a lot. Too much.

So there’s good and bad with this book. Some things would have kept me from being all in on the story, as I reference above, even if I had been in the right headspace. But I also think I would have been more engaged if I had been in the right mood.

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