Review: Once Upon a Bad Boy by Melonie Johnson

Item: Once Upon a Bad Boy
Rating: 4
Author: Lillian

Posted July 12, 2019 by Lillian in Reviews / 0 Comments

I received this book via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

Review: Once Upon a Bad Boy by Melonie Johnson

Once Upon a Bad Boy by Melonie Johnson
Series: Sometimes in Love #3
Published by St. Martin's Press on 2019-06-25
Length: 384 pages
Reviewing eARC from Netgalley
Rating:
Reading Challenges: #NGEW2019, 2019 New Release Challenge

NEVER SAY NEVER
Sadie Gold is ready to take her career to the next level with the role of a lifetime. Finally, she can shake her reputation as a pretty face with more wealth and connections than talent. But Sadie is not prepared for the wild turn her own life is about to take. The man in charge of training Sadie for her most demanding role yet is none other than her first real boyfriend—the one who took her heart and ran away.

WHEN IT COMES TO LOVE
Bo Ibarra is as good-looking and irresistible as ever. Maybe even more so, now that everything once worked against them—Sadie’s pampered and privileged upbringing and Bo’s childhood in a family struggling to make ends meet—is in the past. But the future is still unwritten…and getting there, together, means coming clean about painful secrets and slashing through nasty tabloid rumors while trying to control the attraction that crackles between them. Maybe it’s finally time for them to walk off into the sunset and into a true and lasting love?

Once Upon a Bad Boy by Melonie Johnson is the third book in her Sometimes in Love series. This time it follows actress Sadie Gold as she returns home to film her first leading movie role. This book has every contemporary romance trope I love: star-studded, second chance, first love. Seriously y’all I was hooked from the start and finished the book in less than 24 hours. If I hadn’t desperately needed sleep, I would’ve finished it in one sitting.

Sadie Gold is an easy character to like. She’s not the typical, full of herself actress that the tabloids portray. Instead she’s the girl-next-door type. She keeps to herself, has a few very close friends, and doesn’t really date. This movie she is training for could make or break her career, and she is ready to tackle it head on. What she is not ready for is working with the man that broke her heart all those long years ago.

Bo Ibarra is, quite simply, a good man. He works hard for everything he owns and for the business he is a partner of. When Sadie reenters his life, he is as prepared as he can be. He knows he must face her, and he’s ready. Maybe fate throwing them together is a second chance, if she’ll have him.

The tension between Sadie and Bo drive this plot. Sadie never stopped loving Bo, but she never forgave or understood why he left her all those years ago. Bo never stopped loving her either and his reasons for leaving are flimsy at best. Yet Sadie is willing to put her heart on the line and pursue a possible future with this man. The problem: there is a big secret hanging between them that once brought to light could unravel that future Bo is building.

Now about this secret….I have to talk about it because well it bugs me. So I’m putting it in spoiler tags. If you’ve read the book, feel free to read and message me your thoughts because I want others’ opinions. If you haven’t read the book, click and read at your own risk 😉 View Spoiler »

Overall, I enjoyed Once Upon a Bad Boy. I enjoyed it so much that I’d like to go back and read the previous stories of the series. While the book can be read as a standalone, the characters from the previous books pop in and out and there are spoilers to those books in this one which is why I’d like to go back and read those. If you enjoy contemporary, second chance romance, I highly recommend this one.

About Melonie Johnson

Award-winning author Melonie Johnson--aka #thewritinglush--is a two-time RWA Golden Heart® finalist who loves dark coffee, cheap wine, and expensive beer. And margaritas. And mimosas. And mules. Basically any cocktail that starts with the letter m. She met her future husband in that most romantic of places--the mall--when they were teenagers working in stores across the hall from each other. Today, they live happily ever after in the magical land midway between Chicago and Milwaukee with their two redhead daughters, a dog that's more like a small horse, and a pair of hermit crabs. After earning her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Loyola University Chicago, Melonie taught high school English and Theatre in the northern Chicago suburbs for several years. Now she writes smart and funny contemporary romance and moonlights as an audiobook narrator under the pseudonym, Evelyn Eibhlin. Watch for her contemporary romance debut, THE SOMETIMES IN LOVE series, coming summer 2019 from St. Martin's Press. Melonie is represented by Pamela Harty of the Knight Agency.

A Star Wars junkie and Shakespeare groupie who quotes both Yoda and the Bard with equal aplomb, you can visit her at meloniejohnson.com and find her on Twitter and Instagram at @MelonieJohnson.