Review: Bad Boy Blues by Saffron A. Kent

Bad Boy Blues
by Saffron A. Kent
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: April 11, 2019
Genre: Romance
Rating:

Cleopatra Paige hates one thing in this world — just one — and his name is Zachariah Prince.

In grade school, he pulled at her pigtails. In middle school, he spread false rumors about her. And in high school, he ruined her prom.

She hates that his smirks are unfairly sexy. And she definitely loathes that his dark eyes seem to follow her everywhere. Sometimes, even in her dreams.

It doesn’t matter that he’s rich and popular or that he lives in a freaking mansion full of butlers and maids. He’s rude and arrogant, and she wants to stay as far away from him as possible.

But unfortunately for Cleo, she lives in the same freaking mansion as Zach.

Only he’s the prince and she’s the lowly maid who serves him.

Bad Boy Blues is not a love story to wish for. In fact, it’s a very unhealthy romance. One that dates back to when they were kids in school. You see, Zach has picked on Cleo since she was 10 years old. Between himself and his friends, they made her life hell. Years later, Cleo starts working for the family as one of their maids. Everything is fine until Zach comes back into town. These two seem to pick up right where they left off, and yet somehow build a relationship off of it. Their story is not a healthy one, but man was it an entertaining read.

Like I said, Cleo was bullied by Zach for about half of her life. However, now that she’s older, she refuses to take it anymore. She lashes out at him, and makes it known that she won’t be pushed around anymore. Pretty soon, she becomes the bully due to all the hate and anger built up inside of her. However, all that hate turns to love as she sees a side of Zach that she never knew existed. Then, she pieces everything together and realizes that there’s a reason behind all the hate inside of him.

Zach was not an easy character to like. In fact, even after finishing the book, I’m still not sold on the guy. He was mean to Cleo both as a kid and as an adult. He humiliated her. He belittled her. Not to mention how deep he hurt her. And yet, she kept forgiving him. It’s later revealed why Zach behaves the way that he does, but I honestly wasn’t buying it. I mean, I get why he’d be angry, but I wasn’t buying their romance or Cleo’s response to him.

Even though I felt like the heroine was a little too dumbstruck by the hero to think straight, I did really enjoy this story. It was kind of like watching reality television. You know it’s a train wreck set for disaster the moment you start reading, but you just grab your bowl of popcorn and enjoy the ride. While I do feel like things were easily brushed off by the heroine, and some of their scenes together were a bit cheesy and scripted, I couldn’t get enough. I was addicted with this hot mess of a romance and I just couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. I wasn’t on board with the characters. I wasn’t on board with their romance. And yet, I couldn’t seem to put the book down. That is when you know an author has done an amazing job writing a story.