The Deal (Off-Campus, #1)

by Elle Kennedy

New York Times bestseller Elle Kennedy brings you a sexy new Off-Campus novel that can be read as a standalone…

She’s about to make a deal with the college bad boy…

Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice…even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date.

…and it’s going to be oh so good

All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.

• ISBN10: 1508706255
• ISBN13: 9781508706250
• Publish Date: 9 April 2015 (first published 24 February 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 342
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cocktails and Books]

The Deal leads you in one direction and then takes you in another.

I had a hard time getting into the book at first. I thought I already read this somewhere else. Same story same outcome.

I am so glad that I continued on.

College students Hannah and Garrett are a part of different social circles. Garrett being the popular all-star hockey player who happens to be the Big Man on Campus, and Hannah is… Not. Garrett needs a tutor for his Ethics class so he can make up a test that he failed, or he won’t be able to play in the upcoming game. Hannah being only a handful of students who passed the test seems like the likely candidate to help him out.

The Characters of Garrett and Hannah aren’t as simple as they seem. Hannah a survivor of rape, handles herself pretty well. She knows what happened to her was not her fault but she still can’t seem to get intimate with a guy. That is until she sees a new guy in her class named Justin Kohl. She thinks he will be the one to get her over her intimacy problems. But, he doesn’t know she is alive.

Garrett, a charming hockey player who has a sad background himself and whose only focus is making it pro and has no desires to have a relationship with a girl anytime soon. Now that his chance at playing at the big game is hindering on him passing his ethics exam he needs to go and get Hannah to tutor him at any cost.

Garrett’s Deal for Hannah

Tutor me and I will get Justin to notice you.

Well the deal got lost somewhere along the way and these two realized that they were both broken and needed each other to heal. Their relationship grew from one of tutor, to one of friendship and to one of love and trust.

Reviewed by BookBud for Cocktails and Books

[limabean74]

My Review:

Oh good gravy where do I start. I am not a big NA reader, not sure why but I was looking for something a little more "adult" and I saw a few bloggers say this book was really good and laugh out loud funny. I couldn't pass the chance to try it out. I am so glad I saw those posts because this book was awesome and really cracked me up. I adored Garett and Hannah the banter between these two had me rolling. Some of the best dialogue in a book I have read in a long time. Just how real life it seemed made me devour this book and need to read the next two.  I really loved all the characters and all the boys gave me those fun butterfly feelings anytime they walked into a room and made a snarky quip. This book was so much fun to read.

Hannah has a past that she wants to forget but it has been affecting her relationships with guys. Soon she starts to really like a guy in her class and is hoping she can overcome her fears and finally find someone that can give her what she needs. However she wasn't expecting Garett, Garett the captain of the hockey team is failing his class and needs Hannah to help him, with a lot of begging, she finally agrees and now he isn't expecting his feeling for Hannah to be so strong. He is such a wiseass and I love that Hannah doesn't seem to be affected by his "charm".
It's been a very long time since I read a book that both MC characters are my favorite. I even loved all the secondary characters they were just as much fun as the MC's. These two were totally meant for each other and I can't express enough how much I loved this entire book from start to finish. The story was interesting and it didn't drag, like some NA books can, this seemed to move along very nicely and I just loved the pace. You get a lot of steamy scenes and I loved the awkward moments it really felt like stuff that happens in real life.

I can't recommend this book enough and believe me I have recommend this book to anyone that would listen to me. If you love NA or you never read it before this is a great book to start with. I can't wait to read the next one and learn about Garett's BFF Logan, he seems like just as much fun as Garett and I am super excited to read his other friends book, Dean, even in this book there was something about him that made me think he will be my new dream guy. :)

Thank you so much for stopping by to check out my review

Hope you have a great day and Happy Reading!

This review was originally posted on Because reading is better than real life

[Angie]

The Deal was so good! It has probably one of my favorite fake dating plots and of course my beloved fake relationship turned real trope. Hannah just aced her Philosophy midterm while the rest of the class failed. Garrett needs to pass this class in order to stay on the hockey team, so he turns on the charm to get Hannah to tutor him for the make-up exam. He certainly does not expect her to say no, but Garrett is not one to give up. He eventually finds out what he can trade her for her time: a fake date with him to catch her crush's attention.

I have to start with what I think was my favorite part of The Deal. It shows that you can be okay after a rape. Too often, NA goes into this really dark territory where the heroine is super damaged and pushes everyone away and then she gets saved by the power of love. Well, that doesn't happen here. Hannah is already done with therapy and going on with her life. Yes, she is more cautious in social situations and doesn't drink outside of her home. But she's dated, she's had sex, she wants to continue to do those things. And that is amazing! I think that is so important! She's not 100%, as there's one issue that she's struggling with, which Garrett does help her with. But it's just so different from how the subject is usually handled.

My next favorite thing about The Deal, was that Hannah and Garrett actually have a conversation about their relationship status. Instead of just jumping straight to the "I love you" portion and assuming that they're together, these two start out slower. They get to know each other during tutoring, an awesome friendship develops, then comes the attraction and lust, and then they actually talk to each other about whether they should be exclusive and call each other boy/girlfriend. This felt so much more natural and realistic to me!

The Deal does a lot of things right and I loved that! It was so refreshing! It was nice to see two people get to know each other instead of just declaring everlasting love. I absolutely loved the friendship portion, although the sexy time portion was great too! There is a bit of silly drama near the end, but I liked how it was resolved.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Sam@WLABB]

Sometimes you need to read a good rom-com, and The Deal delivers that and more.

Both our MCs are dealing with some serious baggage. Each of them compensates by denying themselves certain things, that would make their lives fuller and richer. When fate, or rather, a bad grade puts Hannah on Garrett's radar, they make a connection that neither of them can deny.

I loved their banter, their chemistry, their tender moments. I loved the way they were honest, and exposed sides of themselves, which they kept hidden from others. I loved how these two slightly broken people became whole, when they were together.

I instantly liked Hannah, but I came to love Garrett. I also liked meeting the other Off Campus boys, and look forward to their stories.

[whisperingchapters]

Successful re-read!

[EBookObsessed]

This book was recommended to me and as a fan of Elle Kennedy’s Killer Instinct series, I was happy to give it a try. It was an enjoyable new adult story, but it took me awhile to come to like these characters. This is not my favorite new adult book but still much better than many of the standard tropes on the new adult shelf.

This novel combines two new adult tropes, the rape survivor and the college sports star. I was not enamored with Hannah and Garrett at the beginning of the story. Both were a little full of their own importance. Hannah can’t be bothered to tutor the popular jock and Garrett takes advantage of his popularity and is a bit obnoxious with the line up of girls he sleeps with and tosses aside. He and his housemates/team mates should install a revolving door to make things easier.

Hannah doesn’t register in Garrett’s world until he is about to fail a class and then he will have to sit out the remainder of the hockey season. He then pulls out all the stops to get Hannah to agree to work with him so he can pass the make up test.

Naturally, once Garrett takes a second look at Hannah, he can see that she is actually attractive. Yet, even though he is developing an interest in Hannah, it doesn’t stop her from walking in on Garrett having sex with some nameless ‘puck bunny.’ That to me it a bit of a turn off in a romance. I prefer that my hero isn’t still having meaningless sex with strangers once he turns his eye on the heroine. But, that’s just my preference.

It is after they have been working together for awhile that a friendship started to grow between them. It is once Hannah and Garrett start to become friends, and we start to learn more about their characters, that I start to like them both more and start enjoying the story.

We learn about Garrett’s abuse under the thumb of his NHL superstar father. His father physically abused his mother and then Garrett after his mother’s death. All the while, signing autographs and being adored by the fans who are not aware that at home he is a violent tyrant. It is torturous to Garrett that even his team mates worship his father and lament how lucky Garrett is to have a superstar father.

We also learn that Hannah was ruffied at a party when she was 15 and raped by a hometown high school hero. After years of therapy, she has moved on. She has had lovers since the rape, but indicates she hasn’t orgasmed during sex. When Hannah originally agrees to “The Deal” to help Garrett, it is because she wants to date the newest member of the baseball team who comes off as smart and not the horn-dog that the other jocks are. Garrett knows this is a ruse on Kohl’s part, but he needs to get Hannah to agree to tutor him so Garrett’s plan is for Garrett and Hannah to pretend to date, which will make Kohl finally notice Hannah.

Once Hannah and Garrett become friends, Hannah asks the very experienced Garrett to help her try to orgasm so that when she and Kohl eventually date and have sex, she will not be a disappointment to him. What cements Garrett as a hero to me is not the fact that he agrees to have sex with Hannah, but that he goes online and researches how he should approach sex with a rape victim, and he talks to some people about how he should handle the situation instead of just using his ‘expertise’ to make sex good for her. He makes sure that he approaches the whole thing slowly and patiently so that Hannah will not be harmed by something he does.

I ended the story enjoying the couple that Hannah and Garrett had become and how they have helped and supported each other. Their relationship helps them mature greatly in the short period they are together.

THOUGHTS:
This was not my favorite new adult story and it did take me some time to like Hannah and Garrett, but once they started to open up to each other, I did come to appreciate Hannah and Garrett as a couple.

Elle Kennedy does have an easy writing style which makes the story fly by and there are no slow parts.

What did surprise me at the end is that although Garrett infers that Kohl is playing up the smart, thoughtful jock, he finishes the story as just a nice guy that Hannah didn’t pick. It seemed more like halfway through writing the story, Elle decided she liked him and wanted to keep him for a hero in a future story since there were already enough antagonists here.

[lizarodz]

Do you know ALL the clichés and plots that you usually see in every other NA book out there? Well, you can throw it out the window because they are not in The Deal!  I was so pleasantly surprised, but after seeing glowing reviews for it by several trusted bloggers, I had to read it for myself.

How?  Let me count the ways:

1. Both main characters have ‘issues’ and a troubling past. BUT, they know it. They’ve worked through them. They had help or other coping mechanism. Oh, and it’s not a secret.  Hannah has a supporting and loving family.  Garrett has learn to rely on himself and his friends.


2. Hannah and Garrett talk to each other, they communicate, they grow to like each other and be friends before anything happens.  They are mostly honest with each other.


3. When this awesome couple briefly separates because of a misunderstanding, it takes Garrett two minutes to figure out something is not right.  It doesn’t drag forever and they don’t have to sleep with 20 other people to know they love each other.

Now, I’ve read a lot of books in my life and I assure you that Garrett will remain in my list of favorite male characters ever.  I’m not exaggerating either.  Garrett is truly an amazing character, he’s loyal, level headed, pragmatic, loving, understanding, patient, trustworthy, and a bit conceited.  He’s gorgeous and he knows it.  I just adored him and how well he got along with Hannah, with his family life, and any other situation. He's matured and knows his limits. Oh, and his major is history, he knows a lot about it and loves to watch documentaries. How cute is that? LOVE HIM!

"I've never met anyone who sleeps with so many pillows.  Maybe he needs them to cradle his massive ego."

Hannah is another incredible character.  She's a music major with an incredible voice.  She dismisses Garrett as a dumb jock, and he's anything but.  She quickly realizes her mistake when she agrees to tutor him.  Hannah went to a traumatic event when she was 15 and has worked very hard to overcome it. She's open about it and has plenty of support and I applaud her for this.  She's loving, loyal, smart, beautiful, and talented.

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

The story is really good.  You can get a good idea by reading the blurb, except that Garrett is not exactly a "bad boy".  He is a jock, captain of the hockey team, and he lives off-campus with three other equally gorgeous friends and he's not exactly celibate.  However, he's always honest with Hannah and they get along so well together.  The banter and dialogue between them is priceless.  I also loved the writing, it's fluid and easy to read.  The host of characters was outstanding!

I’m not a fan of the cover though.  I have nothing against any male that looks like that (far from it!), but it doesn’t do the book justice at all.

Overall, The Deal was an amazing read that doesn’t rely of clichés, but instead creates a great story with even better characters.  I’m not sure when The Mistake, the next book in the Off-Campus series will be published , but I do know that it is about Logan (yay!), you can bet that I will be first in line to read it!

 This review was originally posted on Reading With ABC

[stacey_is_sassy]

Elle Kennedy...changed my mind about New Adult genre

I am not a fan of NA books in general, but this one was the best. The characters were great without being perfect. We have the very sexy captain of the ice hockey team Garrett and the sweet and sassy music lover Hannah.

Garrett fails a test which Hannah aced and so he decides to hit her up to tutor him. Hannah thinks he'll be a dumb jock who won't be serious. This story shows how they learn to trust each other and become friends.

Ms Kennedy has a talent for showing a believable college life with intelligent characters who study, work and practice to keep up their grades. Surprisingly this was one of the first NA's that I wasn't screaming (to myself) "GROW UP ALREADY".

Loved this story and the characters and will definitely be reading more in this series.

[Rowena]

OMG, this book.

This book was one of the cutest NA romances that I’ve read all month. From beginning to end, I was grinning like a schoolgirl because Garrett Graham is one sexy mother shut your mouth. He had me laughing throughout the entire book and when I wasn’t laughing, I was swooning over how hot he is and loving the heck out of him while he was trying to come to terms with Hannah.

Hannah was just as great too. I loved that she didn’t let Garrett get away with anything, right from the very beginning. I loved that she kept him on his toes, that she was super duper smart and was a home-body. I thought she was such an interesting character. What we get from her background and then just seeing her interact with the people in her life (Garrett included) was just so normal and lovely that I enjoyed getting to know her. I loved seeing how awkward she was with Justin too.

So this book starts off with Hannah acing a test in the class that she has with Garrett. Garrett failed the test and is troubled about it because he needs to keep his grades up so that he can play hockey. He needs to play hockey so that he can finish college and play for the big leagues. He’s failing this class and needs Hannah’s help so to get her help, he tells her that he’ll help her with her guy problem if she helps him with his grade problems.

What a great book this turned out to be. I haven’t read anything by Elle Kennedy but I’m never going to miss any of her contemporary NA books from here on out because this was such a fun book.

I laughed so much with this scene:

I clench my teeth. “I’m not a virgin, Garrett.”
“You’re not a puck bunny either.”
“So that means I’m not allowed to sleep with a guy I’m attracted to?”
He rakes both hands over his scalp now, looking equally aggravated. Then he takes a breath, exhales slowly, and meets my eyes. “Okay, here’s the deal. I believe you’re attracted to me. I mean – one, who isn’t? And two, you moan like crazy whenever my tongue’s in your mouth.”
I bristle. “I do not.”
“Agree to disagree.”

These two bickered their way right into my heart and I had a grand ol’ time reading their story. I enjoyed this book so much that I’m looking forward to the next book, which comes out in June 2015 (according to Goodreads). I heard it’s Logan’s book and Logan is Garrett’s best friend so I’m looking forward to that one.

I can’t even remember anything that I didn’t like about this book….there’s so much good in it that the bad just kind of cancels it out, or doesn’t exist. I understand that this is one of those gushing, happy dance reviews but I can’t help it. I liked this one, a lot. Hannah had some issues that she was working through and Garrett helped her out with them and I just about swooned with how patient he was and how gentle he was with her. He didn’t let her make light of her issues, he cared enough to want to help her and he did. I loved that they both needed each other (even when they didn’t know they did) and were there for each other. They protected each other and wanted what was best for each other. I loved it all….even when Hannah does something boneheaded and Garrett finds out. What Garrett does to get back at Hannah had me laughing so much. I’m serious, these two were great.

This is a fun book so if you’re in the mood for something funny, cute and with a romance that will steam up your e-readers and print pages, pick this one up. You won’t regret it.