3.5 Stars!!

She was beautiful. She was wild. She was the untamed one.

In Bad Boy Brody, we follow Brody- a really popular actor who is - SHOCKER



A BAD BOY....

Didnt see that coming did ya??

He one day gets a phone call from his brother and hears him die while on the phone with him. That leads Brody down an even worse "bad boy road." His agent gets him a part in a B movie to try and bring up his ratings and the good movie offers back.

He takes the deal which will be a true story of how a popular woman rancher Karen Kellerman is murdered leaving behind a husband and step children. Brody shows up to the set and sees a girl (Morgan Kellerman) - who usually is a ghost to everyone else- among the horses.



Little does Brody know. She has a tragic story of her own.

I enjoyed this book. Its Tijan- its hard not to get invested in her emotionally driven characters. I thought everything flowed smooth and it was a great story to read. I felt the characters had depth and the story even had a bit of mystery about it.

My only "little bitty" issue with it was Morgan. She just fell flat a little for me. She lives among the horses and has a relationship with nature that some of us could only dream of tapping into. I loved that aspect, but she came across as dull and kind of boring. She was amazing with the horses and I get that she is supposed to seem sort of skittish like a horse but she just wasn't that relatable and I had a hard time finding a connection with her character. I loved Brody- and thought the side characters were great as well. I just would have liked to see Morgan come out of her shell a little bit more.

Overall Tijan usually rocks my world with every.single.one of her books so it was still enjoyable and I would still recommend :P

OMG, this book is as fantastic as the other Tijan books! It sucked me into the story right from the beginning and kept me rapt all the way through, as in I read it in one day. What an incredible story, what incredible characters!

I love Hollywood stories, so I loved that the male character is an A-lister, especially now when he fell a little from grace. He was in his first important movie premiere when he listened on the phone as his brother crashed and died and that turned his world sideways. He went crazy, drinking, whoring and fighting and his golden light turned a little tawdry, earning him the nickname Bad Boy Brody. Now he’s in Montana, about to start a movie, not his first choice, but a condition in order to make the film he really wants to make.

I love the coincidence that he’s forced to be in Montana, forced to be in this movie, and his life is about to take a significant turn in his life! On the way to the house where the movie takes place, they’re surprised with a herd run of wild mustangs, and perched among one of them is this woman who feels as one with the horse, no saddle and no bridle, impressive and memorable. Days later, he meets the woman in one of his walks around the property and his future and his heart are taken prisoner!

I loved Brody, he takes his craft seriously, he memorizes his lines before he starts a movie, always on time, always professional. He’s now drinking a lot, he’s a little scattered but he’s no less professional. He’s having a hard time, reliving the memory of the phone call as his brother crashed. But if he was a memorable character, Morgan takes the throne on mystic and wonderful female characters. Abandoned by her stepfather and siblings when her mother was killed, she was raised by nannies but more importantly, she was taken in by one of the mustangs, Shoal. And when Shoal had a foal, Shiloh, she turned into her sister. They had an uncanny connection and when they ran, it was as if they were one soul and one mind. She was not completely of the human race, she turned off her humanity after her mother was murdered and she felt more confident among the herd, following the stallion and Shoal, riding on Shiloh. It felt truly mystic!

This love story was utterly delightful. Morgan brings a lot of wisdom from being so connected to the animals and nature. She awed Brody with her straightforwardness and beauty and some of that mystical feeling she brings. There were several moments when I cried, like when her step-siblings arrive on the scene and see her for the first time in years. To see a man, Finn, cry because he sees who he considers his baby sister was truly heartbreaking and heartwarming. Same for his twin sister, Abby. Initially I thought they didn’t have good intentions but in that scene, I was sure there was only love.

I loved the way Brody brought Morgan from the land of the herd into humanity, little by little, cemented in the strong relation they were developing. I loved how Brody furiously defended her against everyone who wanted to exploit her. He was always on her side, no compromises. And in being so strongly defended, so strongly loved, she made her way, step by step, back into the world of the humans, but she was an improved version, because she had the wisdom of her foster family, Shoal and Shiloh.

Just when you think you’ve read all the good Tijan books, you find an older book and it hits you in your face, that she’s been this incredibly wonderful story teller long before I chanced on her books. Absolutely wonderful!

***I received this ARC as an exchange for an honest review.***
I am a huge fan of Tijan and love almost all of her books! This one was within the 1% that I didn't love. The book isn't bad in itself. The story line was great and I liked the idea that it was something so different. I just could not get into the story. At about 30% through the book, I needed to take a breather and read other books thinking I was in a slump. Which I sort of was in a slump, but even after I got my groove back, I couldn't get into it in the way I was hoping to and looking forward to.
The book just felt too unrealistic to me and I think that is where my problems were. I get the whole Celebrity going through a struggling phase. Let's face it, I would be in the same boat if I listened to my sibling die on the phone. Horrible...Morgan on the other hand did not make sense. I get that she lost her mom and that is another Horrible tragedy, but it isn't very realistic to think she would live with horses and that no one knows about her. How did the producer not dig up dirt on the family or the paparazzi. Like come on... We know that would really be the case here.
I do like how Tijan made these two find one another and how they helped the other heal. Both these stories individually were good, but I don't think the love interest was the way to go. I really struggled with Morgans character in multiple ways. The writing just wasn't letting me connect enough with her.

WOW! Tijan has just wowed me again!

I will state that it took me few chapters to completely draw me in, but her chapters are short and it was no more than five chapters-tops-before I was hooked and knew I wouldn't stop reading until I devoured every page.

The book begins with Brody, a star, losing his brother, setting off a chain of events in his life that leads to the title "Bad Boy Brody". He isn't necessarily proud of the title he's achieved since his brothers death, but he is trying to start a road to making amends so he can get his career back on track.

"As if overnight, I had gone from Hollywood's heartthrob to their bad boy. And that brought us to the whole reason I was being driven to somewhere I didn't want to be to work on a movie I didn't want to be a part of."

A movie promising Oscar buzz means the title of "Bad Boy Brody" might disappear which could mean bigger movies in Brody's future, which is exactly what he is after.  Brody promised to take on the potential Oscar winning role of Peter Kellerman, the man behind a global franchise of Kellerman Hotels. But the movie wasn't about how he made his millions, no, it was about how he fell in love and then how his wife was murdered.

"Unbroke. That was the name of the movie, a term used about a horse that wasn't trained.....The movie was about my mother, but why would they use that term? She'd been broken."

Morgan Kellerman was wild and free. A girl left behind after her mother was murdered. Her step-siblings and stepfather all left after her mother had been murdered, and she'd been left behind like unwanted dishware.  Morgan stayed on the very land in which her mother had been murdered, only visiting the home when it was necessary as she was much more in harmony with the wild mustangs of the land than any of the people who ever lived there. 

"She didn't want something from me. She didn't see me with dollar signs in her eyes. She was pure. She was innocent. And she had no idea how rare she was."

When Morgan and Brody meet the wild attraction is instant and the pure innocence is underlying and raw. Something continues to draw these two back together. Or as Brody puts it, Morgan continues to find him because she only reveals herself when she wants to be found. Brody is fascinated by her yes, but he's also desperate to be near her in a way he's never been desperate to be near anyone else in his entire life. Morgan can't understand why she feels drawn to Brody over and over until she learns of his own struggles. Two souls grieving together and understanding each others pain.

"There was something about Brody that made me not regret anything."

They come from two different worlds. She's wild and lives in the untamed world, and even though he was a notorious bad boy, he works hard and lives in the civilized world. Would they ever fit together in the real world?

Tijan will take you on an emotional journey that is wrought with turns and ups and downs. Bad Boy Brody is a page turner with tons of heart. You will love this book!!

Oh my! Bad Boy Brody is not what I expected at all! It's better.

For some reason the name just didn't seem to fit for me. The whole build up (for months), I couldn't seem to get behind the name. I loved the blurb. I needed to know "all the things" but the title kept putting me off. And then I read the book...

Bad Boy Brody is the newest in the line of celebrity scandal nicknames. Brody has had his share of heartache and perhaps his method of dealing needs some work. Now the Hollywood heartthrob is a one punch away from the punch line of a joke. This is the movie that will keep him from tanking his career if... and there's a long list that follows.

She is a secret. A mystery. An enigma.

They will never be. They can't. They won't. Or can they...

As is expected in a Tijan book, there are tears. There is some serious "Whaaaaaaa?!?" vibes going on too. Something not right. Some questionable people. And a whole lot of mustang.

Be surprised. Enjoy the ride.

Reviewed for Sweet Spot Sisterhood