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jackiehorne's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not really big into romance novels with major league sports guys as heroes, but O'Keefe's first book in the Crooked Ranch series, CAN'T BUY ME LOVE, was one of my favorite reads this past summer, and so I was pleased to receive an advanced copy from Netgalley. CRAZY THING started off strongly, with a second-chance storyline (my favorite romance trope!) and a potentially interesting take on contemporary masculinity, with a hero known for his aggressive hockey skills and persona suddenly confronted with a coach and a league newly concerned with player safety. The heroine's determination to carve out a life for herself so that she isn't just the wife of a famous athlete also made this seem like the book would be a perfect fit for my ROMANCE NOVELS FOR FEMINISTS blog.
Yet as I read past the first few chapters, I found myself less and less interested. Because we don't see much of why the heroine, Maddy, found her married life so painfully unsatisfying, we're just told that it was, Maddy comes across as a self-centered, uncaring person, making it difficult for readers to root for her. And the way she swings back and forth between having hot sex with Billy and then rejecting him for no real reason besides thinking he's going to hurt her again seems completely unmotivated, serving only as a way to keep the two separated for the sake of additional page length. The flashbacks to their initial romance show why the two loved each other, but one short scene of Billy taking Maddy (and not on purpose) to a strip club so he can hang with his new NHL teammates is not enough to demonstrate what the real problem was with this marriage.
Billy, for his part, has some serious anger management issues, but he never gets therapy, or even seems to recognize that his angry outbursts are the sign of a person with scary emotional problems. Bring on some cute/recalcitrant kids, and suddenly we're supposed to believe that Billy won't ever get angry again? Personally, I would have found it scary to be with such an easily angered person, and worried about the safety of those kids.
And P.S. Having crazy monkey sex in the room down the hall from where your 13-year-old niece is awake and reading is so not cool.
Wish the publisher hadn't been in such a rush to get three books out in such a short span of time. This one had a lot of potential, but would have benefited from another round of content-editing before it hits the stands.
Yet as I read past the first few chapters, I found myself less and less interested. Because we don't see much of why the heroine, Maddy, found her married life so painfully unsatisfying, we're just told that it was, Maddy comes across as a self-centered, uncaring person, making it difficult for readers to root for her. And the way she swings back and forth between having hot sex with Billy and then rejecting him for no real reason besides thinking he's going to hurt her again seems completely unmotivated, serving only as a way to keep the two separated for the sake of additional page length. The flashbacks to their initial romance show why the two loved each other, but one short scene of Billy taking Maddy (and not on purpose) to a strip club so he can hang with his new NHL teammates is not enough to demonstrate what the real problem was with this marriage.
Billy, for his part, has some serious anger management issues, but he never gets therapy, or even seems to recognize that his angry outbursts are the sign of a person with scary emotional problems. Bring on some cute/recalcitrant kids, and suddenly we're supposed to believe that Billy won't ever get angry again? Personally, I would have found it scary to be with such an easily angered person, and worried about the safety of those kids.
And P.S. Having crazy monkey sex in the room down the hall from where your 13-year-old niece is awake and reading is so not cool.
Wish the publisher hadn't been in such a rush to get three books out in such a short span of time. This one had a lot of potential, but would have benefited from another round of content-editing before it hits the stands.
jbarr5's review against another edition
4.0
Crazy Thing Called Love by Molly O'Keefe
Book first starts out with Maddy Baumgarten and Billy 14 years prior to the present day where she's walked away from him for the last time...
Present day: Billy Wilkins has just been benched at the end of the hockey season for the team he plays for in Dallas, TX.
She works as a reporter and hopes to move up to The Today Show and needs more big stories. The crew come up with one and she hates it: having a Billy total makeover.
What have they gotten themselves into as they spend some time together to work it all out. He knows what he did wrong in the past and she doesn't want a repeat of it.
Passionate love scenes help to tell the tale of their relationship and his hockey career along with her TV career. Brutal and honest at times...
She has no idea of what he's made of himself..The book returns to their past lifes' several times so you can understand what had happened to bring about such a response in the present day.
Very few characters in this book it's very easy to keep track of who is who.
On one TV appearance they spring a surprise on him and her, the one doing the show. There are many ramifications and the fallout is huge to all their lives...
Book first starts out with Maddy Baumgarten and Billy 14 years prior to the present day where she's walked away from him for the last time...
Present day: Billy Wilkins has just been benched at the end of the hockey season for the team he plays for in Dallas, TX.
She works as a reporter and hopes to move up to The Today Show and needs more big stories. The crew come up with one and she hates it: having a Billy total makeover.
What have they gotten themselves into as they spend some time together to work it all out. He knows what he did wrong in the past and she doesn't want a repeat of it.
Passionate love scenes help to tell the tale of their relationship and his hockey career along with her TV career. Brutal and honest at times...
She has no idea of what he's made of himself..The book returns to their past lifes' several times so you can understand what had happened to bring about such a response in the present day.
Very few characters in this book it's very easy to keep track of who is who.
On one TV appearance they spring a surprise on him and her, the one doing the show. There are many ramifications and the fallout is huge to all their lives...
bookloverchelle's review against another edition
4.0
I’ve been eager to try a Molly O’Keefe title for a while so I was excited I was able to get my hands on Crazy Thing Called Love. Even though this is book three in the Crooked Creek Ranch series I had no problem enjoying this as a single title. Almost fifteen years ago talk show host Maddy had married, and divorced, her high school sweetheart and professional hockey player, Billy. With the hockey season wrapped up Billy’s trying to rework his image and has found the perfect platform on Maddy’s TV show. She’s not quite ready to let the man who broke her heart back in to her life but has to for the good of her show. But when a taping goes south quick, these two have more than just their reunion to worry about. I loved the dynamics between these two, they had so much history and I liked how Ms. O’Keefe revealed that back story throughout the novel. I’m usually pretty notorious for jumping ahead but I loved the flow of the story so much that I enjoyed keeping pace with the story. Apparently being hockey-centric is actually an anomaly for this series so I’m interested to read the first two books in the series for where we started. Fun read!
jendoyleink's review against another edition
5.0
I haven't had much time for reviews lately, but in this case I just had to say something. I specifically had to say something because the cover doesn't do this book justice. First of all, the hero of the book has a very distinctive facial scar that speaks so much to who he is and the relationship between the H/h that it feels like a travesty to have that completely skipped over (not to mention the various other scars as a hockey player, which the cover also glosses over entirely [and literally]).
And, honestly, as anyone who follows my Goodreads feed knows, I do not generally have any issue with covers like this. But they do indicate a certain frothiness (again, which I wholeheartedly support)--and this book, heck, Molly O'Keefe, is ANYTHING BUT frothy. The characters are complex and, yes, there is a poignancy to it that runs so deep those words don't even begin to convey it. But, as with everything she writes, there is such an incredible resolution to it that you find yourself laughing and crying at the end.
So. Good.
And, honestly, as anyone who follows my Goodreads feed knows, I do not generally have any issue with covers like this. But they do indicate a certain frothiness (again, which I wholeheartedly support)--and this book, heck, Molly O'Keefe, is ANYTHING BUT frothy. The characters are complex and, yes, there is a poignancy to it that runs so deep those words don't even begin to convey it. But, as with everything she writes, there is such an incredible resolution to it that you find yourself laughing and crying at the end.
scoutmomskf's review against another edition
4.0
Good reunion story. It begins fourteen years in the past, as Maddy and Billy's marriage falls apart and then moves to the present with a few other flashbacks to fill in their backstory.
Maddy is host of a morning TV show, with a reputation of being cool and unflappable. She's worked hard to overcome her past, and shows only her best to the outside world. Her work is her life and everything is going great until one of her producers comes up with a makeover idea for her show.
Billy has continued his hockey career and has gained quite a reputation for his wild behavior. He finally takes it a bit to far and is told by team management that he has to make some changes or he'll find himself off the team. His agent comes up with the idea of a makeover. Billy wants nothing to do with it, until he finds out he'll be on Maddy's show. That's enough to change his mind. Billy has never forgotten Maddy or his love for her. He's grown up some over the last few years and realizes that he made a lot of mistakes during his marriage. He wants a chance to apologize and see if there is anything left between them.
Maddy isn't at all happy with the project. She wants Billy kept firmly in her past. She doesn't want to talk about the past with him, and she definitely doesn't want to get sucked into the drama of his life. She remembers what it was like and still has the emotional scars. She keeps her emotions under very tight control at first because of it. She's very cold toward him, but it's an attempt to hide the attraction she can't deny she still feels for him.
I didn't like Maddy much at the beginning. She was so cold and pretty nasty to Billy that I wondered if there was any chance for them. Even when she admitted that the attraction was still there, she just wanted to use him for sex and not let her emotions get involved. The way she treated him was just terrible. I know she was just trying to protect herself, but it still made me mad. I was happy to see her start to lose some of those walls around her heart in the face of Billy's persistence.
I liked Billy a lot more. He started out as the bad boy of his hockey team, in trouble for his fighting. At the same time, he is starting to see the emptiness of his life and feel the regrets for the things he'd done in the past, especially what happened with Maddy. When he's offered the chance to go on her show, he grabs it. I really liked the way he tried so hard to get Maddy to see how sorry he was for the way he had treated her. He is determined to turn over a new leaf, and become more like the man he thinks she wants.
I loved seeing the makeover process. Though it was hard for him to do it, I loved the way that Billy opened up on the show about some of his past and its influence on the man he is. It was funny and heartbreaking to see the reactions of people to the idea of his makeover. The part with the clothes was pretty amusing.
The building of the new relationship between Billy and Maddy was not an easy one. Billy had to overcome the problems of the past and show Maddy that he really had changed. It wasn't easy for him because he wasn't used to sharing his real feelings. Maddy had to find a way to believe that she could be with him without losing herself the way she had when she was younger. She also had to see that he really had changed. That began to happen the night of the charity function. I loved seeing how hard he was trying to behave, and felt for him as he had to make that speech. Maddy was surprised to see him there, and it was fun to see her try to fight the way he made her feel. I loved the way that his reason for being there had her looking at him differently and beginning to see that he had changed.
When things blew up on the show with the arrival of the two kids, both Maddy and Billy had to deal with a lot of turmoil. I loved the way that Maddy was there to support him and help him through it. I loved seeing that caring side of Billy. This brought the two of them closer together. I loved seeing how each of them handled the kids and what it said about who they were. I loved seeing Billy step up and be something he never expected. And Maddy learned some things about herself that made it possible for her to believe in a future for her and Billy.
I loved the final makeover show and the surprise twist that it took. It was exciting and heartwarming. I also liked the epilogue, which had its own fun bit to it. I liked seeing how everyone was doing a couple years later.
The secondary characters were terrific. I liked Maddy's coworker Ruth and her part in the various makeover details. I enjoyed seeing the changes in her and in the relationship between her and Maddy. I also loved Billy's niece Becky. The things she went through and her wariness were heartbreaking to see. I loved seeing her learn to trust Billy.
Maddy is host of a morning TV show, with a reputation of being cool and unflappable. She's worked hard to overcome her past, and shows only her best to the outside world. Her work is her life and everything is going great until one of her producers comes up with a makeover idea for her show.
Billy has continued his hockey career and has gained quite a reputation for his wild behavior. He finally takes it a bit to far and is told by team management that he has to make some changes or he'll find himself off the team. His agent comes up with the idea of a makeover. Billy wants nothing to do with it, until he finds out he'll be on Maddy's show. That's enough to change his mind. Billy has never forgotten Maddy or his love for her. He's grown up some over the last few years and realizes that he made a lot of mistakes during his marriage. He wants a chance to apologize and see if there is anything left between them.
Maddy isn't at all happy with the project. She wants Billy kept firmly in her past. She doesn't want to talk about the past with him, and she definitely doesn't want to get sucked into the drama of his life. She remembers what it was like and still has the emotional scars. She keeps her emotions under very tight control at first because of it. She's very cold toward him, but it's an attempt to hide the attraction she can't deny she still feels for him.
I didn't like Maddy much at the beginning. She was so cold and pretty nasty to Billy that I wondered if there was any chance for them. Even when she admitted that the attraction was still there, she just wanted to use him for sex and not let her emotions get involved. The way she treated him was just terrible. I know she was just trying to protect herself, but it still made me mad. I was happy to see her start to lose some of those walls around her heart in the face of Billy's persistence.
I liked Billy a lot more. He started out as the bad boy of his hockey team, in trouble for his fighting. At the same time, he is starting to see the emptiness of his life and feel the regrets for the things he'd done in the past, especially what happened with Maddy. When he's offered the chance to go on her show, he grabs it. I really liked the way he tried so hard to get Maddy to see how sorry he was for the way he had treated her. He is determined to turn over a new leaf, and become more like the man he thinks she wants.
I loved seeing the makeover process. Though it was hard for him to do it, I loved the way that Billy opened up on the show about some of his past and its influence on the man he is. It was funny and heartbreaking to see the reactions of people to the idea of his makeover. The part with the clothes was pretty amusing.
The building of the new relationship between Billy and Maddy was not an easy one. Billy had to overcome the problems of the past and show Maddy that he really had changed. It wasn't easy for him because he wasn't used to sharing his real feelings. Maddy had to find a way to believe that she could be with him without losing herself the way she had when she was younger. She also had to see that he really had changed. That began to happen the night of the charity function. I loved seeing how hard he was trying to behave, and felt for him as he had to make that speech. Maddy was surprised to see him there, and it was fun to see her try to fight the way he made her feel. I loved the way that his reason for being there had her looking at him differently and beginning to see that he had changed.
When things blew up on the show with the arrival of the two kids, both Maddy and Billy had to deal with a lot of turmoil. I loved the way that Maddy was there to support him and help him through it. I loved seeing that caring side of Billy. This brought the two of them closer together. I loved seeing how each of them handled the kids and what it said about who they were. I loved seeing Billy step up and be something he never expected. And Maddy learned some things about herself that made it possible for her to believe in a future for her and Billy.
I loved the final makeover show and the surprise twist that it took. It was exciting and heartwarming. I also liked the epilogue, which had its own fun bit to it. I liked seeing how everyone was doing a couple years later.
The secondary characters were terrific. I liked Maddy's coworker Ruth and her part in the various makeover details. I enjoyed seeing the changes in her and in the relationship between her and Maddy. I also loved Billy's niece Becky. The things she went through and her wariness were heartbreaking to see. I loved seeing her learn to trust Billy.
shannon_cocktailsandbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Loved this one. Look for review on Night Owl Reviews.
kbranfield's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars. Out of all the novels in the Crooked Creek Ranch series, Crazy Thing Called Love is my favorite. I was intrigued by Billy since he was first introduced and it was well worth the wait for his story. It is an wild ride that is full of emotion, passion and heartache, but the growth of both Billy and Maddy personally and as a couple makes it a satisfying journey. Be prepared for laughter and tears as this dynamic couple find that love is even sweeter the second time around. Please click HERE to read my review in its entirety.
michellesantiago's review against another edition
4.0
I really liked it. I'm a sucker for second-chance romance and this book delivered.
I enjoyed the flashbacks to Maddy and Billy's past--it made Maddy more sympathetic and I understood why she was what she was in the present. Without those flashbacks, I would've not liked her at all.
My favorite scene was with Billy and his niece towards the end.
I enjoyed the flashbacks to Maddy and Billy's past--it made Maddy more sympathetic and I understood why she was what she was in the present. Without those flashbacks, I would've not liked her at all.
My favorite scene was with Billy and his niece towards the end
Spoiler
when he told her they were family and wants her to stay with himwitandsin's review against another edition
3.0
My review cross-posted from Wit and Sin: http://witandsin.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-crazy-thing-called-love-by-molly.html
Madelyn Cornish has worked hard to get where she is: the host of a popular Dallas morning TV show. More importantly, she’s worked even harder to forget who she was and where she came from. But the past comes back to haunt her in the form of her ex-husband, hockey star Billy Wilkins. Billy’s the focus of her show’s on-air makeover project and it’ll take all of Madelyn’s formidable self control to resist her attraction to her bad boy ex. It’s not an easy feat, particularly since Billy seems determined to win her back…
I freely admit that I picked up Crazy Thing Called Love because of the hockey element and the reunion storyline — I’m a sucker for both. But this Crooked Creek novel is sure to delight fans of contemporary romance, whether or not you have any interest in sports.
I absolutely love a good hockey hero and Molly O’Keefe delivers a winner with bad tempered enforcer Billy Wilkins. He’s genuinely rough around the edges, but there’s a wealth of caring within him that makes him an endearing hero. It was wonderful to watch him grow and change over the course of Crazy Thing Called Love. Maddy, in turn, was a bit harder to like. I understand her ambition and wanting to put her history with Billy behind her, but she went a bit too far for me in the beginning. However, by the end of the story Maddy had won me over and I was delighted to see her find happiness with the only man she’s ever loved. Ms. O’Keefe did a masterful job with character development, something I love in a story.
Crazy Thing Called Love was a bit of a slow starter for me. However, when everything in Billy’s life comes crashing down around him, Crazy Thing Called Love starts to roll and I did not want to put it down. Billy becomes guardian to two troubled children who are sure to capture your heart. Ms. O’Keefe adds a sobering dose of reality with Billy’s niece Becky, a thirteen-year-old who’s had to deal with much more in her life than any child should. The plotline involving Billy learning how to be a parent was almost more captivating than his romance with Maddy.
Crazy Thing Called Love is the third Crooked Creek novel, but you don’t have to have read Can’t Buy Me Love or Can’t Hurry Love in order to follow along. However, after finishing Crazy Thing Called Love I’ll definitely be picking up the first two books in the series. With just one book, Ms. O’Keefe has me hooked!
Madelyn Cornish has worked hard to get where she is: the host of a popular Dallas morning TV show. More importantly, she’s worked even harder to forget who she was and where she came from. But the past comes back to haunt her in the form of her ex-husband, hockey star Billy Wilkins. Billy’s the focus of her show’s on-air makeover project and it’ll take all of Madelyn’s formidable self control to resist her attraction to her bad boy ex. It’s not an easy feat, particularly since Billy seems determined to win her back…
I freely admit that I picked up Crazy Thing Called Love because of the hockey element and the reunion storyline — I’m a sucker for both. But this Crooked Creek novel is sure to delight fans of contemporary romance, whether or not you have any interest in sports.
I absolutely love a good hockey hero and Molly O’Keefe delivers a winner with bad tempered enforcer Billy Wilkins. He’s genuinely rough around the edges, but there’s a wealth of caring within him that makes him an endearing hero. It was wonderful to watch him grow and change over the course of Crazy Thing Called Love. Maddy, in turn, was a bit harder to like. I understand her ambition and wanting to put her history with Billy behind her, but she went a bit too far for me in the beginning. However, by the end of the story Maddy had won me over and I was delighted to see her find happiness with the only man she’s ever loved. Ms. O’Keefe did a masterful job with character development, something I love in a story.
Crazy Thing Called Love was a bit of a slow starter for me. However, when everything in Billy’s life comes crashing down around him, Crazy Thing Called Love starts to roll and I did not want to put it down. Billy becomes guardian to two troubled children who are sure to capture your heart. Ms. O’Keefe adds a sobering dose of reality with Billy’s niece Becky, a thirteen-year-old who’s had to deal with much more in her life than any child should. The plotline involving Billy learning how to be a parent was almost more captivating than his romance with Maddy.
Crazy Thing Called Love is the third Crooked Creek novel, but you don’t have to have read Can’t Buy Me Love or Can’t Hurry Love in order to follow along. However, after finishing Crazy Thing Called Love I’ll definitely be picking up the first two books in the series. With just one book, Ms. O’Keefe has me hooked!
drey72's review against another edition
4.0
There’s really only two things you need to know about Crazy Thing Called Love: Pick this up if you love a good contemporary romance. And grab a box of tissues before you sit down. You’ll need it. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Once upon a time, a boy barely holding his life together met a girl stronger than she looks. They became best friends, grew up, fell in love, and got married. Then dreams (his) got in the way of a good thing, and they broke up.
Fourteen years later, the man the boy’d grown into shows up on the television show the girl-turned-woman anchors. And we get a story filled with enough emotion to sink the Titanic all over again. (See, I told you you’d need tissues…)
There’s plenty of heartbreak in this story of love found and lost, plenty of angst, and plenty of redemption and forgiveness. Molly O’Keefe gives Billy the gift of hindsight, Maddy the gift of courage, and readers the gift of a well-told story — complete with hurdles and obstacles over and beyond the emotional angst that comes with any second chance.
Definitely a pick-up for romance fans. You can thank me later.
drey’s rating: Excellent!
Once upon a time, a boy barely holding his life together met a girl stronger than she looks. They became best friends, grew up, fell in love, and got married. Then dreams (his) got in the way of a good thing, and they broke up.
Fourteen years later, the man the boy’d grown into shows up on the television show the girl-turned-woman anchors. And we get a story filled with enough emotion to sink the Titanic all over again. (See, I told you you’d need tissues…)
There’s plenty of heartbreak in this story of love found and lost, plenty of angst, and plenty of redemption and forgiveness. Molly O’Keefe gives Billy the gift of hindsight, Maddy the gift of courage, and readers the gift of a well-told story — complete with hurdles and obstacles over and beyond the emotional angst that comes with any second chance.
Definitely a pick-up for romance fans. You can thank me later.
drey’s rating: Excellent!