Review: Crazy Thing Called Love – Molly O’Keefe

Dallas TV morning show host Madelyn Cornish is poised, perfect, and unflappable, from her glossy smile to her sleek professionalism. No one knows that her iron will guards a shattered heart and memories of a man she’s determined to lock out. Until that man shows up at a morning meeting like a bad dream: Billy Wilkins, sexy hockey superstar in a tailspin—still skating, still fighting, and still her ex-husband.
Now the producers want this poster child for bad behavior to undergo an on-air makeover, and Billy, who has nothing to lose, agrees to the project. It’s his only chance to get near Maddy again, and to fight for the right things this time around. He believes in the fire in Maddy’s whiskey eyes and the passion that ignites the air between them. This bad-boy heartbreaker wants a last shot to be redeemed by the only thing that matters: Maddy’s love.

Series:  Crooked Creek Ranch #3
Release Date:  January 29, 2012
Publisher:  Bantam
Source:   Edelweiss
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

The hockey lockout is in day number….I don’t know what, so a good hockey romance is in order and if he had a total bad boy in it, the better.  But this hockey bad boy had a soft squishy center and it made him absolutely irresistible.

Billy Wilkins has a reputation as a fighter, but when you’re playing for a coach that is trying to rid hockey of the one thing Billy’s known for, bad things happen.  At least for Billy bad things:  no play time and the treat that he might not be playing next year.  The only bright spot in his life, the fact that his ex-wife, the woman he still loves, is working in Dallas as a morning show anchor.  She may have changed her name and lost the curves that he loved, but she’s still his Maddy and he’s determined to do whatever needs to be done to get her back…including going through with a complete make over on her show.

I LOVED how Billy was willing to put himself through a variety of embarrassing situations in order to get Maddy to pay attention to him.  He knew he screwed up when they were married and he was determined to get back the best friend and love of his life.   No matter how many times Maddy said “no” he kept pushing because he knew that she was hiding behind her fear of what happened in the past.  He counted on her to be his support, especially when his family drama became front and center in his life, knowing that no matter what she would be there.  Billy was my favorite kind of hero.  He may be a bad ass fighter on the ice, but the man was soft and squishy on the inside.

There were times when I really liked Maddy and times where she irritated me.  I could understand how she wasn’t willing to let someone consume her the way she had been with Billy when she was eighteen.  But she also wasn’t giving either of them enough credit to see that they could learn from those mistakes and not go down that road again.  She hide behind an emotional barrier she was determined would keep her safe, but all it did was create a sterile environment for Maddy and make her lose focus on what’s really important.

This was an absolute joy to read.  I loved Billy when he was introduced in Luke and Tara Jean’s story and what Molly O’Keefe crafted for him was absolutely wonderful.  Definitely a book worth picking up.