Bad Boys Do by Victoria Dahl

Grade: A-

passion rating: hot

Bad Boys Do, the second in Ms. Dahl’s exceedingly enjoyable Donovan Brothers Brewery series, is fabulous.  It’s sexy, sweet, funny, moving, and well-paced; it was a pleasure to read.

The heroine, Olivia Bishop, has a tolerable life. She’s 35, been divorced for a year, and is teaching community outreach courses at the local college. She’s well-shot of her husband and their marriage—he’s a pompous controlling professor who cheated on Olivia with his teaching assistant—but she’s lonely. Her friend Gwen talks her into coming to Gwen’s bookclub one night which is held monthly at Donovan Brother’s Brewery. Olivia, who comes planning to discuss the book, is startled to realize the other women there aren’t interested in literature; they’re there to ogle the hot 29 year old bartender and brewery owner, Jamie Donovan.

Jamie is a bona fide hottie. Nights he wears his kilt to the Brewery---his sister Tessa, the heroine of the first book in the series, Tweets his clothing status to his many female fans--, women flock there to gaze lustfully at him and dream of a night in his bed. Jamie doesn’t take women home, however. He hasn’t wanted a woman in over a year. Jamie is tired of a meaningless life—he wants to be more than the playboy bartender he’s been since college. He dreams of adding a restaurant to the brewery, taking on more responsibility, and proving to his siblings, especially his critical older brother Eric, that he, Jamey, is a peer not a problem.

Jamie and Olivia both notice each other the night of the book club, and both are surprised when Olivia turns out to be the instructor in a class Jamie is taking. The minute the first class ends, Jamie walks up to Olivia’s desk and asks her out. She says no, shocked at the idea of dating both a student and—to her—a much younger man. However, later in the week, when she’s is invited to a faculty party where she knows her ex-husband and his girl-friend will be, Olivia decides Jamie would be the perfect date to show her ex how well she’s doing without him and she asks Jamie out.

Thus begins a lovely relationship. Both Jamie and Olivia doubt themselves. Olivia worries she’s dull—her ex told her she just wasn’t fun—and Jamie has family issues that stem from his parents’ death when he was a teen. Olivia thinks Jamie can help her loosen up and learn how to enjoy life; Jamie needs Olivia to help him make his plans for Donovan Brewery a success. It’s wonderful to watch both Olivia and Jamie get just what they need from each other.

Jamie most certainly helps Olivia loosen up. She’s not a virgin, but she’s only ever slept with her ex-husband, and her sense of herself sexually is fairly repressed. Jamie—one of the sexiest men I’ve ever encountered in a book—introduces Olivia to passion beyond anything she could have imagined. There is a scene in this book, when the two are newly lovers, which is incendiary. In it, Olivia lies on her stomach staring at the mirror hung aside her bed. As she watches Jamie make love to her, as she watches him watching himself slide in and out of her, she’s overcome with emotional and physical sensation. It’s brilliantly written—it sets a standard for sensual, blunt prose romance writers should aspire to.

Olivia gives Jamie the confidence to see himself as a grown-up with skills that go beyond the looks and charm he’s famed for. Jamie has never had a serious girlfriend before and, with Olivia, he learns how to share himself in a way he’d never considered viable for him. He takes his newly learned interpersonal skills and uses them to improve his complex relationships with Eric and Tessa. He also begins to forgive himself for the sins of his past and, as he takes each step, Olivia is there beside him. Together, they forge an adult relationship, one that has passion and power.

The book’s only weakness is the obligatory conflict that, briefly, pushes the two apart. But even that is better done than the vast majority of BIG MISUNDERSTANDINGS which drive the plots of most romances.

I liked Good Girls Don't a lot. I loved Bad Boys Do. I suspect most readers of contemporary romance will too. It’s a great book.