Accidental Hero by Nicole Snow

​CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

Publication date: 05/06/2018
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Cliffhanger: No

I didn’t get what I was expecting with this one. Judging by the blurb, I thought I was getting a cute, lightly angsty fake boyfriend romance. I love fake boyfriend romance. Thought there might be some comedy involved. What I got instead was a fake boyfriend, biker, former military, single-dad, artist, alphahole sexfest-that-turns-to-instalove where all the problems that occur could’ve been avoided through adult conversation. (But on the other hand, I’m glad the hero wasn’t also a Navy Seal rockstar, because THAT would’ve been over-the-top cliche instead of just annoyingly cliche like this hero was.)

Here’s what went wrong for me:

Alphahole alert
Brent is a rude asshole for more than half the book. He pretty much treats the heroine like crap, drags her into a fake relationship, then lies to her about his reasons for dragging her into a fake relationship, never letting her know that she’s in danger just for associating with him. And he totally blows off her concerns about losing her job for fraternizing with a parent by calling her dream job “just a teaching job”. His implication that her job isn’t important and she should just do what he wanted her to do made me want to nut-punch him. (The fact that he’s trying to protect her from his family mess by being a supremely bossy a-hole doesn’t make me want to nut-punch him any less.)  

Another virgin. Sigh.
Yep. Izzy is a virgin. It wasn’t a big deal in the story, so I didn’t see the point of it. Are we to assume that if she’d had more sexual experience she wouldn’t be worthy of her HEA with Brent? (Brent, who admittedly had TONS of sex with motorcycle club groupies, by the way.)
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Bullshit meter
There were quite a few times when my bullshit meter was tripped while reading this story:

1. I find it hard to believe that the school would fold so easily on their policies based on one rude father’s threats. Brent didn’t have any real power over them. I don’t think any school principal would have cowered like the one in this story did just because Brent threw around some threats about taking his daughter out of the school.  
2. Izzy is barely 23 and has her master’s degree. Something seems a little off about that.
3. Izzy has, like, 3 orgasms the first time she has sex and isn’t at all sore the next day. Yeah...that doesn’t happen, no matter how much of a magic dick the hero has. (And don’t even get me started on the fact that she “felt something tear” then all the pain and discomfort went away, replaced by pleasure. Again...no. It doesn’t happen like that.)
4. In the course of this story, Izzy transforms from virgin pre-school art teacher to gun-toting badass. The transition is less than believable and happens SUPER quick.
5. Izzy isn’t at all mad when she finds out that Brent has been hiding crap from her that put her life in danger. Either she’s an idiot, or a doormat. I’m not sure which option I find more offensive.    

A stuffed book
This is yet another example of a stuffed book where the expected content ends at about 40% of the story, and the rest of the content is extraneous crap I didn’t ask for. I HATE it when that happens.    

At the end of the day, I give this one 2 stars. 1 star for Natalie, Brent’s daughter, who was adorable, and 1 star for the fact that it wasn’t so poorly written I wasn’t able to finish it. (I’ve had WAY too many DNFs lately, so I don’t take the fact that I was able to finish reading this lightly) But that’s about all the positives I can muster on this one.

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
It contributes mightily.  

Other reading suggestions
For alpha males who aren’t alphaholes, the queen is Kristen Ashley. My favorite KA read is Breathe. Devney Perry is also a great writer of alpha males. My favorite read of hers is The Clover Chapel.

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