Synopsis:
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with her bare hands. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent and she’s just been hired to protect a superstar actor from his stalker.
Jack Stapleton ‘s a Hollywood heartthrob – captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, rising out of the waves in clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity.
When Jack’s mom gets sick, he comes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah – against her will and her better judgment – finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover.
Hannah knows how to protect Jack. But protecting her own heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done…
Review:
The Bodyguard was my first book by Katherine Center and it most certainly won’t be my last. I absolutely loved this from start to finish. I don’t stay up late very often to finish a book but The Bodyguard had me hooked, I needed to see Hannah get her happy ending.
Hannah’s feelings towards Jack went from zero to a hundred in no time. One chapter she seemed somewhat indifferent to him other than the fact that she likes him as an actor and that he’s attractive. In the next chapter she wants to quit her job because she’s in love with him. Talk about whiplash. Obviously you know they’re going to fall in love, it’s the whole point of the book but the build up was not there at all. This is probably one of the only parts of The Bodyguard I didn’t like and that was purely because it came out of nowhere. The rest of it was wonderful.
Speaking of wonderful, Hannah was a genuinely likeable character. It’s often common for women to hate on each other in romance books, especially if they’re connected to the romantic interest in some way, but Hannah was just nice. When looking at Kennedy Monroe, the woman who is supposedly JAck’s girlfriend, you think she’s going to say something horrible about her. Instead she says, “She could have been built in a factory—and, okay, she probably was. I mean, sure, she was a poster child for cosmetic surgery … but it was good cosmetic surgery. I had to hand it to her. She was a work of art.”
She’s also hilarious “I guess there’s a reason moonshine’s mostly illegal. It was like drinking straight antifreeze. My throat burned like I’d swallowed acid, and, for a second, I wondered if I might die. To try to get some of the fumes out, I leaned over and hissed down at the ground like a cat.” Why is the image of a grown woman hissing at the ground like a cat absolutely hilarious? What makes it funnier is that she’s at a Thanksgiving dinner with Hollywood stars, her coworkers and Jack’s entire family.
This is a pretty long quote to include in a review but I love it when a man is pathetically in love. It doesn’t occur to you for most of this book that Jack is genuinely in love with Hannah but his declaration in chapter 28 says it all really. “When you’re not around, even for a little while, I feel like I have to go find you. I just feel this pull to be near you. I want to know what you’re thinking, and what you’re up to, and how you feel. I want to take you places and show you things. I want to memorize you—to learn you like a song. And that nightgown, and the way you get so cranky when I leave my stuff all over the place, and the way you tie your hair back in that crazy bun. You make me laugh every single day—and nobody makes me laugh. I feel like I’ve been lost all my life until now—and somehow with you I’m just … found.” I love that it’s the small things that made him fall in love, things that other people probably wouldn’t even notice about her. He doesn’t mention it here but the part about her humming a song when she’s happy being something he loves about her is so sweet. Ugh, I love a clean romance.
Ok, last quote I promise, but this one is beautiful, “You can’t make people love you. But you can give the love you long for out to the world. You can be the love you wish you had. That’s the way to be okay. Because giving love to other people is a way of giving it to yourself.” It’s a moment of excellent character development for Hannah and is something that I feel will genuinely help people.
I’d highly recommend The Bodyguard if you’re looking for a fun, entertaining and clean romance. It’s a fun take on the classic fake dating trope and the majority of the book is lighthearted.
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