Trigger Warning: Sexual Assualt
Rating: ★★★ +.5 | 353 pages | Contemporary | Avon | The Academy #2 | 1/30/2018
When 25-year-old Irish gold medalist markswoman Katie McCoy is invited to teach a workshop at the NYPD academy she sees it as an opportunity to finally let her hair down. She’s got a few items to check off on her to-do list while in America and none of them include falling for Jack Garrett, the charming New Yorker with rom-com hero good looks–especially when it turns out he is one of her students.
I liked this book a lot. For me, the story was much more enjoyable than the first one in the series. Jack and Katie’s love develops primarily over two weeks and Bailey makes it believable. Katie is an inexperienced virgin and Jack is something of a manwhore but it never felt cliched or like he was talking down to her because of her inexperience. I also think Bailey handled the instructor/student part of their relationship fairly well.
This book does take kind of a dark turn as we dig into why Jack drinks so much and why he’s never been able to connect with other women he’s dated.
While I do like this book I just do not get this fictional NYPD police academy. They seem to have no rules about anything. Even though I think Jack would make a better cop than the last hero, he is constantly drinking. Like at the Academy. Before he is about to handle a gun. And people seem to know about this but don’t talk about it…It just feels like something that should get you kicked out.
Also, at one point they have sex in the bathroom of a restaurant. A Mexican restaurant. Like, Katie makes a point of saying she puts her purse on the floor and like people are coming in and out and… I’m sorry but that is really disgusting to me.
I think Bailey’s writing works so well in audiobook format and I was disappointed to see this is the only book in this series that doesn’t have an audio version. I wonder if it’s because they’d have to find someone to do a good Irish accent?
Also, lol, love this photo from Bailey’s Insta of the cover model holding the book:
