Unlikely Date: A Small Town, Grumpy Hero Romance (The Brothers of Calloway Creek: The Calloways)

This author has always injected that extra zest of optimism where, yet again, one of her characters (it's usually the lead female) has or suffers from tragically visible scars. I think it's handled with impressive tact and discretion, and satisfactorily gets across powerful themes and lessons against bullying, judging someone on disfigurement or disability rather than their strengths, personality, and other assets or merit. Maddie's initial scarring must have been considerable and seriously extensive to have resulted in such an awkward quilted pattern.My problem with Maddie and Tag's romance is my skepticism. While I was thrilled on her behalf that Tag found himself powerfully enchanted with her after he realized from the start he was strongly drawn to her sexually as well as admired, respected, and liked her, too, something he NEVER experienced before with women, I think it was so improbable, inconceivable, nearly impossible, that our disgustingly disrespectful, gorgeous, physically perfect, abrasive yet discerning man-whore would fall for sweet, shy, pure, and kind, her. Please - yes, Maddie was beautiful, and apparently, aside from her scars, she had a rocking body, legs, face and hair along with a five year old daughter. However, in keeping with the themes and general plotline of these romances, both characters had to be almost otherworldly gorgeous, so we're going with she's a rocking superhero with distracting, very noticeable scars, which makes our FMC imperfectly gorgeous. Sigh. Whatever. I did enjoy Tag, his nipple piercings, muscles and other huge assets **slight throat clearing** a lot (though the cigs were gross), but Maddie? Just. Eww. She really was a hover-mom who bordered on manic neurosis over all things Gigi (I truly questioned Maddie's thought process here; she's a mom who never thought ahead about teasing, self-consciousness. My grandma liked to be called Gigi, which she coined from the two "G's" in "Great-Grandma"). Her behavior around/about Gigi was silly and overly high strung, which led to overreacting. Often. Yeah - she wasn't a truly likeable person despite being kind and goodhearted. When Gigi went after a PUPPY instead of standing with Tag in Home Depot, Maddie, driven by panic and hysteria, jumped all over Tag, who had treated her with nothing but positive good deeds, genuine affection and interest, and respect, with her yelling, bordering on shrieking at him nothing but insults and accusations of negligence. I could picture her, spittle flying, her mouth twisting and ugly, all without giving him a chance to get a word of explanation out. In fact, Maddie never even asked HOW Gigi disappeared. She chose enraged hysterics, shrieked at him to shut up without acknowledging that her five-year-old really needed to be taught self discipline, and how running away/leaving mom or other adult-in-charge in a HUGE store wasn't safe. I literally had a massively panicked flashback of enraged big people roaring, screaming, barking at me, their spit flying down on my head, face, eyes. **Shudder** Gigi ran and darted everywhere, and no one stopped her. Hello! All moms and dads scold their children for running and moving away from their side in a public place. Even after considering Maddie isn't very old at mid-twenties, she must have remembered her childhood? School? Possessed some logic or common sense? I guess her child made her blind to everything else. I hated so much that the two scenes where Maddie goes nuts about Gigi instantly brought horrific flashes of anger in various abusive scenes back to me. I maintain that, regardless of her own trauma, Maddie should've had better perspective and reactions in dealing with accidents or incidents involving Gigi. All the adults in that child's life knew her very undisciplined, uncorrected, unaddressed and unacceptable habit of doing things without thinking. She's so busy worrying, hovering, protecting Gigi that she can't see how Gigi needed to learn how to help herself, too. Independence scared Maddie.I'm also not digging these names! Could the women (and little girl) get stuck with more mundane, common names? The guys mostly had decent names - Cooper, Jaxon, Quinn, Tag (did we learn if it was short for anything else?); but Ava, Regan, Maddie, Amber, and Gigi? Except for the last one, all the others are either featured or appear once in every two published stories. Four stars.

This was a wonderful story to drive home the point that people are not perfect. Lives are messy and adults have as much to learn as kids.Maddie and her daughter are trapped inside their small world because of the fears Maddie has after a tragic accident.When the small town playboy sets his sights on winning her over, their worlds collide causing the adults to come to terms with their fears.I will be starting the next book in this series ASAP.

Excellent read! Maybe not in public though due to all the feels, unless you are with more than a few tears.

Pretty much predictable, but still enjoyable and a little better than average. Not quite a strong 4-star read, but 3 stars would be unfair IMO. Nice ending made up for some of the shortcomings.

I couldn't put this down a real page turner. I loved Maggie and her strength and courage. I always like a good bad boy who get an awakening too. A feel good romance with some laughs thrown in too ....perfect. Enjoy!

I liked the courage portrayed in the burned victim or main character Maddie. I liked her hunky crush as well. I could have happily done without all the curse words. They distracted from the events of the story. The obsessive behaviorMaddie displayed illustrated her nightmare past of injury and pain; but finally she learned that her scars were her badges of courage. I was glad that she finally got her fairy tale happy ending.

This is my first book by Ms. Christy and what a great way to be introduced to her writing. This story is multi-layered thanks to the small town it takes place in, the different socio-economic lives our H/h live in and the fact that Maddie is a single mom to a beautiful little girl named Gigi.Tag and Maddie have known each other over the years thanks to them both living in Calloway Creek. But Maddie lives a life that involves running her family’s flower shop as well as raising Gigi on her own thanks to a devastating event that destroyed the life she had giving her a new set of circumstances to her life. Tag is a man that’s never wanted for anything, women or money and he’s got this gruff exterior that really had me clenching my jaw because he’s just such an a$$hole!The night that changed his and Maddie’s life though wasn’t expected by either of them… it was somewhat comical but on the other hand, I felt for Maddie. Things happen and there are definitely some hard feelings between these two that just exacerbated how Maddie feels about Tag and his dislike of children makes him a non-event in her life… Gigi is her everything! And this little girl manages to squeeze her way into this man’s heart which changes everything for him and them.This story is a beautiful story of love and forgiveness, overcoming insurmountable obstacles but is also filled with chemistry that’s palpable as well as our Hero change how he lives his life with every page I turned. The only downside for me is that I felt I’ve missed something with Tag’s family as there’s a definite history there and I’m hoping in future books I’ll get some of my answers. I’m so glad I took the chance on this book and this author and I’m so looking forward to reading more of her words!

Fun read with nice male character and almost nice female. I understand why she was this way but got a bit boring her almost neurotic behaviour. The kid had great personality so the brothers and all the secondary characters. I will check the next release, both of Tag's brothers have their issues and promising stories to find their other half. Enjoy reading this novel, i did!

I have mixed feelings for this one. It started really well. Tag is an arrogant SOB who treats women like objects, he's also funny and irresistible and I couldn't help liking him. I found it refreshing that he wasn't the usual perfect hero - he was a smoker for a start - Maddie even comments on his smoker's breath. Maddie I liked as well, she is smart and witty and neatly puts him in his place. I flew through the first half. But around about half way things start to change pretty drastically. They both lose their mojo. He's a lovelorn puppy dog and she's one big neurosis. Maddie rallies a bit but Tag never recovers and by the end of the book it's not so much character growth but more of a character transplant. I didn't recognise him. Overall I did enjoy it and it's quite well written. There's a bit of a cheesy ending but it's a romance so that happens. And I've said it before and will say it again, why have so many heroines got a gay guy as a best friend, it's such a cliché now.

I’ve read all of Christy’s books and with every single one I’ve fell in love with her enigmatic characters that grab your heart from the moment you start reading. You don’t necessarily have to read the books prior to this one… but as every one of Christy’s series are cleverly linked, I’d definitely recommend you read them from the beginning. The story just builds to beautifully with each tale.And this book is no exception to that. There are references to the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast throughout and this story plays with that theme a lot. However, it’s not a clear cut because both Tag and Maddie see themselves as the Beast and the other as the beauty.Maddie Foster is a social outcast of her own making. She’s not unpopular or disliked, in fact everyone who knows her loves her deeply, but the problem is that she rarely lets anyone get close to her because then they’d want to know more about her and ‘the incident’. She is also fearful of letting her young daughter out of her sight, and she struggles to trust beyond her Gran and her gay firefighter best friend, Patrick.The thought of anyone seeing more of her than she dares to show is frightening to her but she also knows she can’t go on living in fear of rejection. She’s not been with a man since she had her daughter and no one has seen her naked since before she got her scars. In order to break the cycle she agrees for her friends to set her up on an online hook-up dating site. But her plans are foiled when her mystery one-night hook-up turns out to be the one person she would never have considered wanting to be up close and personal with.Tag Calloway is Calloway Creek’s playboy. His life has been one of serial hook-ups and one-night-stands. Commitment isn’t something he’s ever thought about, in fact it practically has him coming out in a rash at the thought. That is until his one-night hook-up from the After Dark dating site turns up and as much as he knows about her past and what happened, she is an enigma.Now, it is true to say that they don’t get off to a great start but when the fates seem to be at play to push these two together their unlikely union throws them both into unknown territory. For the first time Maddie let’s her barriers down a little, and Tag realises that there is more to this relationship than just getting into Maddie’s pants.The very unlikely pairing continue to get to know each other and whilst Maddie is everything Tag thought he never wanted, the more he pushes her to break free of her fears around how others see her. His reward is seeing Maddie grow and blossom.For Maddie, Tag shouldn’t be the one for her. He’s arrogant, overconfident and flashy to everyone else around him - but she’s the only one besides his own family and his best friend Amber that she him for what and who he really is. Maddie brings out Tag’s caring, kind and generous side and along with it, she starts to trust him.But can she trust him with the two things that are her deal breaker? Her daughter and her heart.This is a beautifully written modern fairy tale complete with a Prince, a Princess and a few fairy godmother’s/father’s to point them in the right direction when they fail to realise what they would be losing if they let fear win.A great read, and I can’t wait to start Jaxon’s story. I’m hoping to hear more about Maddie and Tag throughout that too because I need to know that they find their happy ending.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, and as it’s been a while since I’ve read any of the authors work I’d totally forgotten how much of an emotional wringer she is capable of putting a reader through!! It just come out of nowhere and *bam* you are holding back tears.An adorable book with fantastically damaged characters, I can’t wait to see this series continue.Now to go back and find the books I’ve missed…

Samantha always writes a book that pulls you in plays with your heart strings a little bit and then puts you back together.  Tag & Maddie did not disappoint. Maddie a single parent and Tag the quintessential Playboy.Tag & Maddie meet on a blind date through a dating app and share a night of laughs and emotion from there a love story of healing, learning to love yourself and a hilarious and passionate push and pull starts. I loved Tag & Gigis relationship development but wish we got more of them together.Loved this emotional, angsty and passionate Read.

Tag is the guy that never has a problem getting a woman in his bed; he's cheeky, charming and full of himself and the ladies love it. Maggie is on her first date in years using an app that basically means its a one night stand guarantee. When Tag walks through the door she knows the date is a funk. She knows Tag and his reputation and they have a sharp conversation with him leaving and then coming back. There was just something about her that drew him to her, he couldnt explain it. Apart from her scars from a fire she was in he enjoyed talking to her. He tried to explain that the scars didnt matter and he wanted her to come out of her shell. He starts doing things in her home just to see her and she keeps rejecting him. She lightens up his day with her retorts and he starts to relax as a person. Good story.