Review: After Tonight by Annie Kelly (Flirting with Trouble #1)


Note: This ARC was provided by Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

On a much needed night out, Hyacinth Hendricks is given a to-do list by her best friends: 1. Drink a Long Island Iced Tea, 2. Get out on the dance floor and shake that "thang", and 3. Find the hottest man in the room and take him home. She finds herself a volunteer to help her out with all three things--the too-hot for words Smith--only she ends up flubbing the last one when she passes out after drinking wee too much alcohol. She doesn't expect to see Smith ever again...only she does...as one of her students at the reform school where she's a student teacher. Not only did she get hot and heavy with someone who turns out to be a twenty-year-old student, but Smith Asher seems to be everywhere she turns, consuming her every thought. As much as she tries to stay away, Smith Asher is one temptation that Cyn may have to give in to.

After Tonight is the first novel in the new contemporary romance series entitled Flirting with Trouble from Annie Kelly, pseudonym for author Kelly Fiore. Hyacinth Hendricks is a graduate student who needs to spend a semester teaching at a reform school before she gets her degree. Before she's slated to start student teaching, she meets Smith Asher at a club and the two make the kind of connection that lingers with them even after they go their separate ways. When their paths cross again, it's as his English teacher, Smith being at the reform school to get the few credits he needs in order to get his own high school diploma. Cyn knows she should keep her distance from Smith, but not only are they as drawn to each other as they were when they met, she cares about him graduating and staying away from bad influences.

I quite enjoyed this series starter from author Annie Kelly. The blurb hooked me, but the story and main characters were more than enough to keep me interested from start to finish. There was this great chemistry between Hyacinth and Smith, one that would have had dire consequences if they pursued it once they realized who they were after the night they met. There's a lot of tension, but not just of the expected sexual kind, because the reform school Hyacinth teaches at obviously has more than its fair share of riff-raff who refuse to be led down the right path and the last thing she wants is to Smith sucked in by the less than desirable elements he seems to like to hang out with. Now, when it comes to the sexual tension, I liked that it all played out much longer than I would have expected, adding a lot of anticipation.

There's a twist in the story that I kind of figured out halfway through, though not to the extent that it all went down. It was certainly something that made me give the book bonus points to because it takes quite a bit to get my jaw to drop in shock while I'm reading. I'm not sure of the exact age of Hyacinth, though I'm guessing she's somewhere past her mid-twenties but not too close to thirty. Anyway, there were moments that she acted a bit immaturely for her someone her age; on the other hand, the Smith we meet in the club is rather different from the Smith we see in the school, which is why I was quite intrigued with the guy all throughout. I was also curious about Hyacinth's two best friends--Carson and Rainey--plus Wyatt and Officer Eric Rains, all of whom I hope will get their own stories. After Tonight was a fun 4.5-starred read. ♥

Date Read: 20 November 2015

Learn more about Annie Kelly.

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