Brooklynaire by Sarina Bowen | Review

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Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Release Date: February 12th, 2018

Trigger Warnings: domestic abuse mentions, heart attack mentions

Pages: 452

Publisher: Rennie Road Books

Genre: contemporary, adult, romance

Goodreads blurb:

You’d think a billion dollars, a professional hockey team and a six-bedroom mansion on the Promenade would satisfy a guy. You’d be wrong.

For seven years Rebecca has brightened my office with her wit and her smile. She manages both my hockey team and my sanity. I don’t know when I started waking in the night, craving her. All I know is that one whiff of her perfume ruins my concentration. And her laugh makes me hard.

When Rebecca gets hurt, I step in to help. It’s what friends do. But what friends don’t do is rip off each others’ clothes for a single, wild night together.

Now she’s avoiding me. She says we’re too different, and it can never happen again. So why can’t we keep our hands off each other?

R E V I E W

Brooklynaire was probably the book I was most excited to read in the Brooklyn Bruisers series, purely due to the fact that I had grown to love both Nate and Becca separately over the duration of the three previous books. Maybe that is why Brooklynaire disappointed me as much as it did. This storyline was shit. Honestly, it was all over the place. I had so many problems with this and I think the biggest was the power imbalance between Becca and Nate, which I’ll talk about later. Sarina Bowen just felt all over the place with this book and it honestly left me confused in more than one part. This book honestly just felt like a drag and was a poor conclusion to the series as a whole.

Brooklynaire follows both Nate and Becca. The pair has known each other for over seven years and Becca has worked for Nate the entire time. They have experienced each other’s highs and lows and know each other well. However, the relationship has always been professional. Which is pretty good considering Nate is now a billionaire who Becca still works for. The storyline of Brooklynaire crosses over with Pipe Dreams and I think that is what makes for the messiest execution of a book I have possibly scene – since the author seems as if they are doing their best to not repeat scenarios that had happened. The biggest problem in Brooklynaire is a situation from book two, where Becca is experiencing a concussion and is out of word until she is healed. It was just messy, honestly. Very poorly executed and just well written.

I don’t think I have ever read a book where there is zero chemistry between the romantic characters? Brooklynaire decided that was a great idea to do. For most of this book, I wasn’t even sure that Becca liked Nate enough to be his friend let alone to get down and dirty. However, it seemed that was what happened. Sarina Bowen really lets the ball drop with the chemistry though. It was just flat. You could read about Nate lusting over Becca but Becca was virtually indifferent until she wasn’t? There was literally no build up. I feel that this mainly came from the fact that Sarina Bowen was trying to keep up with the storyline of Pipe Dreams, which let it be incredibly damn clunky.

There was so much of the relationship between Nate and Becca that was missed purely because of where and when this story picked up. It didn’t work, at all. I don’t know why. It just didn’t give this couple the depth they needed for me to root for them. In fact, I wanted Becca to ditch Nate and fall in love with Bringley – the AI system that Nate had in his house (I know, it was fucking strange).

I think my biggest problem with this book was the power imbalance between Nate and Becca and how it was solved. Nate is obviously Becca’s boss and her his employee. I always get uncomfortable in books with boss-employee relationships because there is a clear power to the boss. In this book, this imbalance is discussed but Nate barely even cares. His friend tries to push him away from Becca by saying that she could slap him with a sexual harassment case if he pursues her, but he literally doesn’t care. It took away from the whole steam element of this book and left it feeling strange instead. The solution Nate came up with was ridiculous as well spoilers, like why give her your hockey team as a way for her to get an income and for you to no longer be her boss? It felt like a cheap solution. End spoilers.

Becca was definitely my favourite part of this book, mainly because of how relatable she is. She’s been taking care of her mother and sister since their father passed away suddenly from a heart attack. That included dropping out of college and getting a job for Nate. It was something that touched my heart to see as I have been taking care of my mother and sister.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy Brooklynaire. There was too much jealousy and too much that was all over the place. It left the book being a massive disappointment for me and ultimately being a terrible conclusion to the Brooklyn Bruisers series.

 Happy reading everyone!

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