Blog Tour Review: I Promise You (The Hook Up Series #4) by Ilsa Madden-Mills

I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I Promise You by Ilsa Madden-Mills
Series: The Hook Up Series #4
on October 12, 2020
Genres: NA Sports Romance
Pages: 330
Source: the author
Format: E-galley
Goodreads
My Rating:

Synopsis:

From #1 Amazon Charts and WSJ Bestselling Author Ilsa Madden-Mills comes an all-new swoony romance between the football hottie and the mystery girl he kissed years before…

Dillon McQueen: Babe. I promise. You want me.
Serena Jensen: Um, who are you?

There’s a legend at Waylon University: the first girl you kiss freshman year at the bonfire party is the one you’ll never forget. She’ll crawl under your skin. She’ll spark a passion so fierce you’ll burn the world down to possess her.

You might even put a ring on it.

But…timing is everything. That kiss can go horribly wrong. She might run in the opposite direction. And boy, did Serena run.

Dillon is Waylon’s hotshot quarterback with something to prove. All he wants is to graduate and make it to the NFL. What he doesn’t need is to finally meet the mystery girl he kissed at the bonfire freshman year. Isn’t it enough that she’s haunted his dreams for more than a thousand nights?

Fate laughs in his face when he runs into the plucky girl at the Piggly Wiggly. Surrounded by his entourage, he’s got all the Oreos in his cart; she gets revenge by buying every six-pack of his favorite beer.

Obviously, that legend is a curse. She’s not his type and hates him. Worst of all, how can she not remember him when she left a Serena-shaped hole in his heart for the past three years?

So why can’t he stop trying to win her?

Will this quarterback score the girl or make the biggest fumble of his life?

Author’s Note: I Promise You is a complete stand-alone college sports romance. Expect hot football jocks, strong women with pluck, a tell-it-like-it-is Nana, deep feels, fun banter, and a sigh-worthy happy ending. No cheating or cliff-hangers.

*Also read I Dare You, I Bet You, and I Hate You, ALL STAND-ALONE COLLEGE FOOTBALL ROMANCES.

My Review:

I really adored this story. It was one that I had trouble putting down. If it was summer, I would totally have stayed up all night reading it. The characters were really ones that I liked a lot. It was interesting to read again about the supposed legend of who you kiss at that first bonfire. It was hard not to fall in love with Dillon. But then you had to feel for Serena and what she’d been through, which we only learned about slowly as it fell into the story like pieces of a puzzle, making her reluctance to begin a new relationship with anyone make complete sense. As usual, one thing I loved the most was the banter between all the characters. I loved Serena and her sister and family, as well as Dillon with his own football family/friends. I liked how the author made the sorority girls to be real, instead of just the fake/mean girls that you so often see in stories. As a former sorority girl, I know that there are both kinds of girls in sororities, just like there are both kinds of people everywhere.

We also got all the perfect steamy scenes that fit a new adult romance. And then Dillon’s own family issues definitely made more sense as to how he behaved with Serena as well. There was one situation where I totally feel like Serena overreacted, and then there was the challenge at the end, that I don’t really remember being that big of a deal so it being left out made sense in a way. I giggled every time Serena, or someone in her family, would start a comment with: “Alexa, play ….” and then list a song. Such a funny thing! I love little idiosyncrasies like that.