CUFFED – K. BROMBERG

**Spoilers Ahead, Read On With Caution**

So it turns out that my posting schedule is probably going to carry on being every third day now, as that’s what it’s been more recently, and I hope that’s okay? It just is what it is. So I was browsing instagram, like I do, and I came across quite a few authors that I follow talking about how K. Bromberg’s instagram was hacked, and so it had to be deactivated, thus meaning she had to start her following again. Not a massive deal in the grand scheme of things, but pretty shitty considering it would take years to gather a following and know your fans. So I thought I’d have a look at one of her books, and came across CUFFED. Weird name, and slightly ugo cover but an interesting sounding plot. So I gave it a read.

“I hate you. I never want to see you again.” Grant Malone is not the reason I moved back to Sunnyville—at least that’s what I tell myself. Yet, those parting words I said to him back in third grade, ring in my ears every time a townsperson brings up one of the Malone boys. I thought time had healed my wounds. I was wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for how I felt when I finally saw him again. Twenty years does a lot to turn a boy into a man. One who hits all my buttons—sexy, funny, attractive, and a police officer. But Grant is off limits because he knows too much about my past. But I’m drawn to him. That damn uniform of his doesn’t hurt either. It’ll be my downfall. I know it. What’s one night of sex going to hurt . . . right? — I’ve always loved Emmy Reeves. That’s why I’m shocked to see her all these years later. The shy girl I once knew is all grown up. Adventurous and full of life, she owns my heart now, just as much as she did back then. Convincing her of that is a whole different story. I’ll give her the one night she asks for—like that’s a hardship—but when it comes to letting her walk away after, she has another thing coming. There’s no way in hell I’m letting her go this time without a fight.

First and foremost, I just really like the way CUFFED is written. It’s funny, flows well, and bounces you between Grant and Emerson’s points of view so you get a well rounded view of what’s really happening. I like how it started in Grant’s past, when he’s an eight year old boy finding out that he broke his promise to his best friend, and watches her leave the classroom with a teacher, whispering how she hates him now. I was so wrapped up in the drama and pace of the story that I didn’t even notice the pages turning, or how quickly I was getting through it. The relationships we get to witness are another high-point for me, the brotherly love between Grant, Grayson and Grady, the makeshift family Emerson makes with Desi and Leo, even Grant’s partner at the station, Nate, and his parents. Everything felt so small down and involved, that it was hard to not be completely swallowed whole by it. 

Emerson went through a lot when she was a little girl. She went through hell and made it out the other side a stronger, determined and more independent woman than the little girl she was would have you believe. Living the life of a skydiving gypsy, Emerson lives life but her own rules, and Grant isn’t one to follow rules he doesn’t set. 

“But remember, you don’t need to know the details of her past to love her heart in the present.” 

This book just got me excited for the characters in it. I was rooting for Grant to get Emerson to see him clearly, and for Emerson to find her true inner happy, but mostly for everyone to be content in their lives. There wasn’t a single character, bar the creepy loan man, that I didn’t like or couldn’t stand.  Everyone had their ups and downs and it just felt all the more real because of it, like you could go to who-knows-where-America and find all these people just going about their lives in Sunnyville. 

Reading CUFFED (no matter how cheesy a title for a book about a cop) made me excited to read the remainder of the Everyday Heroes series, I wanted to know about Grady and Grayson too. So next up, COMBUST.