[Lisa’s Review]: The Dare (Briar U #4) by Elle Kennedy

College was supposed to be my chance to get over my ugly-duckling complex and spread my wings. Instead, I wound up in a sorority full of mean girls. I already have a hard time fitting in, so when my Kappa Chi sisters issue the challenge, I can’t say no.

The dare: seduce the hottest new hockey player in the junior class.

Conor Edwards is a regular at Greek Row parties…and in Greek Row sorority beds. He’s the one you fall for before you learn that guys like him don’t give girls like me a second glance. Except Mr. Popular throws me for a loop—rather than laughing in my face, he does me a solid by letting me take him upstairs to pretend we’re getting busy.

Even crazier, now he wants to keep pretending. Turns out Conor loves games, and he thinks it’s fun to pull the wool over my frenemies’ eyes.

But resisting his easy charm and surfer-boy hotness is darn near impossible. Though I’m realizing there’s much more to Conor’s story than his fan club can see.

And the longer this silly ruse goes on, the greater the danger of it all blowing up in my face.

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

The Dare is the fourth and last installment of the Briar U series, and I have to say I’m sad that we’re done with the series. I could literally read Elle Kennedy’s hockey romances all day every day. While this one is not my favorite in the series, I absolutely loved it.

Elle stays true to her traditional combination of seriously hot hockey players, humor, drama, and angst and still managed to make Conor’s and Taylor’s story as unique as the others in the series. The Dare is the perfect mix of laughing out loud, ovaries on fire, and anxious nailbiting.

Taylor is an amazing, bright young lady studying to be an elementary school teacher. However, she struggles with her self-confidence and self-image, and worries about society’s ridiculous idea of beauty more than she should. While her insecurities weigh heavily on her at times, she still has the fire we know and love in Elle’s heroines. She’s one of the most relatable characters ever. Her counterpart Conor is your typical, no-strings-attached, I-don’t-do-relationships, sex-on-legs hockey player and a notorious playboy, at least in the beginning. That there’s much more to Conor Edwards than meets the eye becomes clear awfully fast. He’s literally too precious for words.

What I love about Taylor’s and Conor’s relationship is the natural chemistry they have from the get-go. Taylor goes up to him, practically begging her to go along with her dare in the most adorable way, and he goes for it – no hesitation. Even if they try to deny it at first, they’ve met their match, and I had the best time watching them grow as a couple and individually with the other standing by their side cheering them on. Despite this being a sports romance, the hockey actually takes the back seat in this one, btw.

The Dare is everything you’re looking for when picking up college romance books and the perfect ending for an equally perfect series.

Lisa

Hi! I’m Lisa. I’m twenty-three, a college student and a book lover. I spend every free minute, and most of my lectures, reading all kinds of books, which is how I ended up here. While I particularly enjoy books of the young and new adult variety, I also love historical fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, all things romance, and one or the other classic as well. If I’m not reading, I’m either working, sleeping, binge-watching my newest obsession on Netflix, or on my way to Starbucks, to satisfy my slight caffeine addiction.