Review: Down to You (The Bad Boys #1) by M. Leighton

By M. Leighton

Publication Date: September 21, 2012
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Source: Purchased

The scorching tale of one girl, two brothers and a love triangle…that’s not. Olivia Townsend is nothing special. She’s just a girl working her way through college so she can return home to help her father run his business. She’s determined not to be the second woman in his life to abandon him, even if it means putting her own life on hold. To Olivia, it’s clear what she must do. Plain and simple. Black and white. But clear becomes complicated when she meets Cash and Nash Davenport. They’re brothers. Twins.

Cash is everything she’s always wanted in a guy. He’s a dangerous, sexy bad boy who wants her in his bed at any cost. He turns her insides to mush and, with just one kiss, makes her forget why he’s no good for her. Nash is everything she’s ever needed in a guy. He’s successful, responsible and intensely passionate. But he’s taken. Very taken, by none other than Marissa, Liv’s rich, beautiful cousin. That doesn’t stop Olivia from melting every time he looks at her, though. With just one touch, he makes her forget why they can never be together.

Black and white turns to shades of gray when Olivia discovers the boys are hiding something, something that should make her run as far and as fast as she can. But it’s too late to run. Olivia’s already involved. And in love. With both of them. Both brothers make her heart tremble. Both brothers set her body on fire. She wants them both. And they want her. How will she ever choose between them?

Goodreads Summary

Since they’re right next to giant cliffhangers on my list of list of things to avoid, I’ll let you all know right now that there’s no love triangle. Not one that matters and if you’ve read the synopsis for the second book, you’d know that anyway. But in this book even, things are just…taken care of in a way that you know who it is. No doubt.

The bare bones storyline for Down to You is deceptively simple: Olivia is tired of falling for the bad boys so when she’s attracted to both a bad boy and a good guy, she tries to convince herself she wants vanilla more, even though her heart (and body) really want to walk on the wild side. For a little twist of intrigue, Cash and Nash have a crazy secret and a father in prison, and oh yeah, Nash is with Olivia’s cousin, the snooty Marissa.

Olivia meets Cash at his nightclub first, and while things sizzle between them, she writes him off as just another bad boy that she’s hormonally wired to want, determined now to avoid. The next morning she walks out of her bedroom to see him sitting in her kitchen, all yummy and proper in a suit and tie with the same sizzle going on, except it’s not Cash, it’s his twin brother Nash and he’s with her cousin Marissa. Even though he’s taken, Nash makes it clear he’s interested in her, but it’s nothing like the full-court press Cash hits her with. When Olivia starts bartending for him at his club, it is non-stop smoldering looks and sexual innuendo.

Olivia thinks she can’t make up her mind, but from the amount of time she spends trying to talk herself out of jumping him, it’s pretty clear who she really wants. The story is told from the POV of the three main characters, which I loved. In the beginning it felt a little repetitious but just a handful of chapters in, I couldn’t wait to get to the guys’ sections to see what they were thinking. They were so hot for Olivia (cue the “aawwws”).

I loved Olivia about 90% of the time. When the guys finally got her out of her shell, she was sassy and funny and quite a smartass. That other ten percent though – she was very insecure about her ability to keep a guy’s interest, thanks to her ex, so she kept doubting everything and wouldn’t take any risks or communicate sometimes when she was feeling upset.

The guys…grab a fan. Nash has this protective, smooth exterior but underneath you know there’s a sexual volcano ready to explode. Cash is just burning all over. Everything about him makes you want to throw him on the floor and crawl all over him and li… oh. Ahem. Yes, well, he’s a very sexy guy.

There’s one more character that deserves a mention and that’s Olivia’s friend Ginger. She’s seriously one of the most hilarious sidekicks I’ve read in ages. The woman has no filter when it comes to talking about sex with Olivia and she’s proud of it. I was cracking up at some of the things she said.

This ends on kind of a serious note. It’s not a big cliffhanger exactly, but a warning that the next book is going to be suspenseful because things have happened and that Olivia’s learned about Cash and Nash that could put them all in danger. It’s a wild subplot, one that makes Up to Me something you’ll want to have ready to read!

My Rating: A