Book: If You Claim Me by Helena Hunting
Reviewed by Maggie Hayes
Rating: 4.5/5
📚✨ ARC REVIEW ✨📚
If You Claim Me by Helena Hunting
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (4.5/5 stars)
Thank you, @ theauthor.agency , for providing a free ARC!
Mildred (aka Dred) is in a bind. She owes over $100K in back rent, and there’s no way she can pay it on her librarian’s salary. She’s at serious risk of losing her apartment and her proximity to all her friends, who have become like family to her. She knows any one of them would help, but she refuses to damage those relationships by asking. Enter Connor.
Connor is the Toronto Terror’s bad boy and Dred’s best friend’s enemy. Misunderstood his whole life, the only person who’s ever loved him unconditionally is his grandmother, Meems. When he learns about Dred’s situation, he proposes a marriage of convenience: he’ll pay off her back rent if she agrees to marry him to make Meems happy. Dred says yes, figuring there’s nothing to lose and no relationship to ruin.
What starts as a business arrangement quickly turns into something more. As they live together, the lines between fake and real blur. Dred and Connor, both scarred by their pasts, find comfort in each other and a love that feels achingly real.
This might be my favorite book in the Toronto Terror series. Dred and Connor are layered, broken in beautiful ways, and want to be truly loved. Dred sees the softer side of Connor that others overlook, and Connor wants nothing more than to give Dred the safety and security she’s never had. They love each other completely, including the ghosts of their pasts.
As always with Helena Hunting, the found family element shines. Dred’s friends rally around her, even when she keeps them in the dark about her reasons for marrying Connor. Flip, in particular, would do anything for her, even trying to befriend his archnemesis. I love seeing healthy platonic friendships between men and women, and Dred and Flip’s bond was perfection.
If you love emotional, steamy, heartwarming romances with found family, If You Claim Me belongs on your TBR.
For fans of: 🏒 Hockey Romance | 💍 Marriage of Convenience | 💞 Opposites Attract | 😌 Grumpy x Sunshine | 💸 Billionaire Bad Boy | 📚 Librarian Heroine | 👯 Found Family | ❤️🩹 Hurt/Comfort