Book: Bad Influence by Ava Hill
Reviewed by Maggie Hayes
Rating: 3.5/5
ARC REVIEW
Bad Influence by Ava Hill
⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5)
Caroline and Killian’s second-chance romance starts with exactly the kind of messy setup I love: she breaks off her engagement to his younger brother, Beckett, after discovering him cheating, and accidentally flees straight into Killian’s orbit. Caroline has spent her entire life being told that Killian was the wrong brother for her, so watching all of those carefully built family expectations start to crack was immediately compelling.
I did wish we had gotten a little more depth from Caroline beyond the surface level. She’s clearly trying to figure out who she is outside of her family’s control, but at times it felt like she traded one guiding force for another. Even though she talks about wanting independence, she still leans heavily on Killian’s grandmother and then on Killian himself once she lands in New York. I kept waiting for her to really step outside the life that had already been planned for her—especially professionally. Since she’d already conveniently taken the New York bar, I thought there was room for a bigger reinvention arc that never quite materialized.
That said… Killian absolutely carried this book for me. This man is peak grumpy, emotionally repressed MMC energy. He’s shut himself off from his family and built a quiet life away from California, but he has never stopped loving Caroline, and you can feel it in every interaction between them. The pining? Excellent. The quiet heartbreak of believing she would always belong to someone else? Even better. And honestly, I loved the restraint he showed while waiting for Caroline to fully figure herself out before acting on his feelings. It made the payoff feel much more earned.
The romance itself is definitely a slow burn, but once Caroline and Killian finally stop fighting the tension that’s been simmering between them for years, the chemistry absolutely delivers. All the longing, history, and “right person, wrong time” energy explode in the best way once they finally give in.
And honestly, one of my favorite parts was getting to see Lavinia and Roman from the Boston Titans world again, happily thriving together. I will always eat up little glimpses of previous couples living their HEAs.
Overall, this one really worked for me emotionally because of Killian’s character and the years of unresolved tension, even if I wanted a little more growth from Caroline along the way.
Thank you to the author and Love Notes PR for providing an ARC!