4.5 stars. Out of all the novels in the Crooked Creek Ranch series, Crazy Thing Called Love is my favorite. I was intrigued by Billy since he was first introduced and it was well worth the wait for his story. It is an wild ride that is full of emotion, passion and heartache, but the growth of both Billy and Maddy personally and as a couple makes it a satisfying journey. Be prepared for laughter and tears as this dynamic couple find that love is even sweeter the second time around. Please click HERE to read my review in its entirety. ( )

Again, flawed characters, which Molly O'Keefe really seems to excel at. Billy and Maddy messed up in the past and have to work out their relationship. Their journey is wonderful and at times emotional.
Simply wonderful. ( )

Good reunion story. It begins fourteen years in the past, as Maddy and Billy's marriage falls apart and then moves to the present with a few other flashbacks to fill in their backstory.

Maddy is host of a morning TV show, with a reputation of being cool and unflappable. She's worked hard to overcome her past, and shows only her best to the outside world. Her work is her life and everything is going great until one of her producers comes up with a makeover idea for her show.

Billy has continued his hockey career and has gained quite a reputation for his wild behavior. He finally takes it a bit to far and is told by team management that he has to make some changes or he'll find himself off the team. His agent comes up with the idea of a makeover. Billy wants nothing to do with it, until he finds out he'll be on Maddy's show. That's enough to change his mind. Billy has never forgotten Maddy or his love for her. He's grown up some over the last few years and realizes that he made a lot of mistakes during his marriage. He wants a chance to apologize and see if there is anything left between them.

Maddy isn't at all happy with the project. She wants Billy kept firmly in her past. She doesn't want to talk about the past with him, and she definitely doesn't want to get sucked into the drama of his life. She remembers what it was like and still has the emotional scars. She keeps her emotions under very tight control at first because of it. She's very cold toward him, but it's an attempt to hide the attraction she can't deny she still feels for him.

I didn't like Maddy much at the beginning. She was so cold and pretty nasty to Billy that I wondered if there was any chance for them. Even when she admitted that the attraction was still there, she just wanted to use him for sex and not let her emotions get involved. The way she treated him was just terrible. I know she was just trying to protect herself, but it still made me mad. I was happy to see her start to lose some of those walls around her heart in the face of Billy's persistence.

I liked Billy a lot more. He started out as the bad boy of his hockey team, in trouble for his fighting. At the same time, he is starting to see the emptiness of his life and feel the regrets for the things he'd done in the past, especially what happened with Maddy. When he's offered the chance to go on her show, he grabs it. I really liked the way he tried so hard to get Maddy to see how sorry he was for the way he had treated her. He is determined to turn over a new leaf, and become more like the man he thinks she wants.

I loved seeing the makeover process. Though it was hard for him to do it, I loved the way that Billy opened up on the show about some of his past and its influence on the man he is. It was funny and heartbreaking to see the reactions of people to the idea of his makeover. The part with the clothes was pretty amusing.

The building of the new relationship between Billy and Maddy was not an easy one. Billy had to overcome the problems of the past and show Maddy that he really had changed. It wasn't easy for him because he wasn't used to sharing his real feelings. Maddy had to find a way to believe that she could be with him without losing herself the way she had when she was younger. She also had to see that he really had changed. That began to happen the night of the charity function. I loved seeing how hard he was trying to behave, and felt for him as he had to make that speech. Maddy was surprised to see him there, and it was fun to see her try to fight the way he made her feel. I loved the way that his reason for being there had her looking at him differently and beginning to see that he had changed.

When things blew up on the show with the arrival of the two kids, both Maddy and Billy had to deal with a lot of turmoil. I loved the way that Maddy was there to support him and help him through it. I loved seeing that caring side of Billy. This brought the two of them closer together. I loved seeing how each of them handled the kids and what it said about who they were. I loved seeing Billy step up and be something he never expected. And Maddy learned some things about herself that made it possible for her to believe in a future for her and Billy.

I loved the final makeover show and the surprise twist that it took. It was exciting and heartwarming. I also liked the epilogue, which had its own fun bit to it. I liked seeing how everyone was doing a couple years later.

The secondary characters were terrific. I liked Maddy's coworker Ruth and her part in the various makeover details. I enjoyed seeing the changes in her and in the relationship between her and Maddy. I also loved Billy's niece Becky. The things she went through and her wariness were heartbreaking to see. I loved seeing her learn to trust Billy. ( )

Originally reviewed at http://scorchingbookreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/a-nix-contemporary-review-cra...

I picked up this book expecting Chick-Lit. The blurb, the cutesie purple cover? It looked like a nice easy romance that would fill some time. Jesus, I couldn’t have been more wrong. This is a book about broken children and the damage that it does to the human psyche, how people often make choices based on the things they think they want rather than what they actually need. I read this book in one sitting, mostly chewing my nails and occasionally crying. It started off as something with a mild undercurrent humour and then it became something else because of an event that turns Billy’s life upside down, an event I can’t mention because it happens at 60% of the freaking book!

Billy is a broken man from a broken home that gets money thrown at him when he gets drafted in Hockey. From that day forward his life with Madelyn changes. She is the girl that he has loved since they were children, the young woman he married as soon as he could and he throws it away because money and fame get involved. I completely fell for Billy. He was young, stupid and had never had money. For him, this was the world that he wanted to be in, a world he would do anything to be part of. He didn’t mean to push her away, was even devastated when that was the outcome, but he just wanted the “dream”.

From that day forth his career was turbulent but then he has one fight too many and some PR is needed. Enter Madelyn and the show she has worked her ass off to protect. She doesn’t want Billy anywhere near her, had worked to become something more than just his wife and she is absolutely terrified that all that will be taken away if anyone finds out about their past. She is so cold with him it is heart-breaking. He is so upfront, allowing her to humiliate him with her “makeover” of him on National TV, all because he wants her back in his life. The thing is she doesn’t want him back in.

I didn’t really like the way that he practically eviscerates himself on national TV to make penance for his sins. It wasn’t that it made him weak, the opposite in fact, but it did make me think less of her. She was in a difficult position job wise, but that was no real excuse for what she did. She sat back and let him do all this when she had no real intention of letting him back in. She had hidden the girl that loved him so deep, she was pretty hard to let her feelings be known. Even doused in humour, it was still a very cruel thing to do. I liked that it was him that had the makeover though J

He is in a place in his life where he feels that he can commit; she is in a place where she feels she is happy without him. Him forcing himself back into her world leaves them with some occasionally hot sex and whole heap of pain. I couldn’t help feel that they were repeating the whole vicious cycle again, that they were doomed to fail. Then the “surprise” guests appear on the makeover show and Billy realises that maybe they can’t make it work after all. I really don’t want to mention who the guests are as I feel it’s a massive spoiler. These “guests” though were the best part of the book, the part that broke my heart and made me realise that Billy and Maddy may not get their HEA as the relationship they had wasn’t healthy for anyone to be around. To be together, they would have to accept that they were a product of their past, that denying wouldn’t change the damage that it had done. Only when they accepted their fears and desires would they evolve to a place where they could be together. The problem was that neither of them wanted to face and accept the place that they had come from, the place that had created a woman determined to be something in her own right and a man who never wanted to feel that impoverished or unsafe again. My heart bled all over the pages for these characters, especially during the flashbacks that littered the book, filling in the gaps of their history together.

I will say no more on this book and its tale. It was a book that made ripped me apart a little on every page. Yes, Billy and Maddy are a hot couple but their chemistry isn’t the thing that kept me going. I didn’t know how they would make it work or if it would even be enough to create a good relationship, but I had to know they were OK. They say a good writer puts their characters through hell to put them back together again and by God these two were put through the ringer.
( )

I haven't had the pleasure to read very much of Molly O'Keefe's work but I really enjoyed Crazy Thing Called Love. I have not read the other two books in the Crooked Creek Ranch series but I didn't feel like I was missing anything important. I would like to read the other two books in the series because I did enjoy this one. This book was a classic case of a second chance with a first love.

I really liked Maddie even though she has a really tough outer lining that she created to avoid pain,.I could see her sweet and caring side under the rough exterior she puts off. Maddie thinks she has the perfect life that she needs to protect her from the pain of loving someone again.

Billie is the bad boy of Hockey, he's missing something in his life and he knows what it is.... Maddie. I loved when he was given a chance to go on her morning show. My goodness the sparks these two throw off when they are in the same room is almost combustible. I really enjoyed watching Maddie & Billie try to work around each other without showing their feelings. He is in for some major lifestyle changes. I loved the family aspect in this book. I want to expand more on my feelings here but I really hate to give anything away so I'm going to say click on the link on the bottom and go get this book for yourself so you can read all about.

Maddie and Billie have a lot of obstacles to overcome together and they each have to learn to trust the other with their heart. They have both grown a lot over the years but there is still a bond there that has never went away. I found this to be a sweet story with some spicy scenes. There is some drama, some laughter, and some really touching scenes through out the story.

I know I would most certainly enjoy reading more of Molly O'Keefe's work, I found her writing style to be very pleasant to read with an interesting storyline to keep me turning the pages quickly.

I was extremely excited to win a copy of this book on Librarything in exchange for an honest review. It has been my pleasure to share my thoughts with you on this book. ( )