Am I going soft or slowly becoming a romcom fan? We'll revisit this another day but here today I loved the The Bodyguard. Right out of the gate Hannah Brooks is a stellar protag that's hilarious to read. I tend to be critical of romance novels as I often have problems with tone and the internal character voice being gratingly overdramatic, but The Bodyguard had me constantly chuckling and smiling. Hannah is still overdramatic but her self-awareness of how dumb she's acting coupled with snappy humor keeps things fresh and engaging. The first half reminded me of a hypothetical modern cross between Miss Congeniality and the Proposal (the fish out of water tale of competent and professional woman and the fake dating for family tropes). And that alone would make it a fun yet cliched read.

What really sold me on this book is the perfect balance between the focal romance between Hannah and Jack and the overarching plot of the personal protection service and threats made against Jack's life. I often find romance novels have an uneven emphasis between the two parts or ping pong back and forth abruptly, however this one effortlessly incorporates both. The personal protection bodyguard service is not just an excuse to pair off two seemingly opposite individuals, Katherine Center constantly applies Hannah's background into her character's ethos and didn't disappoint me in providing her a glorious moment to shine and show off her action chops in the book's final sequence (all while providing a great laugh). I also love that although Hannah is utterly heartbroken and in pieces, she's the one doing the actual saving and protecting in a gender-reversal swap (independent and strong female characters, we love it!). Hannah's coworkers and team also provide a lot of great banter and dialogue, I would be content reading a standalone spinoff with just them, their work and office hijinks. On the flipside there's some nice applications of Jack's acting career as well, though some of them moments are not utilized quite as effectively as Hannah's.

If I have to fault this book anywhere, it's probably the conflict and tension between Jack and his brother Hank feels a bit forced and the arguementive dialoged contrived. Not everything can be rosy and merry in this otherwise breezy read but compared to how well developed the other characters and plot threads are, this one feels like the weak link.

In the end though, this was such a entertaining and fun read. While it's obvious that things will always work out on the Stapleton's family ranch, there are some clever plot twists that keep things interesting if you're someone like me who can get bored of straight romance. It's all light-hearted but the threats and development around (and on) Jack's life were surprising and there's good character development all-round. And really that's probably what a rom-com books needs to do to win over this Glenn-like reader (Glenn, the true hero and villain of this book), just be solid all-around and well-done.