Scandalize Me

This love/hate romance, part two of the multi-author Fifth Avenue trilogy (following Avenge Me by Maisey Yates), pairs up pro-football bad-boy Hunter Grant, whose anger management issues got him kicked out of the NFL, and Zoe Brook, the PR diva who is out to reform him for her own secret ends. Predictably, Hunter plays the “poster boy for chest-beating alpha male[s]” and Zoe takes the role of unconvincing ice queen. Despite a decade of scheming revenge against their mutual enemy, series villain Jason Treffen, Zoe risks throwing her life away because of her breathless and unreasonably instant lust for Hunter. He supposedly has a sensitive, vulnerable side, but his behavior rarely strays from misogynistic obnoxiousness. The plot serves as a background device that both flat characters mostly ignore in favor of repeatedly batting pointless innuendo back and forth. Capping off the dull conversation and indulgent, ill-advised sex with a scene of domestic-violence-as-romance (“ ‘Hit me harder,’ he told her gruffly”) takes this book from cheesy to deeply unfortunate. (July)