I’ve loved this series from the start and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book. ALL the covers are #win for me. They’re flirty and fun and they match the book inside perfectly!

Noah Reid does not do commitments in any facet of his life and he likes it that way. No responsibilities. No attachments. Free bird baby … that’s Noah. Until Paige happens and maybe he reevaluates 🙂 (you’ll have to read and find out lol)

Paige Thomas is the polar opposite of carefree. She lives in structure and order. Free bird she is not! Until Noah maybe teaches her how to fly. Until they both maybe learn that life is about balance 🙂

I gotta tell you guys, the three books in this series have been super fun and cute and sexy in their own way. They’re fun sexy. Flirty sexy. Not a whole lot of angsty drama either. Super great afternoon reads!

Copy provided for blog tour review

Betting the Bad Boy is Book 3 in the Behind the Bar series but it can be read as a standalone.

Romance cost Paige her dream job and now she is looking for any job at all so she doesn't have to move back home. When she meets Noah she is determined to not make the same mistake twice. When sparks fly between them, they make a bet that she can keep her hands to herself while they work together. But Noah likes to break the rules.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters! Paige was so down on her luck at the beginning and I can relate to that. I enjoyed watching her luck turn around and the banter between her and Noah kept me intrigued. Now I want to read the other two books in this series!

Paige started a little bit annoying and full of herself, but her character softened as the story progressed. Noah's fear of commitment was never fully fleshed out, which made him fall a little flat as a character. Still, I enjoyed the story - it was a fun, engaging read.

It was an ok book, there were times I wanted to knock out Paige, and her snobbishness. At times I felt the book was a little slow, and wanted them to hurry up and admit or act on there attraction, so the going back and forth got seriously annoying at time. I did like Noah, however I was disappointed in him, when Paige finally admitted how she felt, and he became a coward. However, this is a romance story, so they did work out there differences.

Ms. London is a brilliant author and this third book of her Behind the Bar series was a delightful, fast-paced, charismatic read that I could not get enough of. The way this story started had me sympathizing with the heroine, as she's a woman down on her luck. She didn't deserve to lose her job and the news her friend gives her on top of that had me wondering whether the heroine would be better off returning home to re-assess her situation. However, I liked that she didn't give up, and actually resorted to the measures she did to get a job.

Both the main characters were captivating, and I loved the playful dialogue between them. Both are determined to win the bet they've waged of whether the heroine will give into their attraction. Will she cave to the hero's charm? However, the main characters weren't the only ones that had me smiling or laughing, which is proven by the comments Nina -- one of the secondary characters -- makes about how women should stick together.

As for the heroine, I could understand why she was so hesitant to get involved with the hero, because of what she went through at her last job and the fact that she got involved with someone she worked with. However, I liked that she took a chance on Noah, even if he does let her down at one stage. Also, Paige is strong and brave the way she doesn't give up on trying to find a job, even though her efforts seem hopeless. I also liked how determined Paige was to win the hero over when she first meets him, because she's just the person he needs both professionally and personally. Since she's not afraid to stand up to him when he's being all charming and thinks she'll cave to the bet.

While Noah, he's a delightful hero and a total charmer that I wanted more of the moment I finished this book. He has serious trust issues that stem from the fact he was raised in the foster system, but I liked that Paige managed to rattle him and make him realize that forgiveness of things that happened to him in the past is the key to finding happiness in the present and for his future. Then there's the close relationship he has with his foster sisters, and I liked how he helped Amanda; the sister that did wrong by him, but is now focused on making everything right. Yet, what I liked most of all was the challenge the hero faced from the heroine. They want different things when it comes to relationships such as the heroine wants commitment and the hero doesn't do commitment. Will Paige be able to convince Noah that happy ever after isn't a bad thing?

Overall, Ms. London has penned a fantastic read in this book where the sex scenes were hot and showed the strong chemistry these two had really well. The way this story ended had me cheering for this couple's happy ever after, as Noah is determined to use any means necessary to win Paige back, even if it means tricking her with a little help. However, it was the epilogue that wrapped this story up perfectly, because of the teasing banter between the hero and heroine about the bets; and Noah's serious words about the past and future when it comes to the surprise he has for Paige. I would highly recommend Betting the Bad Boy by Stefanie London, especially if you enjoy the opposites attract trope or books by authors Avery Flynn, Naima Simone, Sarah Ballance or Marissa Clarke.

Paige Thomas has her whole life planned out, and finding herself unexpectedly unemployed is not part of it. After a workplace fling goes awry, Paige finds herself scrambling for some way to make money, because going back to her parents’ house in the country is not an option. She’s been making coffee as long as she can remember, so when she stumbles upon a coffee shop in desperate need of a barista, she knows she’s found her calling.

Noah Reid manages the aforementioned coffee shop, and he wants nothing more than some peace. No responsibilities. No relationships. No attachments. In fact, he’d rather not even manage that coffee shop -- it’s just a temporary favor for a friend. He knows that Paige is just his type, but she’s not looking to date her boss, and he’s not looking for any commitment. When Noah calls out Paige on her obvious attraction to him, she makes him a bet. And then another bet. And another. Surely she can resist him and win... right?

Betting the Bad Boy is the third book in Stefanie London’s Behind the Bar series, but no prior knowledge of the characters is necessary to enjoy this book.

Like most Entangled/Lovestruck books, this book is well-written with likable characters and a cute plot. It’s definitely steamy, but not overly so, and Noah and Paige have undeniable chemistry.

I enjoyed Noah’s relationship with his foster sisters but wanted to see more of his past to get a better understand on why exactly he’s so opposed to any sort of commitment, be it in a relationship or at work. Paige was a good character -- very strong, but still willing to compromise -- but again, I wanted to know more about her and why she was so unwilling to turn to her parents for help. Ideally, I would have also liked Paige and Noah to act like the adults they were, rather than sulking off like moody teenagers.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would absolutely go back and read the first two in the series!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

3.5 Stars

Paige Thomas headed for the city with a shiny new accounting degree, a plan and big dreams of landing the job of her lifetime, but one misstep brought everything to a halt. She needs a job to pay the bills and keep a roof over her head but rather than admit defeat and head back home, she's willing to take a job as a barista while she looks for a new job.

Noah Reid defines the term commitment-phobe, likes his life free of attachments and responsibilities. With his friend away for a bit, he's had to step up and manage the bar, including hiring new employees and he's about to throw in the towel, until Paige walks in the door. With the sparks they strike off each other, can Noah convince Paige to relax enough to have some fun with him without any strings?

The previous book in this series did not leave me with any warm and fuzzy feelings for Noah but his back story in this book makes it easy to sympathize with him and want some happiness for him, which Paige brought to his life. I liked that she steadied him and quieted the part of him that was always itching to run away from any kind of responsibility. Plus, they affection he had for his foster sisters was really sweet and showed a depth to him that he hid from people.

For Paige, she needed Noah to show her how to be more flexible and enjoy life, instead of living a life filled with rules. As different as they were, they brought out the good in each other as well as made each other do some soul searching. While the mixed signals Paige gave off for most of the book drove me nuts, I enjoyed the chemistry between them and their dialogue. Overall BETTING THE BAD BOY was a cute, fast and entertaining read.

This was a fun light-hearted romance with lots of sweetness and swoonworthy moments. I loved the characters and the storyline. The banter was well-written. It was sexy and made me smile. I enjoyed every minute of reading this book and was definitely entertained. I am new to this author, but will definitely be looking for more from them.

This is a great book, this is the third book in the Behind the Bar series written by Stefanie London.This is a great book with a wonderful story and well developed characters. This book will keep you reading long into the night and you will not want to put this book down until you finish. This was such a great read and full of surprises. I am looking forward to reading the next book by this great author. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader’s copy of this book. The free book held no determination on my personal review.

Sexy and fun is the motto when country chick meets city dude! He's hot, down with the ladies and out for a good time always ... she's a unique take on sexy, sweet and dedicated to finding her perfect life. Total opposites right? So why do they mesh so well? He finds himself feeling more for her than he ever imagined was possible ... but can she accept less than she was looking for and learn to trust in what he's offering?

Paige Thomas disappointed her parents by taking off for a life in the city instead of staying closer to home, so there's no way she can fail and have to run crying home again! She had a job she thought was going to take her places, but she mistakenly trusted the wrong person and now she's crashing on her friends sofa with no job and no money! What's a girl to do?

Noah Reid is a fun guy to hang with, but he doesn't take anything too seriously. Growing up in the foster system and having disappointment after disappointment taught him not to trust in anything being there when he needed it. He has some great friends, loves his job and has a blast cruising through life ... but that's all he's looking for.

He is filling in for his buddy while he's away for a month and ends up hiring Paige at the coffeeshop/bar temporarily. Instant attraction is her worst fear realized, so she playfully puts a bet in place to make sure they don't fall into the lusty trap! Will they be able to hold out, or will she be pushing her rules to the side faster than she can recite them?

I liked the previous book of this series, but just couldn't get it not this one. I didn't like either of them, but she drove me nuts. I couldn't stand how rigid and uptight and judgemental she was. And I didn't feel like the story advanced quickly enough. Same thing over and over.

Paige for the first time in her life may have bitten off more than she can chew on more than once. First she bets on the wrong man. Then determined not to do it again she makes a bet that she can keep her hands of the second man. This was a fun, light-hearted, well-paced read that gave as good as it got. Paige had to figure her life out and fast. She was on a downward spiral after make a very huge miscalculation. Needing to keep thing flowing along she takes the job with very sexy Noah. She feels the heat and the heat of the passion burns strong. But she was determined to not make that mistake again. Noah being well Noah did all he could to make her lose that bet and succumb to his alluring ways.

Noah was a hit for me from the very beginning. A bad boy doing a good deed with naughty intentions towards one sweet, innocent, sexy, naïve woman that needed a job. Did this make him a bad boy, well duhh that was why it’s called Betting the Bad Boy. She taunted and egged him on with each new addition to the bet. She was making herself more and more open to him. I understood her need to be independent and strong but her way of teasing, that was how it felt to me, Noah was a bit nerve racking. I was not sure if I wanted to hit her or skip her. Regardless of this, I still go myself a good read and would find myself at some point going back and reading the prior two books of this series.

I wasn’t expecting to actually like this book as much as did, mostly because I knew nothing about this series or the author. But I did enjoy it a lot, and this book is different from most of my reads in one thing: the SETTING! Betting the Bad Boy is set in Melbourne, Australia 😀 .

The writing was pretty good on this one, even though it is told in dual POV in the third person, the characters’ inner thoughts were different enough that I was able to always know who was “talking” at a certain point. I do think this would have been even better if it was told in 1st person, but I always thing 1st person would be better in romances…

I loved Paige and Noah. Paige was an independent girl, who was fighting for the future she wanted, and wasn’t afraid to do whatever she had to to follow her dreams. While Noah had been burned so much in his past, that he thought he didn’t want to set roots, depending only on himself and afraid to be hurt by the people he loved. While Paige wanted commitment and a set plan, Noah wanted none of that. It was interesting to see how such different personalities meshed. Noah helped Paige be more open to possibilities, and Paige showed Noah how it was ok to want more from his life.

I really liked the romance, because the chemistry was very much there from the very beginning, and these two were so cute and right together. My only issue about it happened by the end of the book, and I really wish that the author had found some other way to “solve” their issues. But overall, I really really enjoyed Betting the Bad Boy, and I highly recommend this book. I now want to get my hands on book 1 and 2 of this series, because want to know more about the characters.

When I requested this book I didn't know a lot about it. I really liked the blurb and I was interested to read it but I was also scared because I haven't been that lucky with the ARC's I've been requesting. This one ended up being a pleasant surprise for me and I really enjoyed it.

First of all, for some reason I don't think I have ever read a book set in Australia or if I did I can't remember about it (I know, shame on me). That was the first thing that caught my attention in this book because as soon as it said the book was set in Melbourne I was suddenly super excited about that fact. It's not every day I read book set in Australia and I really want to visit there sometime in the future (if I forget about all the spiders and snakes in there). I know this might be random but it was a breath of fresh air and I loved it.

Now let's talk about more important things, the characters. I loved Noah and Paige. In the beginning of the book Paige is a little bit lost but she still knows what she wants and she still fights to get where she wants. This is the second book I read in a few weeks where the main character is looking for a job but unlike Brielle (from Touch of Fondness), who barely cared about looking for a job (even if she kept saying that she had to do it) and had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, Paige really worked hard. She knew what she wanted and she was doing everything possible to get where she wanted to be. However, things didn't work out as well as she thought. For me that just made her stronger, even if sometimes she wanted to give up. I still loved that she tried to fight for her dreams. Noah was also amazing. He was kind of broken, due to his life while growing up, but he was such a great guy. He was one of those people who's really closed off and has a small circle of friends but you could see that if a person was in his circle (either the friends or the family) that person would become one of the most important people on his life and he would do everything for that person. I really loved that side in him. I also loved his development throughout the book. With everything that happened in his past he ended up afraid of commitment and settle down but seeing him grow so much was amazing. They were also pretty great together and I loved how much they helped each other with their issues. It also helps that they had such a great chemistry.

Another thing I liked was how important Noah's friends and family were to him and how his friends accepted Paige so easily in the moment she needed most (because let's be honest, her best friend was kind of shitty... even if she let Paige sleep in her couch for weeks).

This was my first Stefanie London book so I didn't know what to expect but I ended up enjoying the writing a lot... Once again, I loved that this book had a dual POV and that Paige and Noah had very distinct voices. I also really liked the plot a lot. I just had a few issues with some things that happened in the end... some things just happened to fast.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable book. I really loved the plot and the characters and I loved how much friendship and family were important in this book. I 100% recommend this one for everyone who's in need of some romance that is a fast read.

Betting the Bad Boy is the best of Stefanie London. Full of fun, lots of heart and a comedic gold mine. Noah and Paige have enough electricity to short out the power within a five mile radius. However, courage is in short supply. Past heartbreaks have given love a bad name that continues to leave it's mark. Will this highly magnetic duo, be able to step out of their heads and chime into their hearts? Laughs, love and life lessons is a sweet and salty combination.

This delightfully entertaining read will bring a smile with its flirty, sexy and fun protagonists.

Paige Thomas had a life plan to achieve perfect happiness. She was unwilling the deviate from it until she losses her dream job because she unwisely mixes business with pleasure and now Paige desperately needs to find a job to help her stay afloat in the big city otherwise she’ll have to go back to her small town home. Rather than face defeat, she takes a barista job under the management of sexy Noah Reid. Can she resist from blurring lines and stray further from her grand plan?

Noah would like nothing more than to keep his life simple, unattached and free from big responsibilities. Raised in foster care, he’s afraid of letting down and being let down. But when his best friend leaves his bar to Noah’s care for a month he has no other choice but to hire help in the form of a gorgeous, outspoken aspiring accountant. Can he convince Paige that being flexible and having some fun is a good thing?

This was a fun, fast pace, lighthearted read. Paige and Noah have some witty and steamy verbal foreplay going on right from the start which is fueled by their competitiveness. There were very few limits to what they would bet each other on, but they tended to stick with the steamy kind which were doomed to fail because of their undeniable chemistry.

Paige is a determined goodie two shoes. A bit naïve and indecisive, whose mixed signals gave me a bit of whiplash. But her steadiness helps Noah with his trust issues, even though at first glance you wouldn’t detect any chinks in his delicious armor. He’s a sexy bad boy with a gooey middle. He’s protective of his three foster sisters and loyal to his friends. I liked how Paige and Noah meet each other half way, he shows her how to enjoy life without it having to be perfect and she shows him that having someone to share life with is wonderful.

Betting the Bad Boy is book #3 in the Behind the Bar series by Stefanie London. It is a cute and sweet standalone contemporary romance told from both points of view with a happy ending.

5 BAD BOY STARS!! Another fantastic book in this series. I loved Noah and Paige, their story was sweet, fun and super sexy. This book was amazing and kept me flipping page. Stephanie London is one of my favorite authors, I know it will be a five star read. I highly recommend this fabulous book. I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book from publisher via NetGalley.

A perfect light,fun, sexy read that will keep you smiling. Wonderfully written with great characters made this a very relaxing read. Low on angst and high on fun! Oh and did I mention coffee?? Lots and lots of coffee!! Paige and Noah are perfect together but they are both determined to fight the attraction between them. A case of mistaken identity has Paige getting hired as a barista at the coffee bar Noah is running for a friend. Paige won't stop looking for her perfect job but for now First is a great place to be!

I highly recommend this one!

in betting the bad boy, barista-turned-bar manager noah reid finally meets his match. paige thomas is trying to start a new life in the city. leaving behind her family's small town café in search of a big city job in accounting, she finds herself down on her heels when her first job doesn't work out.

on her last rope she accidentally falls into an interview at first a coffee shop/bar hybrid that noah is managing for his friend while he's on vacation with his wife. after a life in foster care this opportunity feels a lot like a noose. he's not ready for this kind of responsibility.

when every interview candidate fails to impress or flakes out on him, noah is forced to take a chance on paige. he's hesitant at first because she lied. and also because he knows she's looking for something else. but she makes on mean cappuccino. and he can't help his attraction to her.

paige is determined to not make the same mistakes she made her first time on the job. namely no entanglements with co-workers. but the chemistry between paige and noah is too hot to deny for long. and as they continue to dare each other to cross lines with bets with sexier stakes, it's only a matter of time before they end up ensnared in a romantic relationship.

but noah has no track record with relationships. he's got trust issues too. his past has shown him that keeping people at arm's length is necessary to keep his heart whole. but the truth is, when you do that, you also keep your heart, your life empty of love. and that's not a good way to live either. so he has to take a risk, he has to figure out a way to let paige in. because it's possible that it will be worth it in the end. and it almost takes him too long to realize this, because protecting your heart is a hard habit to break. luckily, paige is worth breaking the habit for. and it's an enjoyable read as they figure this all out.

This was a really cute story! I was so disappointed at first because I didn't realize it wasn't the first book in the series. Well, I was very happy to find out that it can be a stand alone.

Noah and Paige are just too cute! Now, I need to go back and the first two books.