Wicked Design by Tina Donahue is the story of Clover and Van Gogh (V) and also a part of the Wicked Brand series. Although you can easily make this a standalone book I do feel it helps to read the previous books first.
Clover has feelings for Van Gogh but she feels that he doesn't even know that she is around. But really Van Gogh is just not confident enough to act on the feels he is having for her...because he does know she alive. When they do end up having a hot encounter it leads to more hot encounters but while doing all the hot and heavy stuff they have to stop and start to really learn more about the other person.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and seeing how their story came to be.
Great Hot Read!

Wicked Design is book 4 in the Wicked Brand series by Tina Donahue. This is my first time reading this author and I enjoyed her writing. Wicked Design is about two shy artists Clover Dasleigh and Van Gogh. Clover is a jewelry designer and Van Goh is a tattoo artist. Each of them has a crush on the other but because of their shy, introverted nature, they are unaware of this. Tina Donahue does a great job of introducing the reader to the two newest members of the Wicked Brand family. Their meeting is quirky and endearing but from there the book picks up pace fast. Before you know it Clover and Van Gogh are hot and heavy and things are going at lightning speed. But as life tends to do things go from great to bumpy in a heartbeat. The drama and angst in the story is a bit abrupt. It seems like one second they are hot and heavy and the next Van Gogh has morphed into a totally different character. While I enjoyed the depth of the characters and the discovery and self-realization each character goes through. The book just felt rushed and choppy. All in all, I did enjoy the characters and sub-characters and I would enjoy reading other books by this author.

First off I love the names of the main characters. So very unique. Clover and
V (van gogh). They are both shy artists trying to make a name for themselves in the art world. V a tattoo artist and Clover a jewelry maker. I thought there love story was sweet. 2 sort of outcasts who find each other. Not realizing they both had been pining for each other for a while. I loved the dirty/romance scenes. Some really good ones if you ask me. I read the romance books for the journey and this one did not disappoint. I think one thing you learn is no matter what you should always be honest in a relationship. I think a lot can be said for people who are always upfront no matter what! I like when characters have real unique personalities. It adds more depth to the story instead of boy meets girl and some stuff happen and they make it through. I want to feel for the characters like I am right there with them. Tina does a great job at doing that! I am looking forward to reading more books from her! I really enjoyed her writing style.

3.25⭐
This was a good, sweet, easy read. That had likable characters and little angst. Plus, a story that for the most part held my interest. However, I was never really sucked in and I struggled to connect with and feel any chemistry or a real connection between the two main characters Van Gogh and Clover. But I still enjoyed reading it and I'm sure fans of the series will too.

Unfortunately, I did not connect with this book as I felt like Clover and Van Gogh had zero chemistry and were somewhat awkward at times.

I just could not like this book. The blurb was way better then the story. Dialogue hard to follow.

Wicked Design was my first novel from Tina Donahue and really caught my attention with the blurb. I started out excited to read about a tattoo artist and the woman that was going to make him notice her, but unfortunately that excitement didn't last too long.

A big problem that I had was that the writing style wasn't something I could connect with. One of the main things was the dialogue between characters, which just didn't flow in my opinion. Honestly the way these characters spoke was a little, for lack of a better word, odd.

"The 'in' crowd boogying wildly."
or
"What he was saying killed Clover, and she'd had to interrupt. 'They were turds, okay?'"

If I wasn't told that these characters were in their mid-twenties I would have thought they were in high school, if not even younger. Other than for the way they spoke, with the use of "boogying" and other terms that I associate with older people trying to sound, what they think is, youthful, they never acted older than kids.

So much of this book was focused on the hero whining like a baby about how the "cool" people never liked him and made fun of me. I had to roll my eyes so hard at the shit he would say and worry about. It was something that made me hate his character, mostly because it annoyed me, but also because every time he would bring that up it was like he was saying the heroine wasn't good enough and that he still needed the validity of who he deemed "cool."

"Cool people have never paid attention to me like they have to you, except the make fun and tell me what a troll I am.

And then if you strip away the whiny parts from the hero all you were left with were mostly sex scenes where the heroine seemed to be trying to discover a, maybe, hidden part of her where she wanted some lite-BDSM. I didn't fully understand what was going on with that aspect of the story, it was like the author wanted it to be a sexy/kinky type of thing but then never fully committed so it ended up seeming out place the times that it was mentioned.

So with only a bunch of complaining and then sex scenes I never actually felt a connection between the characters. I think we probably only saw, in detail, about two or three dates they had and the rest were skimmed over. Not that there were too many that I remember being mentioned. So then when you get the random declaration of love I didn't believe it, especially since the reasoning didn't speak of love to me.

"I knew for sure I loved you when you got me the pimp shirt."
She laughed and sobered quickly. "Dudes your age wear stuff like that all the time."

Bottom line, this was clearly not the book for me. I think the storyline started out interesting and overall there were some good ideas in this book, but they didn't all actually work out in a way I could appreciate.

I’m on the fence with this one. It’s part of series and I had no trouble following along. It started off okay for me, but then it started to go down hill. I pushed through to the end just to see how it ended. I liked the tats and jewelry parts, but everything else was kinda meh.

I thought I would enjoy this book more but, sadly I didn't. I love tattoo based romances but this one was lackluster in making me want to like any of the main pov's.

I have to admit that this wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Having said that, I'm not 100% sure what it was that I was expecting. Still, overall, I enjoyed this book.
Van Gough, or V as the heroine calls him, is very shy and lacking in confidence. He can hardly believe that someone as hot as Clover could be interested in him. Clover has been lusting over Van Gough for months, but hasn't made a move until now. After going in to see him about getting a tattoo, she makes a move and things get underway pretty fast.
Where I struggled a bit with this book, was that it went almost straight into the hot and heavy stuff, without really developing plots and characters. Although that did come later, I think that it would have worked a bit better for me if there had been a little more build up first.
I actually enjoyed the second half of the book much more. When Van Gough is offered the attention and adoration that he craves, he as good as drops Clover. I felt that the dealing of this by both characters and discovering what they truly want worked well and turned around a book that hadn't been working that well for me.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I would be interested in reading others in the series.

I do not like how Meek Clover acted when she was feeling ignored by Van Gogh. She was so direct in the beginning whenever they first got together but as soon as she started feeling insecure her confidence was lacking. Van Gogh was clueless, Clover should have known this though because he was all along. All in all I truly did enjoy this book. It was a pleasure getting to read about all of the previous characters from the series.

I wasn't to sure about this book, it's really different than anything I've ever read?! I was thinking it was to short of a book?! But you know what?! I really liked it! It's quirky, fun, hot, and a great little story!!! It definitely didn't feel to short, I got The whole story!! This is a book about clover and van Gogh, clover makes really cool jewelry and can Gogh is a very shy tattoo artist! He's definitely not shy when these two get together!! I highly recommend taking a chance on this one it was so worth the read!! Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for sharing this book with me!