Thank you to SMP for a gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This may be my favorite Katherine Center book thus far! I binged this one and stayed up way too late to finish it. No regrets tho! This one was sweet, witty, and just delightful. I loved that it's a female bodyguard for a male celebrity and the fake dating trope worked for me. There was great banter While it touched on some serious issues, I would still consider this a lighthearted women's fiction/romance. You can easily read it in one sitting!

"She's got his back... He's got her heart... They've got a secret... What could possibly go wrong...?"

Have you been waiting for that perfect book that you just want to wrap up in the tightest hug and hold it close to your chest and tell it thank you because it made you laugh out loud endless times, and then made your heart happy?? I wasn't particularly.....but this book did that for me 10x over. I love Katherine Center novels, they always give you the warm fuzzy feelings inside when you finish them...but this book in particular just left me so.....joyful. I'm sure you will fall in love with Hannah and Jack just like I did when THE BODYGUARD hits shelves July 19th from St. Martin's Press.... It's an utterly delightful romantic comedy with a movie star at the center, and who doesn't love one of those???

A sweet just in time for summer reading rom com. Not too much spice or angst and plenty of cheese (in a good way). This went down like candy and I'm so glad I read it.

How To Walk Away was my first Katherine Center read and it touched me immensely! I am a fan of Katherine’s writing and the way she pours life into her characters!

The Bodyguard was an enjoyable audiobook!! Hannah who has recently lost her mother is undercover bodyguard of no other than the famous actor Jack! The setup is so unrealistic but oh so believable where Jack falls for Hannah who is a commoner and Jack is so out of her league! Both of them connect over their family and it was such a heartwarming cute read!

I enjoyed listening to the audiobook and the narrater was super amazing!

Thank you Macmillan Audio, St Martins Press and NetGalley for the complimentary audiobook that hits the shelves on July 19, 2022

Katherine Center is the queen of heartfelt romcoms. I love all of her books and this one did not disappoint. She continues to dazzle us with swoonworthy romances.

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center is a delightful rom com with “real” attributes for the characters. You cannot help but root for our female bodyguard to triumph against different antagonists.

Center developed the bodyguard plot to include humor and true human empathy. Not a typical detective or thriller book even with a firm of bodyguards hired to protect a Hollywood star. I found this to be a terrific beach read. Readers of other Katherine Center books will not be disappointed. If you have not read Center this would be a fantastic one to start fan clubbing Katherine Center.

The Bodyguard gives those classic rom-com summer feels. Katherine Center mixes bubbly rom-com banter with a blockbuster action film plot in this laugh-out-loud twist on The Bodyguard meets Archer adventure. By day, Hannah Brooks is an international agent, traveling to foreign countries and preventing clients from danger. When she’s assigned to protect superstar hottie Jack Stapleton, she’s suddenly roped into a fake dating agreement. Center welcomes us into a world of laughs and real conflict. Characters confront deeply complicated feelings about depression, loss, self-image, and neurodivergence. Center writes intelligently by inviting readers to realize that a funny, fluffy, wonderfully fun rom-com can include dark themes. The author understands that real people use comedy to shield themselves from pain. The laughter that comes from pain makes this perfect rom-com balance of fluffy tones and deep themes a vulnerable read.

Read This If:
•Enjoy the fake aating trope
•Celeb romances

Thoughts:
Oh my goodness, this book was the perfect rom com book. It was so cute and had me laughing out loud numerous times. I love that gender stereotypes were flipped in this book. Hannah was such as bad ass! The banter between her and Jack was *chefs kiss*.  Also, the ranch setting/vibes…. SIGN ME UP! That ending though, I was not expecting that all and was freaking out.
 
I am 100% going to be purchase a physical copy, because I enjoyed it so much and this cover…I’m obsessed!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #St.Martin'sPress for an ARC of #TheBodyguard!

First of all, I would love to have Hannah's job! I love the premise behind this book and I appreciate how Hannah is the bodyguard. Fake Dating is a favorite trope for me when it's done right and I felt this book did a great job of making the fake dating believable and enjoyable! It started off a little slow for me with all of the background information but it picked up quickly and I loved the storyline. Overall, a solid 4 star read!

I absolutely LOVED The Bodyguard! Perfect summer read with a little bit of suspense and a whole lotta sweetness! I could have read this in one bite - make time if you can! Instead, I was angry at every other thing I had to do before I could finish this one. Hannah and Jack's love story is perfectly imperfect.
I received an advance eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review, and I am so thankful I did!

From Lala’s Book Reviews

TW/CW: cancer, physical abuse, suicidal attempt (towards the end), cheating

So I had mixed feelings about this books, and I’m not just speaking about the emotions it put me though because surprisingly, it was kind of emotional.

The book starts of with Hannah just after her mother’s funeral as she is looking for a distraction because that’s what she does, she doesn’t like to sit around and settle in one place which makes her love her job of being a bodyguard where she’s constantly on the move either locally or globally.

The down side is that her boss wants her to take time to grieve for her mother instead of jumping back into work, and the icing on the top is when her boyfriend who she also works with, Robby, breaks up with her say that she is incapable of relationships.

When Hannah does return to work, she learns that she could have the next big break at their job with a new location opening in London if she does well with their next new job of protecting Jack Stapleton who is one of the biggest actors in the world.

Jack has been in hiding in the mountains ever since his brother’s death and hasn’t really been seen by the public, but since his mother has been diagnosed with cancer, he wants to be around her given the nature of her condition.

Jack’s manager wants him to har security given that he has an obsessed fan who sends him gifts and wants him to be the father of her child even though she’s well past the age of childbirth, and his management team ends up winning that battle as Hannah is assigned as his lead bodyguard.

Hanah doesn’t want the case because it’ll be in the area she’s in, and she wants to get out of Texas, but Glenn, the boss, said that it’ll help her chances of one of the big assignments.

Jack is hesitant to have Hannah around because she’s just so average and doesn’t look like she could do much damage until she proves that she’s able to protect him by flipping him over.

Things are going well until like the second day, when Jack goes to visit his mom at the hospital, and in a split moment they introduce Hannah as Jack’s girlfriend, and Jack’s mother almost instantly fall in love with Hannah because Hannah is so down to Earth and wants to both Jack and Hannah to come and stay at their ranch until Thanksgiving (for a total in about 4 weeks).

When Hannah gets to the ranch, she’s in a different world that is a lot slower with nature and farm animals. In addition to that, she is constantly in role of Jack’s girlfriend. There’s also tension between Jack and his brother Hank following the death of their other brother Drew creating a negative environment where they should be spending time with Jack’s mother.

This book is told from Hannah’s POV which is kind of disappointing given that there’s so much going on between Hannah and Jack.

Hannah is an interesting character because she has had so much trauma from her childhood that caused her to be constantly on the move, she is emotionally guarded, and she keeps everyone at a distance because she went through so much as a child.

Jack is also a work in progress given that he lost his brother and basically took a hiatus from his acting career to take a step back in his busy life to re-find himself and to get back to himself.

When they first met each other, it started off kind of rocky, but as they go into the role of their fake relationship, the lines are blurred as Hannah starts to relax despite being in such a slow environment, and Jack is starting to act more like himself than he has in a while laughing more and is more lively.

As Jack and Hannah continue to play the role of their fake relationship, Hannah has to really question whether Jack is really starting to fall for the ordinary girl or if his acting is really that great.

First, this book has very minimal spicy as in there’s only a handful of kissing and some hand holding… that’s it. Next, there were times where the story just really slowed down, and I was just looking for the story to pick back up. For the most part, I really enjoyed the book to the point where I would actually buy a copy of this book for myself because there were times where I had laughed at the Jack and Hannah’s banter and there were even times where I had cried.

If you’re looking for a cute book, with very little spice then you will probably enjoy this book because it has a good storyline, I just feel like it wasn’t the right book for me.

One of the reasons I love Katherine Center's books is that the characters deal with real-life experiences, like being dumped, sick parents, death, job troubles. But they are also able to find the humor and bright sides in things. The Bodyguard was no exception.
Hannah's mother died, and then her coworker boyfriend dumps her. She wants to throw herself into her personal protection job, but the boyfriend is there, competing against her for a new assignment. And then she finds out she has to protect a huge movie star. Then another twist, she has to go live on his parents' ranch with him and pretend to be his girlfriend for a month.
The time on the ranch turns out to be just what Hannah needs, and she works on building her self confidence back and having something other than work in her life.
I loved Jack's parents, especially his mom, and I loved that Hannah was able to make Jack laugh when no one had been for a long time. It was a sweet story, and even though I kind of knew how it would end up, I really enjoyed and was hooked on reading the story to find out how they got there.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hannah’s world is falling apart, she just lost her mother, her boyfriend and best-friend. Being a workaholic she can’t wait to get back on assignment. Hannah is a bodyguard and her new assignment is to play the “girlfriend” of the "Sexiest Man Alive” aka movie star Jack Stapleton.

First let me start with I love Katherine Center and while this wasn’t my favorite book of hers, I still liked it. It was a light, feel good romance with a strong female lead! But I felt like this one was not her usual MO, it was missing the usual depth her books have and it also felt a little bit rushed with an insta-love romance.

The narrator, Patti Murin, did a wonderful job at voicing the characters.

Thank you St. Martin's Press, MacmillanAudio and Netgalley for an eARC and ALC in exchange for my honest review.

I received an e-arc and an audio arc of The Bodyguard by Katherine Center from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
In the beginning, this had all the Netflix rom-com vibes, it was reminding me a bit of The Spy Who Dumped Me and a bit of Beach Read, the characters had great banter.
But then about halfway, I lost interest. I don't think this is a bad book, it just wasn't working for me at the time, so I stopped at 46%. It was also heavier than I expected, with the main character's mother dying very early on and the love interest's mother battling cancer.

I so enjoyed reading “The Bodyguard” by Katherine Center. Her characters bring humor and vibrancy to the story, which I struggled to put down the entire time. A fabulous summer read!!

This is undoubtedly one of my favorite books of the year! For me, this was the perfect mix of fun, funny, heart wrenching, and suspenseful. I wasn't sure what to expect since this was my first Katherine Center book, but now I know I am going to be picking up her backlist ASAP.

I loved most everything about this book. Hannah, even as an incredibly accomplished bad-ass, felt very relatable. Jack was the epitome of "golden retriever energy". Their dynamic was so funny and felt like a really enjoyable twist on the grumpy-sunshine trope.

At times, I felt like we were jumping from event to event without a lot of flow. There were time jumps (no more than a day or so) where, instead, I would have preferred to see things play out between characters. However, these jumps made the book feel like it was flying by. Maybe this could have benefitted from another 50 or so pages? I think that it would have been better to see the chemistry build between Jack and Hannah because it seemed like he was pretty invested right off the bat, but without a lot of reason as to WHY he liked her.

Regardless of the suggestions above, I had such a great time reading this book. I honestly want to go back and reread it from the beginning to watch Hannah and Jacks relationship develop again.

Review to be posted on Bookstagram shortly.

What a carefree, fun read with likable, relatable characters! Sure, 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗢𝗗𝗬𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗗 is bit predictable, but there is so much to love about this book.

Right off the bat, Jack and Hannah had chemistry and a connection. Maybe he truly was that great of an actor, but I believed it. And in a world where we are told we can be anything, I loved that she was his bodyguard. Why couldn't a petite woman be a bodyguard? The job would have to require just as much mental as physical skills.

I loved that Jack wanted to be home with his sweet mom's side as she was battling breast cancer. To me, that is 100% relatable - and that is what family does. As a BC survivor, I also appreciated that they did not go into too many details.

Sometimes you need a carefree, light read with likable, fun characters. Sure, 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗢𝗗𝗬𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗗 is bit predictable, but there is so much to love about this book.

Right off the bat, Jack and Hannah had chemistry and a connection. Maybe he truly was that great of an actor, but I believed it. And in a world where we are told we can be anything, I loved that she was his bodyguard. Why couldn't a petite woman be a bodyguard? The job would have to require just as much mental as physical skills.

I loved that Jack wanted to be home with his sweet mom's side as she was battling breast cancer. To me, that is 100% relatable - and that is what family does. As a BC survivor, I also appreciated that they did not go into too many details.

Katherine Center books are like a warm hug, and The Bodyguard was no exception. The Bodyguard focuses on Hannah, an executive protection agent who was assigned to protect Jack, a Hollywood star. Like all Katherine Center books, there are deeper issues involved, including grief, feelings of self worth, and family issues. Even though a large part of the novel is set in Houston, there is also a Texas ranch involved that makes me want to take a trip to the country. The love story was adorable, and a fun spin on the forced proximity trope. KC is a must-read author for me, and I really enjoyed this book.

Thank you to the publishers and to Netgalley for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a cute romcom read. Perfect for summer honestly. I loved how it took place on a ranch and it was basically about a bodyguard falling in love with an actor. The romance was cute as well as the whole Stapleton family. Did it wow me? No, but like I said it's a perfect summer read if you just want a cutesy book!