I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

Thea Cunning is a 23 year old Harvard Law student, who discovers on the first day of classes, that the most feared professor is also the man she met in a bar and had spent the last week having sex.

Levi Black had just been thinking about the brown skinned beauty he'd spent the last week with. Thinking of calling her again, though they'd only agreed on one week before they went their seperate ways. So when he sees she's a student in his class, he's shocked and can see the same on her face.

Soon these two realized that their pasts are intertwined. Thea will have to bare the horrors of her past and seek help from Levi in order to make her family whole again. Levi will go against his family and friends, risking his heart as well as his career to bring Thea what she needs.

This is my first J.J. McAvoy book and I really enjoyed it. I didn't love the narrators though. The male reader was a little robotic in his delivery which kept taking me out of the book. Which is also the reason I read along at the same time.

But I will read more for this author in the future.

Black Rainbow is one of those New Adult books you /have/ to read if you read NA. It's like NA 101 class and they leave you to read this book so you understand and get to know this genre. It's a wonderful story, filled with angst and forbidden romance and a very domestic couple who loves each other very very much.

I love JJ McAvoy's books so much, I've read a few. And her books keep getting better and better. I love that she writes black girls as main characters, I adore their story arcs and their personalities so much always. Also the heroes the author writes are always so swoony (she is doing a good job then!!!) and I always wish I could be with them lmao.

I recommend this book if you love HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER, if you love that dynamic that McDreamy and Meredith have in Grey's, if you love friendships in unexpected circumstances and love when you least expect it.

leigh's review:

A sucker for the student/teacher power dynamic, I was excited to read this story. I love it when you have the pupil and professor meet and sparks fly between them, but this had a new twist on the topic: the student and teacher had already met, had a steamy, sexy week long affair and then found out who the other was.
Levi was a delicious puzzle. As the guitar-playing attorney Thea met at a bar, Levi was sweet, sensitive and charming. It was touching to watch him fall in love with the sassy woman who was supposed to be nothing more than a fling. But as Levi Black, Harvard law professor and preeminent criminal defense attorney, he was just flat out hot. Ruthless and demanding, he presented a dominant figure that made his attraction to his student all that much more taboo.
While Levi was an interesting contradiction, Thea, on the other hand, was more straightforward. She was sharp, dedicated, and her ruthlessness made her a perfect match for Levi. Together, these two were an equally matched couple. The dialogue was quick and snappy and I enjoyed getting enough background on these two to understand what made them tick. Additionally, the author included an epilogue so I could visit with Thea and Levi several years down the road. I always love to see how people are doing after their happily ever after, and this did not disappoint.
Unfortunately, what did disappoint me was the sex scenes between these two. Something felt off. Levi was sometimes dominant, sometimes not, and sometimes I just wasn’t sure what was going on. There seemed to be foreplay and suddenly they were in the middle of having sex. Did I miss something? When did that start? I kept having to go back, MID-SEX SCENE to re-read it. Nothing takes you out of enjoying the dirty parts than having to think them through.
On the whole, I did enjoy Black Rainbow. The story moved along and had its twists and turns. I liked both the hero and heroine and was constantly surprised by Levi. One minute he was a stern taskmaster (yummy) and the next, caring and willing to open himself up (sigh). And Thea, well, she was just ballsy enough to make me love her.