Willa Nash

Nellie Rivera is trading traffic for tranquility. When the quiet streets of small-town Montana beckon, she leaves Denver behind and moves to Calamity. It would be the perfect adventure if not for Cal Stark.

When her archnemesis dares to show his face one Saturday morning, declaring he is moving there too, she vows to make his life a misery. The town isn’t big enough for the both of them and besides . . .

She was here first.

Cal has been a thorn in her side since high school. He might have bullied her back then, but she’s not a modest teenager anymore and has learned a few plays of her own. If all goes to plan, she’ll run the former pro quarterback out of town within a month.

There’s only one problem. Cal has the same plan. He wants Calamity bad enough to pull out all the stops. And after one kiss, she realizes that he doesn’t play fair.

Calamity Montana #4

The Bully

Genesis (@whisperingchapters)

I loved this one. Enemies to lovers with a good set up for how they became enemies and how they move past that. Cal and Nellie are great. I couldn’t put it down, quick and fun. 

Definitely my favorite so far of this series. The tension is perfect. 

Megan BV

I loved this one. Enemies to lovers with a good set up for how they became enemies and how they move past that. Cal and Nellie are great. I couldn’t put it down, quick and fun. 

Definitely my favorite so far of this series. The tension is perfect. 

An enemies with benefits to lovers small town romance that will tug your heart-strings while also making you sweat with its spice!

"My nemesis since high school. The perpetual thorn in my side. The woman who could crawl beneath my skin with a single, contemptuous word. The most infuriatingly beautiful woman in the world."

Nellie and Cal have hated each other since high school; they are true enemies and cannot stand each other even now after being all grown up. Both Nellie and Cal went to a private school. While Cal was the popular kid with the money, Nellie was the scholarship kid. Because of this, her high school experience wasn't the best and in part, it was because of Cal.

"I'd use my memories, I'd steal the plays from his book and do my best to run Cal out of town."

Now they've both moved to Calamity and being so close to each other sparks the idea of pushing one another out of Calamity. But while doing so, the sparks fly.

"We were magnets, one flip and we'd repulse each other. But turned the other way, there was no ripping us apart."

Both Cal and Nellie have reasons for moving to Calamity; in part, because of their common friend. For Nellie, it's to be closer to her friend and opening a new office. For Cal, he's ready to step out of the spotlight and live a life outside of the scrutiny of people. As a football player, he was under the microscope constantly. Anything he did was picked apart. He ended up cultivating this persona of being an asshole, and for Nellie, it wasn't hard to accept it, considering he had bullied her so much before.

"The walls we'd built as shields were so thick that it was hard to see where mine ended and his began."

I cannot remember who said this (maybe the author herself or someone else), but there's this fine line when it comes to enemies-to-lovers. There has to be reason for the hate, but it can't be too bad that the characters aren't redeemable (of course, this isn't counting Dark Romance). With Cal, Nellie's right. He was a bully, he did make her life hell. But for Cal, he never knew to what extent this bullying went. He only finds out after taking one of Nellie's journals from high school. In every entry, she would go into detail what Cal had done to her. As Cal reads them and you dive into his thought process, you can see and feel through the pages how horrible he feels.

Despite the hatred between them, Nellie and Cal have this insane attraction that neither has been able to deny; it's so intense, it's palpable and flammable! The push and pull is explosive and when they get their hands on each other, it's ruthless and explosive.

"Sex with Nellie was laced with desperation. A fear that it might be the last time. So we never held back. We never went easy."

While the attraction is on another level, the emotions these two characters have for each other run deeper than they think. It was these tiny moments that my heart ached for them and for what they had to endure years ago, and basically the reason for their ultimate demise.

"He was tangled in my heart. And it was only a matter of time before he'd break it."

Willa Nash gave these two characters the explosive and equally sweet romance that Nellie and Cal deserved! It was more than I could have imagined.

The Bully Calamity Montana #4

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