Hard Chrome is a contemporary romance where a woman returns home after the death of her dad to take over his auto body shop. The shop also specializes in classic car restoration and repairs. Unfortunately, I realized early on this was going to be a perfect storm of “No thanks” due to rude and judgmental behavior from the protagonists that was offensive and reminded me too much of people I try to stay away from. That, plus the plot was similar to a romance that I had just finished in which heroine and her sisters are left to run their father’s business in a male-dominated industry. So yeah, I DNF-ed it pretty quickly and I don’t feel the least bad about it because my reading time is precious.
Tanner Ellis is back in town to head up her father’s car shop, American Heavy Metal. She left her humble beginnings behind years ago, but is willing to help her father’s legacy get out of the red and back to its former glory. She has a sister who stuck around and who is totally on board with Tanner’s newfound dedicated to AHM. Of course, Tanner’s motivations aren’t entirely altruistic, as her life in Chicago has gone tits up both personally and professionally. This new responsibility is merely a project to keep her distracted until figures out a way to rebuild.
Duke Wilson is an employee of the shop and was like a surrogate son to Tanner’s late father. He’s not exactly thrilled by Tanner’s return. She didn’t bother with the shop before and Duke doesn’t bother to disguise his feelings that she’s just a “spoiled princess.” These two throw around snap judgement like it’s going out of style.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that my relationship with my mother and father is no one’s damn business. Toxic parents exist and their toxicity is often bolstered by the fact that they can be really good at hiding their shittiness from other people. Not that this applies in this case, but I get sick of seeing characters vilified by their potential romantic partners for not having relationships with their parents when I’m of the personal opinion that setting boundaries to protect your own emotional health is good thing.
/end rant.
The first time Tanner sees Duke climb out of his giant truck blasting country music, he’s wearing a white tank top and “low-slung jeans:”
…straight out of the pages of a beefcake calendar. In my years post-college, running a day spa, I’ve never had to deal with an unfortunate attraction to an employee. Holy shit, I need to implement a dress code.
*Amanda puts on a tweed blazer and pushes up her glasses.*
Let’s unpack this down, shall we?
Now, there’s nothing wrong with admiring an attractive person, but here, Tanner is already assuming this appreciation of Duke’s good looks will turn into a problem. So much so, that her first order of business is to make all employees wear uniforms. This man is wearing a tank top and jeans, which seems pretty standard for a rural country mechanic. I would know, as my dad is one.
Would we be as accepting about Tanner’s decision if she were the hero? If Hero Tanner took one look at a heroine wearing occupationally-appropriate clothes and was so overwhelmed by attraction that the only way to solve this was implementing a dress code? It reminded me a lot of high school dress codes, which really only served to police a girl’s body because god forbid a bra strap show in front of a boy.
Tanner also goes on to make fun of Duke’s name, telling him that only dogs are named Duke. Seriously, that’s pretty damn rude when you’re meeting someone for the first time.
Duke was not the hero for me, either. He grabs the heroine’s arm without her consent and also sexually harasses her, saying that if she wants him in a uniform, she’ll have to personally take his measurements. I don’t have time for heroes like Duke.
In fact, Duke’s behavior, description, and character as a whole hit too close to home for me to enjoy this book. I grew up with men like Duke. Good ol’ boys who want their trucks to sound like freight trains as they kick up dust on dirt roads, who had no problems pressuring me or other young women into situations they weren’t entirely comfortable with, who proudly boasted of their dad’s KKK affiliations, who nearly ran a gay teacher out of the county. Seeing as how Duke is a romance hero, I doubt he’d be anything like the shitty racist, sexist teens I grew up with, but the visceral reaction I had to Duke’s introduction in the first chapter had me gnashing my teeth. I didn’t want to spend any reading time with him, or with Tanner.
I really wanted to like this book. When I was younger, my dad let me help with a classic car restoration project. We had a 1967 Mercury Monterey up on cinder blocks in the backyard. He watched as I took off each tire, getting my hands so greasy that my mom insisted I wash them off under the hose rather than take one step into the house.
I had hoped the nerdery of old cars would make me feel closer to my dad (who lives 2000+ miles away). Admittedly, I’ve been in a weirdly emotional state about my family; shoutout to my great therapist Katie. However, I never made it far enough in the book to reach those details simply because the main characters were instantly offensive and reminded me too much of awful people that I didn’t want to spend any time with.
If I had stuck with this book, it’s possible things would have turned around for me. Reviewing is subjective, though, and we all have idiosyncrasies in what we prefer for characters, settings, etc. My reading time is limited and important, and I didn’t have the motivation to continue with these characters, to see if they grow and change as people. My impression of the protagonists at the start of the book was too negative to make me invested enough to see them achieve an HEA. So, yeah, I’m judging them both for being judgmental and awful, but I have a TBR stack I’m ready to demolish. On to the next book.
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Thanks!
What a shame. Its such a lovely cover. Lol. And seriously, a woman called Tanner is laughing at someone else’s name.
Thanks for taking one for the team, Amanda. That sound you hear is me ripping this book from my tbr list. Anyway, the only reason it was on the list in the first place is because I think the (male) cover model is my alternate-universe boyfriend, Zack Salaun (aka, the guy on the cover of Brenda Rothert’s ANTON). Yes—I’m so shallow, sometimes I try books because I like the cover model.
Nan de Plume, you are so right about the guy’s hair on his to Defend.
Wow, I honestly can’t remember the last time I canceled a pre-order. Amanda, my blood pressure and wallet thank you.
That’s sad, because I really liked her Blueberry Boys novel. But time is precious, and I wouldn’t have continued with this one either.
This was a DNF for me too. Both the heroine and hero were jerks. There’s also a bunch of siblings and they all have T names. None of them were introduced though, they were just there.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that this book didn’t work for.
Amanda, whilst you made some sound observations regarding the sexism, I did not see any reference to the KKK or Homophobic behaviour in this book.
Where we reading the same book?
For example the heroine’s lesbian sister has been living happily in the town since she was born, and in fact had a live-in girlfriend- a situation happily accepted by the Hero, and he is in fact very close to them
@Sita: I was making a comparison that the hero reminded me too much of the men in the community where I grew up and both main characters rubbed me the wrong way so much that I didn’t care to continue. First impressions are important.
@sita, I think Amanda was saying that the characterization of the reminded her of things she’s seen before. Not that it was actually in the book.
I am ever so tired of romances in which pushy chemistry between the hero and heroine denotes true love and trad gender roles are all. No thank you.
I feel your pain. I just DNF’d a book at chapter two. It was an alternative POV chapters book and chapter two was the hero’s first POV chapter. I hated his entire guts. And I could not get past it to even try to see if he gets redeemed. I fully agree there are too many books to try to stick with one when it elicits such a visceral reaction early on. Even when you suspect that the author will turn the character around. I just didn’t want to spend any more time with the guy.
Regarding this book, I love the cover but the blurb had turned me off. I actually clicked on this review hoping that it would convince me to read it and convince me that maybe my reading of the blurb was off. LOL. Oh well.
“Toxic parents exist and their toxicity is often bolstered by the fact that they can be really good at hiding their shittiness from other people. Not that this applies in this case, but I get sick of seeing characters vilified by their potential romantic partners for not having relationships with their parents.”
Snap. I was *enraged* as a preteen by an Inspirational with a former battered child. Her junior minister love interest met her while doing outreach among the poor. So that made it an additional conflict of interest and abuse of position when he forced her to reconnect with her batterer mum. (Considering acquisitions like that…probably not a coincidence that our church librarian was a complete control-freaky busybody.)
I’m pretty sick of that pressure plotline myself. If writers must rerun it, they might at least assign it to the romantic false lead, debunk the ‘virtue’ of enablers/collaborators/Flying Monkeys.
Makes sense. It really is a gaslighting douche move to preach togetherness, like you know better than the person who’s been on the spot facing the ugliness.
I feel your pain. I went to high school with guys like that (and have some racist jackholes in my step family hooray), so I would’ve NOPE’d right out of this one. There was a book I just forced myself through for a review that had me seeing red every time I picked it up. Very pushy “hero” who completely ignored the heroine’s boundaries and was instantly possessive of her a day or so after they met. Gag.
I’m sorry, her job post college was RUNNING A DAY SPA?