Saturday, September 23, 2017

Review: Playing with Forever by Amy Andrews

Playing with Forever by Amy Andrews
Series: Sydney Smoke Rugby, Book 4
Publisher: Entangled: Brazen
Genre: Erotic Contemporary Romance
ISBN: 9781976150920
Release Date: September 25, 2017
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N

Country boy, Ryder Davis has the world at his feet. A stellar rugby career, a winning way with women and a beach view that keeps him in blue sky and bikini babes. He's living the dream. The last thing he needs is a Great Dane called Tiny destroying his feng shui.

Dog whisperer, Juliet Morgan is about to start living her dream and she's counting down the days. In two months she'll finally be moving to Italy and no man's going to stop her this time. Not even a rugby superstar with a badly behaved pooch.

But when Ryder skids into the animal shelter looking for help Juliet agrees to assist him with his canine issues. Pretty soon they're assisting each other out of their clothes and tumbling headlong into a sex thing with an expiry date.

Neither of them expected it to become more. But when for now starts to feel like forever Juliet hits the panic button. Ryder knows he has to play the long game and let her walk away. After all it's not over until the final hooter sounds and all's fair in love and rugby.

Amy Andrews delivers the ultimate meet-cute when a hot cowboy/rugby player goes searching for help with the possibly possessed Great Dane he’s dog-sitting. Playing with Forever starts off on a high note as Ryder and Juliet’s initial meeting has all the humor and crackling chemistry I’ve come to expect from Ms. Andrews’s work. What follows is a seriously hot story that’s enjoyable, though not quite as engaging as the first three Sydney Smoke Rugby books because the characters didn’t feel fully developed.

Ryder was a pretty likeable hero who quickly went from a playboy to a man head over heels for Juliet. Ryder is charming, good-natured, and seriously sexy, but I never felt like I got to know his character well enough for him to hold my attention. As for Juliet…I really wanted to like her. She’s a woman with a dream who has been through a lot, but again, I didn’t ever really get a sense of who she was beyond the basics. Because of this, her rather frustrating habit of getting irritated with Ryder over little things made me irritated with her more often than not as the story progressed. Juliet isn’t a bad heroine, but I wanted more. The romance is mostly based on sex and because there wasn’t a lot of depth to Ryder or Juliet it was difficult for me to understand why they fell in love. That doesn’t mean Playing with Forever is a bad story. Ms. Andrews’s writing is so much fun that even with the issues I had with the romance, I still liked the story well enough. The supporting cast – both human and canine – added personality to the story. Tiny the Great Dane threatens to steal every scene he’s in and I adored any scene that featured Ryder’s teammates. So while Playing with Forever had its ups and downs for me, I absolutely love the Sydney Smoke Rugby series and cannot wait for more hot rugby heroes.


FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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