She has her heart set on a hockey player.
Any hockey player.
When the new general manager of the Chicago Rebels tasks Tara Becker with faking it with one of his players to help clean up the naughty jock’s act, she’s all over it. She’ll make that misbehaving hunk of muscle look good and get her dream guy into the bargain.
Only the path from fake to real is riddled with thorns . . .
New Rebels GM Hale Fitzpatrick thinks ditzy blonde and wannabe WAG Tara is the perfect solution to his PR problem – until she isn’t. Soon Fitz realizes that maybe he doesn’t have control of the strings after all . . . especially when he starts to fall for his pretty little puppet.
A fake relationship hockey romance – with a twist!
Review:
If you read Foreplayer and thought that maaaaaybe there was a bit more to Tara Becker than first impressions indicated and she might indeed be (more than) worthy of her own HEA…this is the book fo you! (Heck, even if you didn’t read Foreplayer (gasp! What are you doing with your life), or if you did and still think (gasp! How can you be so cruel?) she’s a grasping opportunist, you need to read this book. Trust me.)
I loved Tara and Fitz/Hale’s story. I’ll admit I was a bit concerned early on by the fact that the team does indeed hire her to clean up a player’s image via very public fake dating (said player will get his own book eventually, yes, Kate Meader? Please and thank you) and that felt like it could get to be a bit squicky. And then there’s Tara’s insistance that she *has* to marry a successful hockey player. I mean, on the surface, I get it–hockey players, amiright?–but she was downright slavish to the idea, and especially as things start to get serious with the guy who arranged to pay her to rehab the rookie’s PR image and she *still* insists that no, it’s a hockey player or nothing, it got hard to keep on justifying her choices.
But–of course!–I should have known better. Ms Meader gives her *reasons* and though her choices still aren’t ones I could see myself making, I started to believe that Tara believed she had to make them. Even when it was so clearly against her best interests. And even when her making those choices was making everyone–her, Hale, and me, gosh darn it–absolutely miserable. The black moment here is pretty darn bleak.
But fortunately, Ms Meader also knows how to bring the HEA, and bring it she does–just in time! And GAH, that epilogue! There may have been some ugly tears happening over here. I will neither confirm nor deny.
Counting the days until the next book in the series!
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.