Contemporary Romance published by C. Scott Publishing 23 Oct 21
I discovered this author duo in the last few years and have enjoyed their books so far, as well as their books written under their respective names. I’ve even gotten to the point where I just open one of their stories and begin reading, no need to check out the blurb or reviews or anything else. Sometimes, though, that may not be a good idea, which happened in this case of Well Played.
I think if I’d read the blurb, I might have had some doubts when it comes to the heroine being the ex of the hero’s brother. I’ve never been a fan of those types of books – mostly because I like reading about brothers and families. So, unfortunately, I was in for a heck of a time with these characters.
Presley and her young son, Alex, move back to her hometown to hopefully renovate The Palm Inn the boy’s grandfather left to him. Well, only half of the inn. The other half went to her ex’s younger brother, Levi Miller. He wants to sell the place and be done with it, because there’s too much work to be done to sink oodles of money into it. So he’s a bit flummoxed when he learns Presley wants to remodel it into a B&B and start taking in guests.
All of this on top of the fact these two don’t get along, both of them working under wrong assumptions after getting incorrect info from Tanner, the injured ex-football player who blames everyone but himself for his problems, which affects his son most of all. And he’s the reason I don’t like this book as much as the authors’ other stories I’ve read. Tanner is just a big baby, letting his lost, short career and jealousy of his successful brother get in the way of everything that matters.
In the meantime, with Levi and Presley working on the inn and Levi getting to know his nephew better, things begin to change between them. Slowly but surely they see what they couldn’t before and suddenly attraction sets in. I do enjoy these two together. They try to fight said attraction, knowing it will upset their family dynamic in a number of ways, but the best intentions and all that. Levi does get on my nerves a bit with his one-sided decision late in the book. I’m a fan of getting things out in the open and working through them together kinda reader. Things go further south when Tanner shows up out of the blue, with hopes of working things out with Presley, despite her being upfront and honest with him. Again, because of his attitude, he’s not anywhere close to a likable character in this story.
All this being said, I have to say that the humor thrown in throughout the book did make me chuckle out loud several times. The story does have its enjoyable moments. I know if there had been some tweaking with the brother story line I might have enjoyed it more. Not a bad book, but also not as good as some of their other stories.
Grade: C
Summary:
It all started with a bet.
When my young son inherited half of his great grandfather’s historic inn, I decided to move us both to the place where I grew up.
Notice I said half of the Inn. The other half now belonged to Levi Miller, the famous quarterback who had other ideas about what we should do with the property.
We won’t mention that I accidentally injured him during our first meeting, causing him to get eight stitches.
You could say we got off on the wrong foot.
We bickered a lot as we both moved into the property while we figured things out.
He wanted to unload the rundown place which, admittedly, needed a lot of work.
I wanted to restore The Palm Inn to its original beauty and re-open it as a bed and breakfast.
We couldn’t agree on anything. So Levi made me a proposal. One he thought I would surely lose. If I could sell out the place by the time he had to leave for training at the end of summer, he would back off and let me run it.
But in the weeks that followed, we got more than we bargained for while we were living under the same roof.
Levi and I got closer, and before I knew it, my nightly fantasies about the brawny Adonis became a reality. Not to mention, he was so great with my son.
We were in over our heads in more ways than one.
Because not only was he the last man on Earth I should be falling for because of our deal, but Levi was also my ex’s older brother.
And now the inn was the least of my problems.
No excerpt available.
