Unexpected Rush (Play-By-Play, #11)

by Jaci Burton

In the new Play-By-Play novel by the New York Times bestselling author of All Wound Up, a football hot shot and his best friend’s sister are breaking all the rules.

All the Right Moves
 
For Barrett Cassidy, playing defense for the Tampa Hawks is a dream come true. And now he may have discovered his dream woman. Harmony Evans, once the sweet, gawky teenage sister of his best friend and teammate has grown into a smart, gorgeous woman with moves he finds hard to resist. But he knows he can’t get involved with his best friend’s sister—it’s guy code.
 
Harmony has always gone after what she wants with single-minded determination, from her independence to her education to her career in interior design. She never expected her youthful crush on Barrett to develop into something deeper. And she’s not about to let some ridiculous man rules or her brother stand in her way.
 
When the chemistry is this combustible, lines tend to get crossed. And when Barrett and Harmony’s secret gets out, it just might be game over...

• ISBN10: 0425276813
• ISBN13: 9780425276815
• Publish Date: 16 February 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425276815

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Rating: 2.5 Stars

I don't know what happened! I usually get a solid 4 stars from a Play by Play book, but this one just didn't live up to the rest of the series. I feel like the series is reverting back to book 1 standards.

The Perfect Play had a decent story, but it was a lot of sex with some story. As I progressed through the series, it seemed as though Burton moved further from that erotica line and closer to the erotic romance line. This book felt like it was creeping back to the erotica side with a thin story and lots (LOTs!) of sex.

It was awesome being with the Cassidy family again, and the ending was SO strong, but I was left wanting more.

Overall: Good characters, but not enough story

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[EBookObsessed]

DNF – I thought I might go back and try to finish this one but I was so uninterested in this story, it was time to admit defeat.

THOUGHTS:
I didn’t even feel like writing this one up so I just gave you the standard information.

As much as I like Barrett’s twin brother Tucker’s story, I had absolutely no interest in continuing this one. Harmony is the sister of Barrett’s best friend from college and teammate. They are as close as brothers. Harmony just broke up with her boyfriend and sees Barrett at her mother’s house for a party and decides she wants to get some of that and she is not going to take no for an answer.

Barrett knows that his friend is overprotective of his baby sister and knows that screwing with said baby sister will put his friendship in jeopardy so he puts is foot down and let’s Harmony know it will not happen. No way. No how.

Well, it appears when you have money to burn, when you decide to go to the beach with your BFF’s baby sister, you spend the money getting a hotel room and the fancy hotel so you can change your close and get that pesky sand off and have a private cabana on the beach where you can slather lotion on your BFF’s sister and have dirty, sex dreams about her as you snooze in the warm sun. That’s about where I gave up.

We were a third of the way through the book and there was absolutely nothing more to this story than eye-fucking and “no-no” “yes-yes”. First of all, I was pissed off that Harmony would have no respect for her brother and Barrett’s deep friendship that she was willing to toss it away so she could have sex with Barrett. There was no way Barrett would still be treated by one of the family after he broke Harmony’s heart or vice versa. Yet knowing that Barrett feared repercussions, she kept pursuing him.

And although I didn’t read any further, you know he was going to give in because they might say “Bro’s before Ho’s” but give a guy a naked girl and bro’s go out the window.

I would have appreciated it more if they had a sit down discussion about trying a relationship with their clothes on and maybe talked to her brother ahead of time so things didn’t get awkward. Now this might have all happened, but there wasn’t enough story outside of the eye-banging and the no-yes, no-yes to keep me reading.

After Tucker’s story, I was very disappointed.

[Cocktails and Books]

This review was originally posted on Cocktails and Books

This is the eleventh book in the Play by Play series and each one is a stand-alone, although all of the characters are loosely connected. This is a charming and sexy story about Barrett Cassidy, an NFL football player. He plays defense for the Tampa Hawks and he finds himself constantly thinking about Harmony, his teammate’s younger sister. Barrett is well aware of the unwritten guy code about staying away from your friend’s sisters and he does his best to keep his distance from Harmony. However, when Harmony helps Barrett decorate his house and they are continually thrown together, he finds it impossible to avoid the strong attraction simmering between them.

I found it easy to like Barrett and Harmony and enjoyed all the sparks flying between them when they are together. Harmony is successful and confident and I was impressed that she is not afraid to go after what she wants. Barrett is a nice guy and I love how he treats Harmony and yet he also worries about upsetting her brother. They try to keep their romance under wraps so Harmony’s brother doesn’t find out and of course, that doesn’t work. Harmony is tired of her brother being so overprotective and I can’t blame her. While it is nice her brother cares about her, she is smart and can make her own decisions about who she wants to date. I thought this story was entertaining, but I have to admit, I did not feel as engaged as I have with some of the other books in this series. I am not sure if it was the story or characters or maybe both, but something was missing for me. I did like the multicultural aspect and Barrett and Harmony have lots of chemistry flowing between them. If you enjoy stories about hot, down to earth, football players and feisty, successful, confident women, you will enjoy this one.