Going for the Goal (Perfect Play, #3)

by Sara Rider

[EBookObsessed]

I enjoyed the chemistry of the main characters. It was just the conflict which caused a great deal of painful eye rolling. [/box]

We met Jillian Nichols in Keeping Score since she is the Agent for Jaime Chen. Here we learn more about Jillian who is a women in what is very much a male dominated business of sports management. Her father was taken advantage of by a crooked sports agent and lost all of his money. Jillian not only wants to build her struggling business, she needs a certain level of clientele if she wants to run for the Board which is currently dominated by Lou Parsons and his cronies. Lou owns one of the largest sports agencies and has taken advantage of most of the new, young talent who don't know any better. Somehow Lou is managing to steal all of Jillian's potential new clients and no matter how hard she explains that the contract Lou is offering is bad in the long-run, they keep signing with him. If Jillian can make it on the Board, she plans to fight to impose guidelines for sports agents which would protect the players from being robbed by their own agents.

Jillian in approached by Nick "The Punisher" Salinger to represent him and renegotiate his contract so he can continue to play with the New York Vipers. Nick isn't getting along with the new hotshot center, who just happens to be engaged to the owner's daughter, and who is trying to make sure Nick's contract doesn't get renewed.

Nick remembers meeting Jillian almost a decade before when she was just starting out and remembered how she planned to fight for what was best for her clients. He needs Jillian on his side if he wants to stay with a team that has any chance to win the Stanley Cup. But Jillian doesn't want anything to do with the Punisher. While his NHL salary will give Jillian the boost she needs to qualify for the Board election, Jillian wants clients that are going to work with her so she tells Nick thank, but no thanks.

She later has doubts that she hasn't given Nick a fair chance and goes to speak with him about how willing he would be to trust her. She can't promise the Vipers will resign Nick, but if he listens, she believes that she can get him what he wants, he just has to trust in her and work with her. Nick he isn't certain her plan will work. He especially doesn't like all Jillian rules, especially the one where Jillian says they can't date since dating clients is high up on her no-no list.

I can understand Jillian's hesitation to date Nick. It makes it look like sex with Jillian is just a perk in her representation and she's try to get on the Board of the all-boys club so she can't look like the only way a woman can get a big client is to sleep with him. Instead of just saying no, she could have stated her problem to Nick directly. He seemed to understand why she might be hesitant to be involved but he was more interested in getting Jillian in bed than worrying about any potential career problems.

There were some small plot issues to be found such as the hot shot star, who was a jerk to the rest of the team, was quite the womanizer and was picking up strange women in bars, even though it was public knowledge that he was engaged to the owner's daughter. I would imagine this should have made some kind of tabloid splash and that the owner would pay more attention to what his future son-in-law was doing but he seemed to be able to do anything he wanted like a spoiled child, although that seems to make him a perfect choice for the owner's daughter.

The eye rolling comes after we finally get the Nick/Jillian relationship in full swing and Jillian gets blackmailed to break up with Nick. Come on, really? There are only a few plots where this kind of blackmail still is believable and this is not one of them. Instead of going to Nick and explaining the situation and saying "hey, let's lay low until we get that contract signed and then we can go back to our lives and don't do anything stupid like confront the jerk," she breaks his heart and he is sulking around, not playing well, and is risking his contract anyway because of that. Would it have been so hard to fake a break up with someone for a few weeks? Hell, I would have preferred if it turned out he was faking the depression, then signed his name on the contract, gave the blackmailer the finger and kissed his girl, in a "screw you, you lose, we faked it plot twist." But no, nothing so exciting happened.

Jillian, Nick and Nick's brother Ben were great characters and this was a really good story and I was enjoyed it up until the bad plot conflict. It ends well and the bad guys get put in their place but it was too late, my good feelings were spoiled and it ruined my overall enjoyment of the story.