Going into this book about a fictitious professional soccer team I thought I would be in for a most enjoyable read as the first two books made for fun reads.
The Atlanta Skyline, as with many a soccer teams are made up of multi nation players. But in this book Brendan Young, the Skyline’s goal keeper, is an American born player. He’s played in Europe most of his career but wants to finish up back in his home country. But things haven’t gone as planned. Instead of winding up with a bang, he’s been busted gambling on soccer, though not on his league at all. As punishment he’s been benched. Then when the ban is up, the current coach has brought in a new goal keeper and Brendan continues being benched. In fact he’s not even dressing for games as he’s been relegated way down the list. So now he’s just finishing up his illustrious career and will still be remembered for the great player he was.
But things are about to get worse for Brendan in the form of Erin Bailey, the new ethics director. The two of them know each other as they attended the same college and shared a night of passion a few months before the book opens. Erin’s real purpose is to highlight and encourage women’s soccer as she was a soccer star herself. But her boss wants to make an example of the sins of gambling using Brendan as an example. As Brendan doesn’t feel he has an issue, it’s more of a relaxation mechanism for his over active brain. The money’s not really important though is a bit of a bonus and he uses most of it for his charity work with special kids.
Needless to say he’s furious that they will be using him in their campaign and ensuring he will be remembered as the player who gambles. Thus begins a battle of the sexes.
Everything sounds interesting doesn’t it? Well I didn’t find this book even close to the caliber of the first two for a number of reason.
Erin is a Very Nasty character. She is a HUGE hypocrite who has next to no qualms about ruining Brendan’s legacy to get what she wants. What I found especially heinous is she had a crush on him while they were in college, in fact he even helped her. But did that matter to her? Nope. She treated him like the proverbial shit after their night together. Brendan wanted to see her again with the hope of a relationship but she wiped her hands of him, said that was it. She wasn’t the ‘relationship’ kind of person and it was only about the sex. Nasty. As the story moves on, she decides she still finds him very sexy and wants to have a ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement. But again, Brendan is reluctant. He wants more than that. I loathed this woman so, so much. There are other reasons but I don’t want to say too much except that she also strongly encourages Brendan to keep up his betting, though he’s stopped betting while still just playing the odds. What a truly nasty person she is to want him to keep doing the thing that’s almost destroyed him. In return, she will try and change her bosses focus on Brendan if he gives up other player who have gambled.
And the character of Brendan I found interesting, kind of repulsive and far from fully drawn. He seems to be a great guy in many ways and I was digging him. But then he’d do something I found disturbing as to giving up others to save himself, not very noble of him even though gambling is wrong. That’s not why he did it though. It was self-preservation only.
And his character was woefully underdeveloped. He has family issues but that’s never really explored as to the reason. He has a younger brother with special needs but that’s never explored except in passing. Why add it then? Why and what is the personality conflict between he and his coach. Brendan seems like a real good guy, yet his coach never really gives him a chance even though he was a star in Europe. And my biggest question is what the hell does he see in Erin?
I will confess at this point that I made it to 78% of the book hoping things would get better and I could start enjoying it the way I did the previous books but at that point I realized it was too late. I wasn’t going to overcome my loathing for Erin and too many unanswered things about Brendan. I did skip to the end so it was probably only 10% or so between 78 and 88 that I didn’t read. But it was more than enough to know I can’t recommend this one and that’s a real bummer.
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Top reviews from other countries
warpammer
DNF
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2018Verified Purchase
Amazon Customer
and I don't like gambling, but boy this book did not disappoint
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2018Verified Purchase
