Thank you so much to Berkley Romance, Netgalley, and PRH Audio for providing advanced copies of this! All thoughts and opinions are still my own.

I've enjoyed Lana Ferguson's romances up until this point despite them often being a little over the top and silly. But I was nervous going into this one knowing that she used real athletes stretching for "sexy" advertising for this romance. But I was willing to go in with an open mind.

Unfortunately I liked pretty much nothing about this romance...

I will say, Lana Ferguson, can write a great steamy, tension filled scene. It's definitely one of her strong suits as an author. Her characters have great chemistry.

But everything else left so much to be desired. The plot was silly and contrived, the characters (and their relationship) was entirely one dimensional, and the exposition was obnoxiously repetitive.

There was no reason for their "forbidden" romance. The heroine talked about her teenage crush on the hero so often it was annoying. There was no depth to why they liked each other. But the biggest factor was the hero's "dark past". I don't think I could come up with a more contrived, ridiculous reason for him to have a "bad reputation".

It made absolutely no sense.

While I've enjoyed 2 of this author's books in the past, I think this is where we part ways. I don't feel like there is enough development or depth tp any of her characters or their romances to keep me coming back to her books.