SUMMARY
The agency sends you an adorable 5 foot 2 brunette that barely looks capable of protecting herself, let alone anyone else. Turns out “Ryan” is Emerson Ryan, former FBI. She drop-kicks your butt to the ground to prove her point. She’s more than capable of protecting Bristol, your little girl… But you shouldn’t be turned on by her fierceness. Everyone thinks she’s your daughter’s nanny, including Bristol. Emerson looks the part and goes along with it at your insistence until she’s forced to be your daughter’s babysitter. With a professional hockey career on the line, you need Emerson by your side. But questions will arise the moment you hire a “second” nanny for Bristol, and you don’t want to worry your daughter about the threat to her safety. The next best thing? Hire Emerson as your fake girlfriend. She can protect Bristol, and you get a little extra publicity when the news learns about your new spicy romance. But how long can you pretend everything is fake when the sparks are real? This steamy hockey romance book features a grumpy single dad, a sizzling romance with plenty of drama. No cheating. Standalone. HEA.”
Image and summary from Goodreads.
REVIEW
I kept seeing ads on my facebook for this specific book and ended up purchasing it through the authors website directly. The summary sounded really interesting and I’m a sucker for sports romances. Like if I was only allowed to read one trope for the rest of my life, that’s the one that I’d choose.
This was a very fast read for me, I finished it in under 6 hours and I wish I had spent the time reading something else. I found this to be a really bad read. The writing was ok but it had way too many tropes in one short novel.
I don’t know why you the author would put in a sports romance a mafia side story where the hockey players daughter has links to the Italian mafia through her mother? It’s not relevant at all to the story. The mother really only comes in for one scene and even that was not needed at all. The mother abandoned her baby daughter for safety and signed over her rights as a parents then comes in saying she wants her daughter to move schools because the daughter is in the same class as the son of the mafia boss. Yet the end of the story the children are friendly with each other and they take them ice skating regularly. Why does this have to have a mafia side story. If the author needed a reason for the mother to leave the story, just give her a backstory that she didn’t want to be a mother and keep her out of the story.
Also the female main character says that she was sexually harassed by her old boss and that was the reason she quit her job with the FBI and says that she never wants to be in that position again. But then she ends up giving in to her new boss, the father of the girl she’s meant to be employed to protect pretty quickly into the story. I mean he does end up being very protective of her and does look out for her against his team mates and the manager of the team
The fake dating in this book was terrible, plus all the lying to the daughter and kind of confusing the child. Though the child behaves a lot older than her supposed age of 6. Some of the things she says, sounds a lot more adult like for a supposed 6 year old.
All in all, I do not recommend this book to anyone. I’m being generous with the 1 star rating that I gave it. There’s way too much going on in such a short novel and really wish I had spent my time reading anything else. I will not be continuing the other books in the series.
-Rachelle
