Why I read it: I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Alex Sullivan may be the San Diego Barracudas’ resident playboy, but he hasn’t been able to forget the woman who kissed him like her life depended on it ten months ago. When he sees her again at a teammate’s wedding, he can’t think of anything but spending more time with her. Preferably naked.
Claire Marzano lost years catering to an overbearing husband, and she’s not going to answer to anyone ever again. A hot fling is just what she needs to get back in the game, and that’s exactly what sexy Alex offers—one wild long weekend away, with no promises or obligations.
But that one weekend changes everything. Despite knowing full well Alex isn’t the kind to ever commit, Claire is falling for him. And Alex secretly imagines a future with his strong, smart “accidental girlfriend.” Until a surprise announcement and an on-ice accident threaten to derail everything…or cause Alex to finally ditch his old ways and become the man Claire needs him to be.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): I really enjoy this author’s writing voice and I especially like the way she writes guys and the banter between the team mates. I liked On The Surface and loved Across the Line so I had high hopes for Out of the Game. More so because I liked Alex Sullivan in the earlier stories. He’s a charming rogue type character. A bit of a manslut but not in a cheaty way. I don’t have a problem with someone who wants to have lots of casual sex as long as they’re not making promises they can’t or don’t keep. If both parties are on the same page, it’s all good IMO. There is something great about watching a guy like this fall for “the One” and I was looking forward to what Ms. Willoughby would do with it. It had such a promising start but it went off the rails for me about halfway in and never quite recovered.
Claire Marzano is the sister of Erin, the heroine of On the Surface. In that book, having just found out her husband of 10 years had been cheating on her, she gets drunk at a team celebration and ends up making out with Alex in the office of the bar they’re all in. They meet again at Tim’s and Erin’s wedding – Alex is the best man and Claire is the matron of honour. Alex appreciates all kinds of pretty women but it’s clear he’s a bit of a breast man. Claire is busty and he wants, quite desperately, to get his hands (and mouth) on that amazing rack once more. Given that Claire is now freshly divorced, he thinks he might be the perfect candidate for a rebound fling. There is definite chemistry and attraction between them but neither expects a long term relationship to develop and when it does, it almost takes them both by surprise. The early parts of the book where they were just getting started were the best of it for me. I laughed at the section where Alex is teaching Claire about “chirping”.
He tugged her hand. “Come on.”
“Okay, but I’m not skating.”
“Don’t be such a pussy. We’ll have the whole thing to ourselves.”
“Did…did you just call me a pussy?” First he says “fuck you” to her, and now, this. One thing was for sure. If she was going to spend time with Alex Sullivan she had to accept his lack of a verbal filter.
He chuckled and shook his head. “I thought we went over this already. First rule of hanging out with a hockey player. You have to be willing to take chirps, especially if you’re going to dish them out.” He started walking again. So did she. “So, you have two choices when someone chirps you. You can either protest, which will just invite more chirping, or you can fire one back. For example, when someone calls you a pussy, you could say, ‘I am not a pussy,’ but I don’t recommend that. You sound like a whiny five-year-old if you say that.”
“What do you do?” she asked.
“Assuming it was a guy calling me a pussy, I would probably say something about the size of his dick. That’s always good. ‘At least my prick’s bigger than a mini carrot.’ Or ‘At least a woman notices when I stick my dick inside her.’ Something like that.”
Claire bit her lip, not wanting to encourage him, even though she wanted to laugh. He was so unequivocally male.
The attendant manning the skating rink perked up at their approach.
“You got a size 12?” Alex asked him.
The attendant went to one of the cubbies. “Yes, sir.”
“Cream Puff, tell him what size you wear.”
“Alex, I told you I’m not skating.”
“Pussy.”
“Pencil dick,” she blurted.
Alex beamed. “That’s my girl!” he said to the attendant. “I taught her that.”
“Well done, sir.”
If the book had continued with that kind of zing, I’d have been a very happy reader.
With the benefit of hindsight I think that Alex and Claire were just so well suited and so good together that there was little to keep them apart. Sure, Alex had a reputation and even he was worried about whether he could commit for longer than the summer off-season (his previous record). But he isn’t actually tempted by any of the other females throwing themselves at him and so it’s really a non-issue.
The back half of the book is patchy and episodic with long stretches of time passing between sections. Literally months went by between one chapter and the next and I got a bit of whiplash there for a while, trying to work out if something was missing. I wonder if part of the problem with the timeline is that it shares some commonality with Across the Line – Calder and Becca have started dating when they go to Tim’s and Erin’s wedding together; although Calder and Becca get their HEA before the end of Out of the Game.
The final conflict, when it came, felt overdone and manufactured. Not enough space was given to either of the two issues between the protagonists. One of the problems here was that they were both acting and reacting like mature people do. Even when Alex was battling depression at the end it was entirely understandable. But regular (albeit wealthy) people dealing with problems the best they can isn’t always that exciting to read about and it’s even less interesting when it comes across more like a synopsis of the issue rather than the story itself. I felt like this story took a somewhat tired turn and unlike the previous book, it felt very predictable.
What else? I heartily recommend the first two books in the series and even the first half of this one – but the last part felt a bit like the author had lost her impetus and it didn’t work all that well for me. Out of the Game was eminently readable but there wasn’t enough substance at the end for me to make the happy book noise. Combining a strong first half with an ordinary back end, I end up at around a C.
