Blog Tour Review: Playing the Game – Stephanie Quee

Playing the Game by Stephanie Queen
Series:
Release Date:  February 20, 2012
Publisher:
Page Count:  389
Source:  Sizzling PR
Buy the book at: Amazon 

Playing the Game: About more than a ball. Can a woman bring down a legend by distracting him from his game? Since her disastrous marriage ended, Roxanne Monet has sworn off serious relationships with men. She has more important things to worry about, like no money, no job and accusations that she murdered her wealthy husband. But when she meets superstar Barry Dennis and he challenges her to a game of seduction, she decides to play ball. When the game turns serious, she unintentionally exposes the legend to be a flawed man. Barry Dennis picked the wrong woman to play games with when he decides to flirt with the enigmatic Roxanne. Being the best takes all he has. He can’t afford to let anything or anyone interfere with his first and only priority–Basketball. But as the attraction between them heats up, he finds himself losing sight of his life’s game plan. While the sports world’s microscope is trained on Barry’s game and the media hounds Roxanne about her husband’s mysterious death, the stakes are ratcheted up even higher when Barry’s young daughter, Lindy is injured. Roxanne gives Lindy the attention she needs while Barry struggles to cope with the demands of his new priorities. Can Roxanne rely on Barry to do more than play ball? She takes the risk and gives him the last thing she owns–her heart.

This book was sooo much more than I thought it was going to be with very complex characters and a storyline that keeps you interested up until the very last page.

Roxanne Monet is trying to redefine herself after the death of her husband.  Problem is, her mother-in-law is convinced she’s a money grubbing, gold digging killer and has made it her personal mission to prove Roxanne killed her son.  While Roxanne deals with that, she also has to deal with the fact that she is broke, recently fired from her job and trying to make sure her volunteer work at the local hospital nets the money needed for the research department with breakthroughs in treating burn victims.  And let’s not mention the men who Roxanne tries to be friends with but they want something so much more from her.

Enter Barry Dennis.

Barry is the star of the Boston Celtics and lives for basketball.  Everything else in his life, including his daughter, comes a distant second.  When he meets Roxanne at a charity event he starts engaging her in a little game of seduction cat and mouse.  When they spend a weekend together, Barry discovers that when he’s with Roxanne he tends to forget about everything except for her.  That is unacceptable in his book and he does this dance with Roxanne where he pulls her in and then pushes her away.

Barry and Roxanne were characters that I found myself throughly frustrated with one minute and wanting to help through their issues the next.  The game they played with each other was a bit of a turn off, but had enough to it where you could see that they truly cared about each other even though they didn’t want to go down that path.  Add into the mix Lindy, Barry’s daughter, and you knew you wanted these two to fight for one another.

I loved the storyline with Roxanne’s ex-husband and his family going after her.  It’s amazing the lengths people will go to in order to preserve their memory of a loved one.

An equally frustrating and entertaining story that will have you flipping pages wondering if you’re going to be mad at what happens in the next paragraph or enjoying whatever mess Roxanne and Barry find themselves in next.