The Game Plan is the third novel in the Game On series about football players and the women that climb them. I loved this new adult romance. I LOVED IT even after getting annoyed with the author, Kristen Callihan, about her The Pig Becomes a Person plot in The Friend Zone. I loved it so much that it started as a loan from a good friend and I went ahead and bought myself a copy that I have since re-read.
Fiona Mackenzie’s father and sister are sports agents. She has grown up around professional athletes, most particularly football players, and she wants nothing to do with them. Avoidance is a challenge as her sister is married to one and run-ins are inevitable. Visiting said sister, Ivy, brother-in-law, Gray, and her new nephew, Fi finds another house-guest keeping company with her family. A close friend of Gray’s, Ethan Dexter is large, stoic, sweet, bearded, tall, artistic, gentle, lumbersexual… I need a moment…
Good golly! Smokin’ hot hero alert!
…so Ethan is a close friend of the family and fellow football player with Fi’s brother-in-law. He adores Fi. He’s besotted and has been for a couple of years. (I never get tired of the “I have loved you from afar” trope.) He’s large, she’s tiny. He’s quiet, she’s “noise, noise, noise”. Taking a chance to get her attention, Ethan gains her interest, but their lives in different cities create obstacles, but that’s not the true challenge they face.Things go truly awry when a bounty is placed on Ethan’s virginity and Fi is caught in the resulting circus. This crisis allows The Game Plan to take on issues of sexual experience and consent in a way that will have you cheering in between bouts of fanning yourself over Ethan’s manifest hotness.
A truly enjoyable romance, The Game Plan is the best book by Callihan I have read so far and I expect I will read more; moreover, she should get a special award for how well she writes couple’s arguments. She’s very good with the smolder, too, but her fights are wonderfully realistic and intense.
Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.
4.5 Stars
*fans self*
You had me at Lumbersexual…
If I could just get more body hair and fewer tattoos, he would be perfect.
Pretty much…
Yay! You’re reviewing again. I think I will use some of the gift card you so generously sent me to buy this (I’m also getting the new Courtney Milan). I liked the first two in the series a lot, and had completely forgotten this was out this month. Not that I’m getting all that much reading done. The painkillers really are very strong, and tend to make me snooze when I’m trying to read. I suspect I’ll get a lot of sleep in the coming days.
emmalita loaned it to me and I was so reluctant to return it I realised I had to buy it. Between the two of you, I got the whole series.
“football players and the women that climb them”
I . . . I just love this phrase so much. Thank you for putting it into the world.
Thanks!
I tend to avoid (what’s marketed as, in my mind, anyways) ‘sports series’ because when they start talking about hockey or race car driving or .. whatever my brain goes “nah; thanks anyways.” But this one seems like it should make it on my list, regardless. Because yes. Sweet & sexy? And a writer who gets that authentic arguments are just as important as sexytimes? I’m definitely down for that.
My brain glazes over at football, but it’s not that central to the story. I will say this though, I would rather read a new adult romance with athletes than one with older characters who are professional athletes or entertainers. Those annoy me.