Love Hard

Hard Play, Book #3

By Nalini Singh

ISBN# 9781942356691

Author’s Website:  nalinisingh.com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Review

Rugby star, Jacob Esera, is in the prime of his career.  His family is well known in the Rugby world with his brothers also being big in the sport.  Jacob isn’t like most athletes though.  He doesn’t party or imbibe in any of the usual vices.  He has a squeaky-clean reputation and the fans have dubbed him the Saint, which goes hand-in-hand, with his older brother who is a rugby legend, known as the Bishop.

However, Jake hasn’t always been perfect.  He was a teenager when he got his girlfriend, Calypso, pregnant.  The two were in love, or what passes for love among teenagers anyway.  The two made the best of a bad situation.  Jake’s family rallied around the two to help them.  None of them could have guessed the tragedy that would follow their daughter, Esme’s, birth.  Shortly after having her, Calypso was rushed back to the hospital and ended up dying of bacterial meningitis.  Jake has had to raise his daughter on his own, with the support of his family, of course.

The big day for Jake’s brother, Gabe, is finally here.  He’s going to marry the woman of his dreams.  However, it brings with it, someone from Jake’s past that he never expected to see again.  Calypso’s best friend, Juliet.  Juliet was always in trouble in school, wracking up detentions and demerits like it was her job.  Jake can’t help, but notice how she’s filled out though.  He’s attracted to her, but she would decidedly be bad for his reputation.  Especially considering the tabloids still follow Juliet around after divorcing her cheating husband, washed-up cricket player, Reid Mescall.  But the more time Jake and Juliet spend together the more the views they have of each other changes.  And, before you know it, they’re even risking their hearts and public scrutiny by getting involved.  And, Juliet’s slimy ex decides to start making a name for himself with the media in a bid for a reality TV show and he’s willing to drag Juliet back through the mud once again to do it!

I have loved the books in Singh’s Hard Play and Rock Kiss series.  I was shocked to see I had actually missed this one and had to remedy the oversight right away!

I found the first half of this book to be surprisingly slow.  I felt it focused too much on Gabe’s wedding and was kind of boring to me.  I loved Gabe and Charlie when I read their book, Rock Hard, but I didn’t want to spend so much time on their wedding in this book.  Once Jake and Juliet started getting involved the story picked up though and I was happy again.

Jake really did come off as quite the stick-in-the-mud in this story though.  At least until Juliet came along and breathed some life into him!  I thought it would be kind of weird with these two getting together when Juliet used to be his deceased wife’s best friend, but Singh made it work.

Juliet seemed like a fun girl that got a bad reputation and she’s just trying to get out of the media spotlight.  Getting involved with a professional athlete again really didn’t help her there though.

In the end, the couple appeared to balance each other out and it was a nice story.  It’s not my favorite of this series, but it was a decent read.