Rating: 3.5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for this ARC. My opinions are my own.
Introverted and shy Penelope Morrow grew up an only child, but was more or less enveloped by the five children of the Luck family (all named, rather implausibly, for months - the boys, January, March and August, with the twin girls being called May and June), since their mothers were best friends. Outgoing, charming and overachieving, all three Luck boys are handsome and very talented American football players, like their father before them, but the only one who ever really interested Penelope was August. Not that she would ever going to admit this to any of his siblings, and certainly not to the man himself. Her shyness and awkwardness were perceived as disdain and coldness, so not even her best friends, August's sisters, suspect that she secretly always had a crush on him.
August Luck is the top draft in the NHL, and struggles with the pressures of living up to the legacy of his father and older brother. As a result, he goes a bit off the deep end with partying, and after yet another party video of him, this one falling off a table while doing the chicken dance, he needs a bit of an image clean-up. When he opens the front door of his parents' house to see Penelope again after several years, he is stunned by how beautiful she has become, and starts making a rather foolish plan. Like Penelope, August has also had an unrequited crush, but his awkwardness was seen as arrogance, so Penelope has never realised how strongly he felt for her. August's brothers, January and March, however, seem to have some idea of the extent of his feelings.
Both of Penelope's grandparents worked in Hollywood, and when they bought their house, it wasn't especially expensive. By the time Penelope inherits it, it's worth about ten million dollars, and she has no idea where she's going to get the money to pay the property taxes. Her mother refuses to lend her the money, and can't understand why Penelope won't even consider selling the house. Penelope, on the other hand, doesn't really care about the property value, the house is just the only place she's ever really felt at home, and she can't bring herself to part with the house. So when August (who she believes is at best indifferent to her, at worst kind of hates her) approaches her with a rather far-fetched scheme that can help both of them, she is tempted against her better judgment.
August has decided that the perfect image overhaul would be for him to present Penelope as his long-time secret sweetheart, whom he has now proposed to. The fact that they grew up together will only help sell the story to the press. In return, he wants to pay the property taxes for Penelope, although she only grudgingly accepts a loan, and promises she will find the money to pay her own taxes, not wanting to be beholden to a man she's been crushing on her entire life.
Any secret engagement story in romance has to end with the couple catching feelings for one another. In this case, both of the protagonists already have the feelings; they've just both bottled them so deeply that only a very few people even suspect they are anything but almost antagonistic towards each other. Once August and Penelope actually start loosening up and spending some time together, they are obviously completely gone for each other almost instantly (while still denying this to themselves for far longer than the plot needed).
There was a lot to like in this story, even though the pining gets to the point of ridiculousness, and I just wanted them to have an actual, honest conversation so we could get to the part of the book where they get to be an actual couple. The author uses a lot of pop culture references throughout, which I'm not sure are going to age well, and might be off-putting to some readers who don't catch all of them. This is partly because Penelope is obsessed with movies, and there are so many movie references throughout.
On the other hand, the supporting cast, mainly consisting of the large and loving Luck family are great. I'm wondering if Callihan is planning on writing a romance for each of the remaining siblings. There's January, whose career as a football player ended after a car accident (shortly after which he and his fiancée split up). There's March, the younger brother who seems to be quite resistant to any thoughts of settling down, not to mention the twin sisters who seem vastly different, but both quite quirky.
It's been a long time since I read any of Callihan's books. Some of the previous Game On books were five-star reads for me; it would be fun to revisit them.
Judging a book by its cover: I was sort of hoping that the cover of this was a placeholder, since I was reading an ARC. But no, it appears that this rather bland and badly computer-illustrated cover is what the publishers have chosen to market this book with. I think the only thing worse than little faceless, cartoony characters on a cover is uninspired computer renditions of the main characters. At least they look as described in the story, which is not always a given.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
No comments:
Post a Comment