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Playing It Close (2014)

by Kat Latham(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 6

ISBN

1426898215 (ISBN13: 9781426898211)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Carina Press

series

London Legends

review 1: 3.75 starsABOUT THE BOOK: January 14, 2014Where do you go to escape everything when you're one of the most famous rugby players in the world? For Liam Callaghan, that place is a remote lodge on Venezuela's Caribbean coast. Perfect, except he doesn't exactly want to be alone with his thoughts. Enter Tess Chambers, the ultimate distraction.Still reeling from a professional disaster that's made her all but unemployable, Tess understands the desire to move through life as somebody else. So when instantly recognizable Liam uses a fake name, she runs with it and creates a temporary new identity of her own.Their time spent together in paradise is idyllic but brief—after one passionate night, Liam wakes up to find Tess gone. Returning to London, he's shocked to learn she's taken... more a job with his team's new sponsor. As the Legends' captain, he'll have to not only figure out how to work with the one woman who ever left him wanting more, but also convince her that their feelings in the present mean more than any lies they've told in the past~~~~REVIEW: 3.75 stars PLAYING IT CLOSE is the second instalment in Kat Latham’s contemporary, adult London Legends romance series focusing on the London Legends Rugby Team. This is team captain Liam Callaghan and Tess Chambers’s storyline. The timeline runs parallel to the first instalment Knowing the Score but very little of the premise overlaps.Liam and Tess will meet while on vacation in Venezuela but Tess’s abrupt departure following a wild night of anonymous sex will leave Liam struggling with what has happened. Upon returning to England, Liam will discover that the company looking to back the London Legends rugby team is headed by Tess’s cousin and Tess will become part of the team’s PR. What follows is a series of misunderstandings and broken hearts when Liam believes that Tess had set him up all along. But Tess has had to endure months of humiliation following a disastrous revelation at work, and her connections with Liam will have to be kept under the radar. The relationship between Liam and Tess begins as strangers in paradise but quickly moves to bitter exes following their reconnection. There is a definite attraction, one fueled by lust, sex and desire but betrayal and dissolution are first and foremost on Liam’s mind. The sexual tension is palpable and you know that there is only one woman on Liam’s mind. To get the girl back, Liam will learn that there is more to Tess than he could have possibly known. Tess has some major self esteem issues that drive part of her personality and her emotional fragility. Years of humiliation and a need to protect the man that she loves have led to a public breakdown that will push Liam away for the last time.The secondary characters are colorful, believable and lend a little comic relief when necessary. The world building continues with the inclusion of the London Legends players as they strive to lead England to the World Rugby Championships. PLAYING IT CLOSE is an engaging storyline about two people with issues of trust. Kat Latham pulls the reader into a provocative tale of seduction; an intense story about family and friends; and the drama of living your life in the public eye. It is a passionate story, sprinkled with a little humor and some heartbreaking discoveries, but in the end, another London Legends rugby player will find love and his happily ever after.Copy supplied by the publisher.
review 2: Trapped in an elevator....yes! I love this scenario especially when it involves a famous professional rugby star and a woman who has recently made herself infamous before the media. What a hoot! And it was. The story engaged all my emotions. It touched on some pretty serious themes- guilt, harassment in the workplace, acceptance, and self-worth. All around good story that was fun, sexy and had some depth.This is the second book in a series, but I had no trouble reading this one first. I liked the brief visit I had with the characters from the first book so I'll be going back for that one when I can.The story opens when Tess Chambers is staying (code for hiding out and licking her wounds) at a private hotel in Venezuela determined to tick a few items off her bucket list and do some soul-searching. Her skinny dipping plan falls through when she decides that it wouldn't be wise to bare all on the hotel beach in the strong moonlight right after that debacle in London when she bared all on her blog and ended up in the middle of a huge workplace scandal. Her temper got the better of her when her former boss 'kiss and told' and even before that when she let off some steam in a blog about the actions of the misogynistic jerks she worked with. Poor treatment of women in the workplace became the investigation of the court and she became the champion of women or the office pariah depending on who you asked. So shirt on. Too bad she left her bikini top in her room and too bad her scramble across the hotel lobby in wet t-shirt is noticed by the hot guy checking in. And really? He wanted to share the elevator. And it got stuck when she hammered on the door close button. Tess recognizes him right away, but he is traveling incognito. That sounds like a fab idea so she gives a false name too and lies about knowing nothing about Liam Callaghan, rugby or the fact that she's a life-long fan and season ticket holder for his team the London Legends. Liam is nothing like she expected and he rocks her world too bad the real world comes crashing down on her to wreck it for her.Liam is taking time away to get his head back in order after losing his mum to cancer. He is now captain of his team and the World Cup will be in London this year while he is playing for the English team. Lots of pressure. Oddly, the time he spends with the pixie-sized female that treats him like a normal guy helps him to center and feel right. Being with her feels right until she ditches him after their night together and runs clear back to London to get away from him. He is still hurt and angry when he discovers that she is working for the company who has just become the Legends newest top sponsor. Now he knows she lied about a lot of things and he is determined to move past his encounter with Tess and keep everything business-like and professional. Too bad he still wants her and wants to be with her, yet he can't figure out how to make it happen now that the fraternization issue is in effect since they're co-workers.The plot moved along at a good pace. This is a sports romance, but the sports is more the backdrop or one of the major settings then a plot thread. This was my first glimpse at the sport of rugby and even from this angle of behind the scenes, it has me fascinated enough to want to watch a match now.The story is focused on both individual growth in the main characters and the romance that develops between them. These two are a hot mess that is sometimes hilarious and sometimes painful the way they jump to conclusions and leap into speech. Both have personal issues and are naturals at finding the sore buttons on each other. I grimaced so many times when words and actions got them into trouble. I was impressed with how the author kept things on the lighter, heartwarming side and managed to avoid things falling into undue angst. They might jump to conclusions, but the misunderstandings never last longer than is reasonable. They both showed good staying power when it was soul-bearing time too. And passion? Lord, yes! That was so not a problem for these two that struggled with everything else.All in all, this was an enjoyable and engaging romance that I would recommend to those enjoy contemporary romances set in the sporting world.My thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review. less

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