Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Rookie Move

SERIES: Playing for Keeps, Book 1

AUTHOR: Neve Wilder and Riley Hart

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 287 pages

RELEASE DATE: May 20, 2022

BLURB: 

 Falling for a teammate who also happens to be your brother’s best friend? Total rookie move.

McRAE: I’ve had a crush on my brother’s best friend since the moment I laid eyes on him four years ago.

Warner Ramsey is 225 pounds of pure hotness, a media darling, and one of the best NFL quarterbacks in the league.

Hell, he’s the reason I figured out I’m solidly bi.

It was easy to keep my crush under control when I was in college. Now, we play for the same team, and every time he talks smack, I want to shut him up. With my mouth.

But I’ve got other things I should be focusing on, like dominating my rookie year with the Denver Rush and finally stepping out of my brother’s shadow.

Besides, Ramsey’s straight.

RAMSEY: I’ve never tapped into my bisexuality—never told anyone except my best friend that I’m bi. All I want is to play football and not draw media attention like my dad, who got ousted from the league.

Garrett McRae is my biggest temptation. He’s gotten under my skin for years.

I’m supposed to be looking out for him, not thinking about getting him naked.

And definitely not the kiss we shared.

That I somehow instigated.

It was stupid, and not like me, but God, it was hot.

We’re teammates, with million-dollar contracts on the line. And yet…is a little experimentation really so bad?

Rookie Move is a low-angst, high-heat sports romance in the Playing for Keeps series.

REVIEW: 

Neither Riley Hart nor Neve Wilder is a rookie at MM romance.  Sexy MM romance.  Hot AF, burn-up-the-sheets MM romance.  Flirty, fun, fantastic MM romance. In their first co-authored title, Rookie Move, you get all that and so much more.  

Hart and Wilder are both successful, skilled authors in their own right, with distinct voices and styles.  Yet they marry them seamlessly in Rookie Move such that I hear them both, but they blend fluidly into a story that sounds like it comes from one author. This book is a merger of two talented authors that, in turn, merge a myriad of tropes into this delicious treat of a sports romance. Brother’s best friend, bicurious, bi-experimentation, first times, coming out, forbidden romance, friends to lovers, friends with benefits, and even a bit of forced proximity thrown in for good measure. No one trope outweighs the rest, so this romance between two NFL teammates successfully avoids becoming banal. Instead, the story reinvents what we are used to, leveraging two fascinating, endearing, sexy men who set the pages on fire with their explosive chemistry.

McRae and Ramsey are delectable creations, gorgeous, kind, exceptionally talented football players that will capture your heart from the outset. Together, they fit together like a key in a lock, complementing and bringing out the best in each other. Their often antagonistic jabs, snarky banter, and magnetic attraction combine into a drool-worthy couple finding their way with each other, and humorously stumbling a bit along the way.  

Hart and Wilder’s avoidance of histrionics and overblown drama between McRae and his brother Houston about the relationship with Ramsey, Houston’s long time best friend, keep the attention where it should be – on McRae and Ramsey – while adding in some background elements concerning family, blood and found, and its impacts on who these men have become.  There’s an honesty to McRae and Ramsey’s relationship that highlights the irony and inherent wrongness of their forced deception. The juxtaposition subtextually succeeds yet doesn’t pull the story from the low-angst sexy treat that it is.

If you are a fan of Hart or Wilder’s work, Rookie Move is a one-click no-brainer.  If you haven’t read anything from these authors before, I don’t know what you’ve been doing with your life.  🤣  You need this book. Now. It’s a one-sitting yummy treat, and I can’t wait to indulge in the next book in this Playing for Keeps series. 

RATING:   

BUY LINK: 

Amazon