Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Playing Games

SERIES:  Franklin U, Book 1

AUTHOR: Riley Hart

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 255 pages

RELEASE DATE: August 25, 2022

BLURB: 

Brax

Tyson Langley thinks the king in Franklin University Kings is in reference to him. Star lacrosse player and God’s gift to the female and male population, there’s nothing the spoiled jock can’t have.

It’s impossible for us to be in the same room without talking crap to each other. But I also have a secret… As much as I despise Ty, I want him too. I revel in our banter and in never knowing what he’ll say next.

I’ve spent too much time on the wrong side of the law for someone like Ty, though, and if I want to make it through college and escape my past, he’s a distraction I don’t need.

Ty

Braxton Walker needs to learn to lighten up. If you search brooding online, his name pops up. He’s the bad boy with a leather jacket and a scowl. We couldn’t be more different.

Finding ways to annoy him is like the longest foreplay session of my life. And when we end up working together, it gets harder to deny how hot he makes me.

What’s a little hooking up between enemies?

We weren’t supposed to become friends or share secrets. We weren’t supposed to understand each other and all the complicated stuff we’re going through.

I’m used to playing games, only the more time I spend with Brax, the less it feels like playing around and the more it becomes something real.

REVIEW: 

Riley Hart wasn’t playing games when she wrote Playing Games, the first book in the multi-author, shared universe Franklin U series centered around the eponymous fictional Franklin University in Southern California. This is the best writing I’ve seen from her, and she’s written some terrific stuff, so that’s saying something. 

Hart creates Brax and Ty as two living, breathing, endearing, relatable young men finding their way despite family issues, pressure to succeed, and skittishness about love and relationships. She also seamlessly develops the enemies-to-lovers relationship progression between Brax and Ty.  It’s so seamless, in fact, that Brax and Ty’s ultimate all-in love for each other comes about through a fluid, natural transition that makes total sense. One that creeps up on the reader as surreptitiously as it does for them. The difference is that the reader sees from early on how well these guys fit together, like ying and yang, so the transition to lovers and then forever loves makes perfect sense. For Brax and Ty, who are both affected with a good level of obliviousness, it’s more of a surprise. 

Hart masterfully tells this sweet, funny, heartwarming, low-angst, feel-good romance using wicked humor, sharp, incisive, snarky, pigtail-pulling banter between the men, even as they succumb to their irresistible lust for each other. Their steamy scenes are spontaneous and inflammatory in all the best ways. They profess hatred for each other even as they bear their physical, and unwittingly, emotional selves and vulnerabilities to each other. Their chemistry could set off a five-alarm conflagration, and their affection is so obvious that it’s hysterical to see them deny and then wrestle with their feelings about it.

“I pretended to be a dumbass because it was easier that way.”

Hart’s triumph here is in her characters, and I don’t just mean Brax and Ty.  Her side characters like Brax’s grandmother Matilda and Ty’s trio of buffoon BFFs are thoughtfully and effectively realized, and they add an enormous amount of context and humor to the storyline. These aren’t throw-away people to fill space or provide a means for additional interactions for the mains. For example, Watty, Collins, and Ford are such bone-headed idiots you can’t help but roll your eyes at their antics and stupid comments. But they have hearts of gold and unwavering support and loyalty for Ty, which is an important component of Ty’s journey.  Their interactions will give you the warm fuzzies as well as a hell of a lot of laughs.

Then we have Brax and Ty.  Despite the billing as an enemies-to-lovers trope, Brax and Ty are never really enemies. More accurately, they antagonize each other based on incorrect stereotyping and presumptions.  But that falls away quickly, and their antagonistic banter takes on a latent affection:

“Our love language is insults.”

Hart nails the characterizations of these two, especially Ty.  I loved his self-deprecating lines and internal monologuing.  And their banter is some of the best I’ve read, delivered with creativity, wit, and absolute faithfulness to the characters’ personalities. Even simple lines are turned into clever quips, like when Ty defiantly refuses to let a flirty twink hit on Brax:  

“Nope.  Hell no.  All the nopes that had ever noped.”  

Hart could have just had Ty say “Oh no” or “No way”.  But instead, he emphatically lays down a comment so perfectly Ty and so perfectly funny.

Playing Games is really a simple, straightforward story, but Hart crafts it with precision and delivers it effortlessly, and the resulting story is so, so good. Taking something common, making it into something new, engrossing, and real … well, that’s a first-class indicator of stellar material. You need Playing Games in your life. It is currently in play for one of the top spots on my best of 2022 list.  I may just need to go read it again to help decide …

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon