Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Illegal Contact

SERIES: Playing for Keeps, Book 3

AUTHOR: Neve Wilder and Riley Hart

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 290 pages

RELEASE DATE:  October 26, 2023

BLURB: 

Tucker: I’ve hated spoiled, cocky Patrick Whitt since the first time I saw him at football camp when we were kids.

Once we made it to the NFL, of course, he landed on the LA Royals, the biggest rivals of my team, the Denver Rush. Everything about him rubs me the wrong way…until one unexpected night, we happen to rub each other the right way, and suddenly I can’t get enough of him.

And Patrick can’t get enough of me either.

I’m his secret, and he’s mine, stealing moments together where he comes undone for me.

There’s more to Patrick than I thought, and now one thing is clear to me.

Despite all of the obstacles in our way, Patrick Whitt is mine.

Whitt: I don’t know what it is about Malik Tucker that gets under my skin, but he irritates the hell out of me. Maybe it’s that he was drafted instead of me to my dream NFL team, the Denver Rush. Or maybe it’s that he’s a force to be reckoned with on the field and adored by fans and his family off the field. He seems to be living the perfect life while I live the perfect lie.

And then we have a chance encounter that changes everything.

We keep it professional on the field, but off the field, there’s all kinds of illegal contact happening between us. Every time we’re together, I’m drawn in deeper, intoxicated by the way Malik makes me feel, the things we do to each other in the bedroom.

At some point, we’re going to have to let go, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to.

REVIEW: 

Riley Hart and Neve Wilder deliver another sweet and spicy sports romance with Illegal Contact, the third book in their Playing for Keeps series. In each of these series books, Hart and Wilder take what could be trite and tropey and turn it on its head so it’s fresh and new.  NFL players Whitt and Tucker are enemies turned frememies turned friends and then so much more and it’s a trajectory that’s easy to follow and engage with. 

Enemies to lovers is not a preferred trope of mine, but if done right, the characters have incendiary chemistry, and the slow-burn UST is off the charts. Here, Hart and Wilder deftly weave Whitt and Tucker’s long-standing animosity with evident, undeniable attraction and the mashup of the two creates a well-executed romance for Whitt and Tucker.  True to form, Hart and Wilder keep the angst factor low and the sexy factor high. In Whitt and Tucker, they have also crafted two straightforward guys who are easy to like, while also giving them depth and interesting character journeys.

The best part of this book, though, is that it overlaps with the first two books in the series.  As such, we get to see events that have already transpired play out again through different viewpoints.  We also get to spend time with the couples we’ve already fallen in love with – Garrett and Ramsey and Cullen and Houston – and there are plenty of family dynamics to provide humor and warm fuzzies.

Overall, Illegal Contact is a great read featuring a fun, rewarding romance that plays out all the way to a very satisfying epilogue.  Recommended. 

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon