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In this seventh book in Julie Brannagh’s Love and Football series, Necessary Roughness, Tanner Cole’s football career is over. He’s been sidelined by a torn ACL and he’s pretty darn bitter about it. He grumpily starts working with a new physical therapist, Jordan Muller, and soon makes progress towards having control over his body again. Well, actually, let me take that back, because his attraction to Jordan begins to take over his life. The feeling is reciprocated and the two spend most of this book fighting the inevitable happily ever after.
If you’ve ever read an athlete/PT book before, then you’ve read this book. It hits most of the same beats of that category – the ‘he’s a client’ phase, the ‘I don’t care if I’m fired’ phase, and then the inevitable ‘oh, but it’s true love’ conclusion. Jordan is good at her job and knows it, but is unsure of how that’s going to affect a relationship, and Tanner is going through his own crisis over who he is as a person now that his career has ended.
There’s a lot of this book that’s fine. If you’re looking for a literary equivalent of cotton candy – delightful, but fleeting – then this may work for you. I know the athlete/trainer or post-career athlete tropes are popular and so this may work if you want to scratch that particular itch.
I, however, had two main issues with the book that mean it is going to fall out of my head as soon as I’ve finished this review. The first is that the pacing was just… off. The first half of it felt like one long conversation stuck around ‘should we? Wouldn’t it be wrong?’, exacerbated by complications of crazed female fans and exes (y’all, I am so over the mentally unstable ex-girlfriend). Then Tanner and Jordan’s fairytale hits the accelerator and I feel like I blinked and they were married.
The other issue is less significant, but it irked me so strongly that I actually started twitching a bit. Tanner calls Jordan ‘DP’, which stands for ‘Disney Princess’. Originally, he adopts the term because she physically reminds him of exactly that, but it sticks around because it becomes his term of endearment for her. As the DPs he’s referencing are not the ones that have agency, but rather the ones for whom woodland creatures sweep up and make dresses, it was hard for me to buy that the nickname came with respect. Yes, he adores Jordan by the end of the book and is devoted to her, but adoring a woman and respecting her enough to build a life together are different things – which should be connected but often aren’t.
Like I said earlier, this book is fine. It wasn’t my favorite, and some of it really irked me, but I can see some readers enjoying it.
Buy Now: A/BN/iB/K
Grade: C-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 13/10/17
Publication Date: 10/2017
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Voracious reader, with a preference for sassy romances and happily ever afters. In a relationship with coffee, seeing whiskey on the side.
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I knew Julie, and am so saddened by her passing. She was wonderful–a compassionate, intelligent, fun-loving person, who was passionate about romance and football, and who is very much missed. I have loved her Love and Football series since the beginning, but it’s too soon to read this one just yet.
I have the first few books in this series in my TBR. I was saddened to hear that the author passed away unexpectedly last month.
Given that the author passed away suddenly a few weeks ago, I’m not sure I would have posted a negative review so soon.
I am sorry to hear that. I wasn’t aware that was the case. This is definitely terrible timing on our part.