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Everything for You – book five in Chloe Liese’s Bergman Brothers series – is the first entry in that series to feature a same sex couple and is also the author’s first m/m romance. As I haven’t read anything by Ms. Liese before, I decided to rectify that by picking it up for review. It’s an antagonists-to-lovers romance set in the world of professional football – or soccer as it’s termed on The Other Side of The Pond – between a newly established star of the game and a veteran player facing the prospect of retirement, but while age-gap and grumpy/sunshine are among my favourite tropes – and I appreciated the way certain aspects of the storyline are handled, especially with respect to Gavin’s fears over his future – the book as a whole is too problematic for me to be able to offer a recommendation.
At twenty-four, Oliver Bergman is a new star on the soccer scene. He was over the moon when he learned that his idol and teenage crush, Gavin Hayes, had signed with his team – the L.A. Galaxy – and looked forward to playing alongside him, but his hopes of friendship and camaraderie were dashed when the guy proved to be a total dick. Ever since they met, Gavin has been cold, dictatorial and downright unpleasant, but Ollie refuses to be cowed or daunted, meeting every scowl with a smile, every curt word with a friendly retort – just because he knows it winds Gavin up no end.
At thirty-four, Gavin is facing the end of an illustrious career, and the prospect of retirement is terrifying. Living with chronic pain from various injuries sustained over the years, he is struggling to work out how to be – or even who he will be – without the sport that has defined and sustained him for so many years. Although he knows he can’t continue to hide the truth of his situation from those around him – let alone that he’s still hiding it from himself – he’s in serious denial, and the last thing he needs is his hugely inconvenient attraction to Mr. Sweetness-and-Light himself, the guy who never gets flustered or riled-up, and who, in a massive knee-to-the-balls administered by fate, happens to live in the house right next door.
Neighbours they may be, but friends they most certainly are not, which is exactly how Gavin wants things to stay; the less he has to do with Oliver Bergman the better he can continue to pretend he’s fine and that Ollie is no more to him than an annoying pain in the arse. Until a very large spanner is thrown into those works by their team coach, who has had enough of the obvious enmity between them and decides to solve the problem by making them joint captains, the implication being that either they bury the hatchet and learn to work together or one of them is canned. It’s Ollie’s first captaincy and likely Gavin’s last; neither of them is going to risk rocking the boat.
I love enemies-to-lovers stories, and this one promised to be a good one – but it didn’t deliver. A big part of the problem is that by the time we meet Gavin and Ollie as teammates, their animosity is two years old, so it feels like a big part of their relationship is missing. We know nothing about their (supposed) mutual dislike other than what the author tells us and we see nothing of how it started or how it progressed. The romance is similarly under-developed; Gavin and Ollie go from ‘I hate you’ to ‘hooking up would be a very bad idea’ to ‘I love you madly’ without any real progression from one state to the next, something made all the more frustrating because the author has set up the perfect way to grow their romance organically by making them joint team captains. But instead of a gradual building of reluctant admiration for each other’s skill that turns into a reluctant but deep emotional connection, we get a sudden burst of insta-lust and late-book declarations of undying love.
Unfortunately, that’s only one of many issues I had with the story. While Everything for You can be read as a standalone, there’s no ignoring it’s book five of a series when all the other Bergman siblings and SOs pop up to update us on how they’re doing and/or to deliver expositional conversations that read like the author is using them as a mouthpiece to directly express her own opinions about certain issues. Here’s an example. One of the Bergman brothers is a romance fan (yay!), which leads to several very ‘meta’ discussions:
I mean, romance novels, while focused on romantic relationships, also spend a lot of time excavating the main characters’ interiority—their past wounds, how those drive their present behavior and motivations, what fuels their dynamic with their love interest and the rest of the characters. I was simply going to use a certain trope to illustrate my point, but speaking plainly will do.
But honestly – does anyone actually talk like this in real life?
One of my biggest pet-peeves in romance novels is The One Where One Character Has To Be Told How The Other Character Feels About Them – sadly, there’s a lot of that going on here. Almost every emotional realisation made by one protagonist comes in the form of a conversation with someone who is not the other protagonist – and who seems to be on hand at just the right moment to explain the character’s feelings to them.
Then there’s the fact that, despite being professional athletes, Ollie and Gavin seem to have a lot of spare time compared with, say, Shane and Ilya from Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series, whose crazy schedules make finding time for each other almost impossible. And for a sports romance, it’s very light on the soccer side of things; I don’t recall there being any mention of which positions Ollie and Gavin play in, for instance. There are a couple of games and practice sessions, and we meet a couple of team members, but there’s no real team dynamic and no team interactions, which means the sports element in the book is little more than window-dressing.
And don’t get me started on the precocious three-year-old who imitates her parents’ sex noises and speaks like no three-year-old I’ve ever met.
Amid all this, it’s hardly surprising that we get to know the two leads so very little. Perhaps, because I haven’t read the previous books, I missed out on getting to know Ollie, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that Gavin is pretty much a one-note character; he sees (and so we see) everything through the lens of his injuries and fears over his impending retirement, and although there are questions raised over what his life was like before he moved to LA, those are never really answered.
Ultimately, the author has tried to do way too much here and in doing so, has lost sight of the fact that she needed to develop an emotional connection between her two lead characters and then convey that connection to the reader. There are lots of four and five star reviews on Goodreads that disagree with my assessment, but the romance in Everything for You doesn’t work, and I can’t recommend it.
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Grade: C
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 12/05/22
Publication Date: 05/2022
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.
Related Reviews
I don’t see it linked but I think I gave a B to the first Bergman book? I thought the author showed a lot of promise but I’ve been less enamored with the newer books. I think the problem is in large part due to the family! I’m not as in love with the Bergman clan as the author obviously is. I’ll be looking forward to her ‘not a Bergman’ debut! Oh, and I’ll be skipping this one.
There’s no link because I haven’t named it in the review but, yes, I did check for other reviews once I’d written this one, and you did give that book a B.
This one could have been, too – but there was just too much going on, the family didn’t interest me and the romance is woefully underdone. There are, however, loads of squeeful reviews on GR from series fans.
No, it isn’t linked via the tags either. Sorry if I was unclear.
different strokes for different folks I guess!
Oh, right – I can fix the tag thing ;)
Hi Caz, I am actually looking forward to reading this book. I have been enjoying the Bergman Brothers series and encourage you to consider reading some of the earlier books. I like the first (Only When It’s Us) and third (Ever After Always) the best so far. The books in the series tend to be a slow burn and often one of the main characters has a chronic medical or psychiatric condition or a significant life challenge to work through. I think this makes the books a bit meatier than the norm, which I believe you prefer over light and fluffy romances. That being said, I suspect your criticisms are valid but that those of us who have read the previous books won’t mind some of the things that you didn’t like. The previous books have portrayed the family as close so I won’t be surprised at sibling interference and would enjoy another Bergman brothers’ summit where they steer Ollie to the right path. It’s probably getting to the point in the series where book 5 isn’t really a standalone. Anyway, please consider reading the first book and see if Ms. Liese can win you over!
Even taking out the Bergman Family Factor couldn’t fix the lack of relationship development or the author having Gavin and Ollie realising their feelings only because other people tell them what they are.
Also – and I didn’t put this in the review because I honestly can’t put my finger on the reason – it’s obvious that this is a book by someone who normally writes m/f romance.
I read maybe one m/f contemporary romance a year (usually by Lucy Parker!) – they rarely work for me, so I don’t think I’ll be going back to the other books. The highest grade we’ve given her so far is a B. Thank you for your thoughts though, they’re always appreciated. Please do come back after you’ve read it :)
I read the book today and liked it. Many of the things that bothered you didn’t bother me but I think it’s because I have read the series from the start and love the Bergman family. This book really doesn’t stand alone well. There is a lot of exposition about how the characters from the previous books are doing and there are a lot of discussions between Oliver and either a sibling or a sibling’s partner. Some of these worked for me. For example, I felt his discussion with his sister Ziggy made Oliver examine his own life and come to some conclusions about how he wanted to live it. I enjoyed the Bergman brothers’ summit near the beginning of the book and the series’ fans look forward to them but I agree that the quote you have in the review was the clunkiest part of the book. And at the end, Willa’s explanation of how Gavin might feel went on too long – it would have been better for Gavin to do some of that explaining himself. For me, it worked overall but I think you really need to know the characters from the previous books.
I didn’t feel a need for further explanation of the 2 years Oliver and Gavin had already known each other. I got an understanding that Gavin was attracted to Oliver but resented him for being at the beginning of his career whereas Gavin knew he was nearing the end of his. He behaved coldly to Oliver, which hurt Oliver’s feeling as he was looking forward to getting to know his idol so Oliver struck back by being super-sunshiny. I felt the author explained this by having us see Gavin and Oliver’s thoughts and that was Ok with me.
I agree that soccer wasn’t a huge part of the story but I wasn’t expecting this to be a sports romance as I’m coming at the book from the perspective that this is a Bergman story. It was a similar amount to that in the previous books in the series (Willa plays soccer, Ren plays hockey), although I admit that no previous book had both main characters play sports.
I will say that Oliver and Gavin didn’t spend as much time getting to know each other as characters in the previous books so I agree with you that it went from lust to love too fast. I think the book leaned more towards Oliver than Gavin (a lot of Oliver discovering and falling for Gavin’s kindness). I did like that Gavin had started therapy by the end – good for him!
I did also appreciate that the book is an homage to the TV show Ted Lasso, which the author states in the afterword. Gavin was definitely a Roy Kent and I would argue that Oliver is partly Ted but also partly Keeley. The Roy-Keeley pairing is also grumpy-sunshine and there is a complication in that Roy is at the end of his career, trying to figure out what to do next whereas Keeley is a rising star in her field.
Well, so I did enjoy this book and I think I liked it better than book 4. I wonder which of the remaining 2 siblings is next. The author hasn’t done them in birth order. I think there was a hint that Viggo is next and that is my hope. He thinks he knows all there is about love due to his romance novel reading and I think he is going to be blindsided!
Thanks for coming back to share your thoughts.
I saw other reviews mention Ted Lasso – but I’ve never seen it (I don’t even know if it’s shown in the UK), so any references went completely over my head. It’s a risky thing for an author to do – assume your entire audience is familiar with something you love so much you put it into your book.
As for the series thing – if a book isn’t going to work as a standalone, I think the author/publisher should make that clear. There are plenty of series featuring siblings/friendship groups where it’s not necessary to read the other books because all the stories are self-contained. So for me, the presence of the other siblings and all those conversations felt clunky and, as I said in the review, obvious exposition, and I kind of resented them because I thought their on-page time should have instead been used to further develop the central romance.
I actually liked Gavin more than Ollie – his character and motivations were much clearer than Ollie’s, who I never really got to know. I suppose that’s because Ollie has been in the other books so readers have got to know him there, but IMO that’s lazy. We should have got to know him in HIS book. And failing to realise that putting an m/m book in the middle of an m/f series might have brought some new readers (like me, who don’t read m/f) and who would need that ground covered in THIS book was a mistake.
Horses for courses :)
I’m not sure I expressed myself well. I think Ollie and Gavin’s storyline did stand alone. The Bergman family is large and they care and support each other, which is one reason I like the series – a functional family! Many of the siblings live close to each other and their parents so it seems natural that they would be in each others’ lives and I think reasonable that they would offer advice. However, each sibling’s book does give a more in depth look. I actually didn’t know very much about Ollie prior to his book. In book 4, there is a scene showing he was hurt by a relationship but we get no details. This is all explained in Everything For You so you don’t need to have read the previous books to understand the story.
I felt like I got to know Ollie just as well as Gavin – the pressure he put on himself to be good/successful, his problems with anxiety, his fear that being in a relationship would falter his professional goals.
Regarding Ted Lasso, I absolutely don’t think you need to know about or have watched that show to understand the book. There are no actual references to the TV show. It’s more recognizing some similarities – both book and show have soccer as the background and have a grumpy character and a some sunshiny characters. But I wouldn’t say either Ollie or Gavin are exactly like a character on the show. It’s also not the case that the author modeled this book over the TV series – the Bergmans have been a soccer playing family from book 1 (Willa from book 1 goes on to play professionally as well).
As for putting a M/M romance in the middle of a M/F romance series, I thought that was an interesting thing to do. It seems realistic that if you have 7 siblings, at least one will be queer. So I wonder if the author was trying to write what felt organic. I don’t think she necessarily was looking to branch out into M/M romances but I don’t know. I do know that her next release is going to be M/F.
Anyway, I realize we will still disagree but I really appreciate the forum to express my thoughts and hear yours. Thank you!
Same :)
I didn’t have a problem with the introduction of an m/m book into an m/f series – as you say, it’s probably a realistic option. It’s more that I think it will have attracted readers like me, who don’t read m/f but are interested in trying new-to-them authors, which, IMO, would make it even more important for the author to make sure the book stands alone, as we’re not likely to have read the others.
The Liese I tried was a C-level read, too; maybe they’ll get better with time!
I went back and read your review, and the problems you identified with that seem different to those I had with this one. I’m not sure how many Bergman Brothers are left – she’s got a lot of work to do to pull something good out of the hat in not very many books!
The really annoying thing here was that she had the perfect set up – and then completely ignored it.