Rating: 3 stars for the quality of what I did read, but DNF - lost interest (it's not you, it's me)
The story: The h is an Old Money socialite/heiress who is taking a break from her “normal” life and the arranged engagement to her childhood friend, who she looks at as more of a dear brother. The H is an Australian footballer, who is keeping a low profile visiting an old friend/ex-teammate(?) while he recovers from a shoulder injury. The h/H initially clash when they meet at a bar one night (the h is a schmammered train wreck), and the next day they discover that they’re next door neighbors. They are equally annoyed by and intrigued with each other, and a tentative friendship/romance begins.
My thoughts:
I initially started this with the audiobook, but the male narration was so bad and distracting that I DNF’d it and downloaded the eBook instead. His delivery was super stiff and awkward, and his voice was too high pitched and annoying to be the sexy, alpha, footballer that he was written to be. The snotty way he read the h’s dialogue made me want to straight up hate her, and wonder why the hell the H was intrigued by her at all... which is obviously problematic. Also, (and this is petty, I know) I may be wrong here, but he sounds more like a Kiwi than an Aussie, and I just found that distracting as well. In the past I have been unimpressed with the female narrator’s performances, but I think she actually did a fairly decent job this time, but maybe I was being less critical of her because I was just happy to get away from having the male narrator speak instead.
Audiobook aside, the story itself was ok. I had a really hard time identifying with the h, and frankly didn't have very much respect for her, since she was a 25-year-old poor little rich girl that was afraid to be cut off from daddy's money, instead of literally growing the fuck up and (using her ivy league college degree to) get a job like everyone else. The H was fine, but I highly doubt that an international football star wouldn't have a dedicated team specifically assigned to get him past his injury and back on to the field. In general, the writing was good, but between not buying into the h, and personally being in a bit of a Contemporary book funk, I ended up doing a lot of skimming after about 33%. DNF'd somewhere around 50%.
Heat Level: Tame to the point that I read, but with promises of a payoff later in the book.
Would I read more from this author: Yes