5 SMOOCHES!
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SYNOPSIS:
A virgin, an athlete, a fake romance, and only one bed in the hotel room.
Following rules shot me to the top of my game as an all-star baseball player, and the golden rule is this — don’t hookup with your teammate’s sister.
But ask her to be your fake date when you desperately need one for a family wedding? Nothing in the guy code against that. Plus, the flirty, feisty Sierra’s my friend too, so why the hell not pretend we’re madly in lust for two days in Hawaii?
No hardship in a make believe kiss here, a fake smooch there, as long as we don’t cross any dangerous lines.
Then, the hotel books us into the same suite. Which means she’s showering near me, putting on itty bitty bikinis in the same room, sliding into that king-size bed wearing only a black lace cami.
But I resist…until the night she tells me she’s been waiting for me to be her first. And there’s nothing fake about my desire to say yes, even though that’s definitely against the code. But, maybe only if someone catches feelings? And neither one of us will.
Until I do…
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REVIEW:
A sexy, sweet and swoony sports romance, especially when delivered within a friends-to-lovers storyline, is a surefire way to guarantee that I’m going to be a happy reader. Lauren Blakely knows exactly how to do just that for me, and she’s been killing it with her Rules of Love series. I listened to the audio version of The Virgin Replay, narrated by Teddy Hamilton and Vanessa Edwin, and it was wonderfully produced and expertly performed. A dash forbidden, this playful and passionate sports romance brings together a virgin and an athlete—who are both secretly crushing on the other—in a fake romance with some forced proximity vibes.
I have been looking forward to Sierra and Chance’s story since we were introduced to these characters. Their friendship was fun and flirty, and I couldn’t wait for them to finally act on all that chemistry. I loved Sierra. She’s a driven, ambitious and hardworking owner of a popular bar. She’s focused on building her business, and as such, her love life has been on the back-burner. While she is confident and in her element behind the bar, there was also an innocent, vulnerable side to her, too. Chance, a professional baseball player and her brother’s teammate, has been patronizing her bar and they’ve developed their own friendship which formed a solid foundation for their relationship. There’s a lot of trust and respect—along with some serious sparks—between the two of them, and their easy, natural friendship makes it a no-brainer choice for Chance when he finds himself in need of a date for a destination wedding. As it turns out, this works out well for Sierra who has her own a favor to ask of Chance as well. With their cards on the table, their friendship is quickly engulfed by all of these can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you, crush-turning-to-more kind of feels, and it translated into the kind of feel-good, fire-filled, friends finally falling in love story that I find absolutely addictive.
In general, Lauren Blakely’s romances aren’t known to be particularly angsty or overly dramatic. She pens love stories that are driven not by drama, but maturity, and because of that, they’re always a cover-to-cover, pleasure to read for me. These are the kinds of stories that I’m happy to start and make me happier the more I read. The Virgin Replay is exactly that kind of story, and I was so completely swept up in Sierra and Chance’s romance. Five smooches from me for The Virgin Replay by Lauren Blakely!
~ Danielle Palumbo
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