Title: The Trade
Series: Underdogs #2
Author: Kata Čuić
Genre: Contemporary Sports Romance
Tropes: Second Chance/Fake Relationship
Release Date: May 18, 2023
BLURB
What’s a woman to do when she’s faced with the impossible decision to give an old flame a second chance?
Shore up her defenses to ward off his charms, of course.
Once upon a time, Merrick Jovanovitch was my everything. I fell fast and hard and forever. Then, I pushed him away. The end.
He’s suddenly back in my life, the newest addition to my fresh-start city’s football team. When I’m blackmailed by a vicious wife of one of Merrick’s teammates to help the team land a reality TV series, I don’t have the option to run from my problems this time. The secret I’ve been keeping from Merrick for three long years needs to stay where it belongs—in the past. With pressure mounting on my unsteady shoulders, I need a release valve to keep juggling all these very fragile plates.
Enter jagoff42. Yeah. That’s…an online handle from a language-learning app.
I know it sounds bananas but hear me out. My internet pen pal is the only man for this job because he’s a third-party bystander with no skin in the game. I don’t have to worry about him getting hurt or spilling my deepest, darkest secrets to anyone. Because we’ve never actually met.
No, I don’t know his real name.
No, I don’t know if he’s a creepy old dude.
No, I don’t know if he lives in his mother’s basement.
He’s only ever told me that he’s close. So, yeah. He’s probably creepy.
The only problem with all these brilliant plans? To land the new reality series for the team, Merrick and I have to rekindle our relationship. For the cameras. That’s fine. As long as I remember all of our kisses are for show, I can get through this.
Even though he lights my body up like a five-alarm fire.
Even though more and more of our kisses are in private instead of in public.
Even though I swore to myself that I’d never give my heart away again.
Merrick can’t be my happily ever after. I walked away the first time for a reason. Right?
PURCHASE LINKS
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Review
This story is a second chance romance with a side of fake relationship. The Trade pulled me in from the start with a strong desire to know exactly what went wrong between Merrick and Jezebel in their past relationship. Merrick has two goals with his move to this new team - 1. To find his place among his teammates and the team and more importantly 2. To discover what happened to cause Jezebel to leave him and fix it.
Merrick and Jezebel's journey is far from boring, full of drama, secrets, angst and high emotions. I really enjoyed how the truth of the past unfolded in the present and fit together into the story as a whole. The pace of the story was steady and flowed well. I loved how Jezebel wanted to protect her friends, and yes even Merrick above all - but it also made me hurt for her and what she'd been through.
One of the things I really enjoyed about this series is that though the focus is on the main couple there is glimpses into all of the players lives - there's a true series build up within the pages and I feel like that adds to the relatablility of the characters and their stories.
ALSO AVAILABLE
Free in Kindle Unlimited
Review
The Backup is book one in the Underdogs series and it delves us into the world of this football team and all it's players. It also gives us Brooke and Kyle's love story.
As this story kicks off we discover that poor Brooke has been caught up in a scandal of sorts and when she discovers the truth it hurts her and makes her want to give up on men but also she's got a reputation to maintain and she needs her job. So what could go wrong when a plan is put into place to save both. I really enjoyed watching as Kyle and Brooke fell for each other. This story gave a new breath to the betrayed girl and fake relationships turned real.
This story has its ups and downs and I enjoyed watching as each piece of the puzzle of these characters fit into place. It was a great introduction to the series as well, giving us a host of characters to discover more about as the rest of the stories unfold.
AUTHOR BIO
Kata Čuić lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and three teens. No one told her life was gonna be this way. She holds a degree in Linguistics with a minor in Religious Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Her plans of becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon were foiled by OChem 1. Fortunately, she’d been making up stories in her head since the days of her imaginary friend, Choosy. Putting pen to paper, er…fingers to the keyboard…came surprisingly naturally after her aforementioned teens decided it was time for them to cut their respective cords.
Kata writes everything from angst-filled YA series to standalone rom-coms and has been known to dabble in a bit of paranormal on the free stories section of her website. She believes nice guys shouldn’t have to finish last (except in the bedroom where she prefers an alpha between the sheets but a gentleman in the streets), and that the surest way to a woman’s heart is through laughter and food.
AUTHOR LINKS
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