Playing By Her Rules

4.5 Stars I really enjoyed this one. It's a second chance romance. The characters are delightful and entertaining. I loved the ending because it was beautiful and for Tilly and Tanner is was coming full circle. Tanner made a grave mistake when they were eighteen that cost him eight years with the woman he loved. Now he has a chance to make amends and go for the second chance to win her over. He has his work cut out for him because he broke her heart all those years ago and she can't trust him with her heart. or can she? I was rooting for these two through the whole book. I can't wait for more from this series. Plus Tann and his rugby teammates are highly entertaining when together.

I would have given this book a perfect rating but the heroine just irritated me to no end. I loved Tanner. there was chemistry between them but I still felt he deserved better. she came across as bitter, immature, entitled, insecure and just annoying. she put everything on Tanner and didn't want to take responsibility of her own insecurities. a book with a terrible heroine is difficult to read. I absolutely had a hard time finishing this book.

Matilda Kent aspires to be a feature writer in a newspaper, unfortunately she’s been stuck writing a fashion column when an opportunity presents itself. Unfortunately, it’s to do a 6-part interview with the man who broke her heart eight years before: Tanner Stone, rugby hero. Matilda doesn’t have much choice if she wants to achieve her career goal, so she’ll do it, and maybe finally get her revenge on the man who cheated on her. Tanner, while being a golden boy, doesn’t like to give interviews, but because of some rugby players have tarnished the image of the game a bit, his coach orders him to do the interviews. When he learns the journalist will be Matilda, he decides it’s the time to rekindle their romance. Amy Andrews is one of my favourite contemporary romance authors, and part of her appeal, as far as I’m concerned, is that she chooses to remain enthusiastically Australian. PLAYING BY HER RULES is a rather standard second chance romance, but what makes it special is Ms. Andrews always superlative writing. Her style is breezy yet elegant, and her vocabulary is both playful and eloquent, and always clever. The author’s descriptions of the game of rugby, of the sights, of the characters are laser-sharp – as is the Ms. Andrews’ sense of humour. The secondary characters are also terrific, especially Matilda’s grandmother Hannah. The banter between Tanner and his footy teammates is wonderful, and here lies my major problem with the book: Tanner spoke the same way to Matilda, and that stopped me from liking him. Matilda doesn’t seem to have a problem with it, although in my opinion what might have been fun at eighteen becomes rather childish at 26, but then again she didn’t seem to mind, so who am I to argue. Still, I had a problem connecting with Tanner and Matilda for that reason; his sort of humour is not one I particularly enjoy, at least not when you’re talking romance. On the other hand, the sexual chemistry was definitely there, and sparks were nearly coming off my Kindle! There was of course the obligatory misunderstanding – in this case more of an untold – and surprisingly, upon its resolution is where Ms. Andrews merited an extra star because it was resolved intelligently and convincingly, which is very seldom the case in this type of trope. Although I didn’t feel invested in Matilda and Tanner’s romance, I really liked the book because of Amy Andrews’ stellar writing, and I will be looking forward to anything she writes because few authors do sexy contemporary romance as well as she does. I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.