4th & Girl by Max Monroe

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Title: 4th & Girl
Author: Max Monroe
Series: Mavericks Tackle Love #4
Published by: Indie
Release Date: November 20, 2018
Format: eARC
Pages: 219
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Sports Romance
Source: Social Butterfly PR
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 #LetsReadIndie Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Adult Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Release Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks
My rating:

Blurb:

From the New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of TAPPING THE BILLIONAIRE comes a hilarious and sexy standalone about fate, chance, and one heck of an epically awkward meet-cute.

I’m Leo Landry, one of the best shutdown cornerbacks in the nation, and the New York Mavericks’ first round draft pick.

If James Bond spent his days running drills and his nights shutting out quarterbacks, he’d dream about being me. But professional football is on a whole other level from college, and as the new guy, I’ve got everything to prove.

No problem.All I’ve got to do is focus, right?Too bad life’s got other plans.

Blond hair, long lashes, and criminal blue eyes, there’s a pint-sized bombshell that I can’t stop thinking about.

I don’t even know her name, but she’s completely screwing up my game plan.

It’s too late to turn back now though. I have my eye on the prize, and I won’t settle for anything less.

4th down and only one goal in my sights—this pretty little mystery girl.

Good thing I’m at my best when the pressure’s on.

My Review:

I received a free copy through Social Butterfly PR in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

3.5 stars — This one had so many good moments—moments where I laughed and moments where I swooned—but if I’m being honest, I struggled to maintain interest in the story as well.  I enjoyed it, but I just wasn’t captured I guess.  I wasn’t sucked into Leo and Gemma’s romance, and I just didn’t feel any strong chemistry.  Basically, it was good, it just wasn’t great for me.

Leo was pretty adorable.  I will admit that sometimes his cocky moments threw me off, b/c most of the time he was really humble, hard-working, and with a good head on his shoulders.  I know we’re given the impression that he acts cocky as sort of a front, but I guess I never really understood why.  It was like that aspect of his personality was only there to make his appearances in Trick Play make sense.  If not for that, he was a seriously solid hero.  I loved his budding friendship with Cam.  I loved that he took his career in football seriously, but that he didn’t have blinders on and was thinking about the future as well.  And I loved how adorably inept he was in his relationship with Gemma…it was like this was his first serious relationship, and he just got befuddled so often.

Gemma was spunky and fun, but even her personality had some dichotomies that didn’t work for me.  She had moments of acting ditzy, and moments of super intelligence.  I never quite figured her out.  I totally got her college epiphany, and thought she made the right choice.  But it was strange to have a heroine who just floundered and didn’t seem to have much drive.  Not that I, personally, have much drive…but still, I just didn’t connect with her for some reason.

As for their romance…well, I didn’t feel like I had enough time to really fall in love with it.  I was impatient to get to them being together, and so became frustrated with so much time apart (especially since I wasn’t getting character growth that I understood).  Now, when they did get together, it was super sweet!  I loved their first two dates, and could feel their connection there.  Strangely enough, I didn’t feel their steamy chemistry as much, but maybe that was just me.  It felt very rushed.  And then after that perfect romantic middle, we got more time jumps, and I didn’t get a chance to see their relationship evolve.  So I was lost a bit again.

Now saying all that, I loved the ending and the epilogue, I just felt like the story needed tightening up or something.  Lots of potential, it just didn’t hit with me.

I enjoyed the secondary characters, but I will admit I was occasionally baffled by them as well.  Especially Abby.  What was that girl’s deal?  I didn’t particularly like her, was I supposed to?  At one point I actually wondered if Gemma was insane and Abby was just a figment of her imagination…but that was for like .2 seconds.  The football guys were fun as always.  Aunt Alma/Nonna was interesting.  I enjoyed her, but probably not as much as others did.

So yeah.  There’s my rambling review.  I’m rounding up because the moments that made me laugh and smile and gave me butterflies were truly awesome…I just wish there had been more of them for me.