Mixing business and pleasure is a dangerous game… Tyrell Ransom, the new men’s basketball coach, is ready to whip his team into shape and start winning some games. But when compromising photos of his soon-to-be-ex-wife with one of his players go viral, everything comes crashing down. With reporters thick on the ground, Ty and his team need some serious damage control—now. When public relations … control—now.
When public relations guru Millie Jenkins arrives in her leopard-print cape to save the day, things really heat up… Soon they’re going to have to work double time to keep their white-hot chemistry out of the headlines.
Love Games Series:
Love Game (Book 1)
Play for Keeps (Book 2)
What People Are Saying About Maggie Wells:
“Fun, feisty, and flaming hot.” —Epilogue Book Blog for A Will and A Way
“Will steal your heart…romance at its finest.” —Harlequin Junkies for Going Deepmore
Engaging story line, wonderful characters, and heartfelt emotion on every page… you just can’t go wrong with this one! Highly recommend!
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Mary Jo –
Millie has had a thing for Ty Ransom since he became the head basketball coach at Wolcott. She just couldn’t act on it with him being a married man. When rumors of his wife’s extramarital affairs began to surface, she quietly cataloged. As the PR person for the athletic department, her job is to manage flow of information coming from the University about its coaches and players and to turn any bad press into good press.
As Ty slowly gets his feet back under him after his painful and public breakup, he realizes that he’s not all that devastated about the end of his marriage. He’d known for a while that his marriage was on life support, had a feeling that Mari was seeing other guys, he just didn’t realize it was one of his players and that she was documenting it on social media.
Millie wants Ty, and Ty wants Millie. The problem is that Millie has set an end date on their relationship without consulting him. Ty doesn’t understand why Millie is dead set on keeping this casual, especially since this is anything but casual to him.
I enjoyed this story, the way that the characters knew each other, had established a friendship before the romance began. I also enjoyed reading about older characters, people who have experienced the good and bad that life has thrown at them and are still willing to give love a chance.
Sarah –
I loved the first book in this series but this one doesn’t work quite as well for me. I think the difference is Millie and Kate. I loved the fiercely competitive coach and I struggled to like the character whose fashion and beauty obsession makes her blur into every other chick-lit heroine. Millie is tough and she is a survivor, but she is too girly for me and she’d be more convincing as a 25 year old than she is as a 45 year old.
Ty is wonderful but I struggled with parts of his story. I hate the way his ex-wife is villainised as a gold-digger while he gets sympathy for choosing a much younger trophy wife and not a life partner. After the uplifting feminist messages in the first book, I was dismayed by the slut-shaming undertones in this second story.
Ty and Millie are fun together and there are some sweet moments here. For me, there were too many mind games and too much miscommunication for two middle aged adult professionals. I also missed the sport and the competition that I loved in the first book.
Finally, why is there a white guy on the cover? Ty was black when he was first introduced in Love Game – and I’m pretty sure he stays that way.
Ruthie –
This is the second book in the series – and is an excellent follow on to Love Games, but would be good as a standalone too. We did find out quite a lot about the two leads in the first book, but there is enough here to give us a fantastic romance.
Millie is a mystery wrapped up in an animal-print enigma, but Ty is a man who is prepared to go the distance. There has been chemistry since the first time they met, but with him being married, neither would act upon it. However, now that divorce is in his future, there is a chance that they may just explore what makes each other tick. Millie’s past has made her wary (understatement of the year!) but it is very difficult not to love her along with Ty. I love it when she, Kate, and Avery get together – they are just really great fun friends.
Ty has a lot to deal with in this installment, from betrayal to hope. There is such great attention to detail in the book, and of things that both matter and will stick with me for a long time. For example, him counting down how many times he can rely on his knees in a jump… little sob from me at that point. He is such a totally caring, reliable, and centred man, that he has to win the day (and the lady).
There is a lot going on in the book. It is funny, sad, moving, and sexy, along with a good dose of college sports issues and politics thrown in. I definitely recommend this book to you as a fabulous read. Thank you, Ms. Wells, and I look forward to the next installment!
Reviewers received a free copy of this book to read and review for Wicked Reads.
Play for Keeps is my first Maggie Wells book. Within the story of Ty and Millie’s relationship there were numerous sub stories.
The story of Millie’s history with men and how it causes her to put a “time limit” on each relationship so she doesn’t get hurt and knows when to walk away was odd. I had a hard time connecting with Millie. She was in charge, all the time, and didn’t bend to fit into Ty’s life. She pushed and pushed and pushed at him and I felt her lucky that he didn’t just give up on her to move on with her life. I will say that I liked that when she was in your corner there was nothing she wouldn’t do to help you out.
Ty’s story of his ex-wife was typical. Marries a young, cute college girl…he gets older… she finds a younger guy. This time the younger guy was one of her husband’s basketball players. There are a couple other twists to their story but it was the typical story. I was not surprised by much with Ty. Other than his willingness to put up with Millie’s attitude he was the normal ex-husband.
I wanted to get into this story, I wanted to connect to the characters but I just couldn’t do it. This story was also pretty erotic, which is okay, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.
As with every book there are people who will love this book, I just wasn’t that person.