Diane Alberts
Entangled Indulgence
October 9, 2017
Blurb:
It all started with a bet…
Kassidy Thomas decided to stop hiding behind her past, and start living, but she didn’t quite bet on that start including her singing a horrible song in front of the handsomest bachelor in the NFL, Wyatt Hamilton. She also doesn’t think he’d then consequently ask her out on a date, but turns out when you’re actually living life…crazy things happen.
He needs to win…
Wyatt Hamilton is a player in every sense of the word. Married to the game, he has no interest in relationships, love, or even second nights with the same woman. But from the second the girl-next-door beauty Kassidy knocks on his door to deliver a singing telegram, nothing goes as planned. He can’t stop thinking about her, and keeps showing up on her doorstep for more. That is, until the unthinkable happens…
And all bets are off.
SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW
Diane Alberts’ Catching the Player starts out really well with a bet leading to Kassidy Thomas delivering a singing telegram to famous quarterback Wyatt Hamilton, even though she can’t sing to save her life. It’s a fun beginning that just seems like it will spawn an equally humorous novel.
But Alberts fails to connect on what could have been some fun exchanges–Wyatt kisses Kassidy and says that he seals all of his deals with a kiss and she says…nothing even remotely funny even though it was set up perfectly?
There are lots of scenes that I imagine other readers would call cute. There are sexy scenes. What there aren’t a lot of are scenes where anything happens.
Actually that would have to be my perception of Catching the Player. There are many instances where the novel could have sparkled if better written and plotted, but it failed. I noted as I was reading that it felt like it should have ended at 68%, but then Alberts interjected a plot device that has been killing romance novels for a long time. If I had been reading a paperback rather than my tablet, the story would have been flying and colliding with a wall. (I won’t give spoilers; you can find them easily enough on Goodreads.)
Maybe the novel is actually summed up by the antiquated title.
Normally I’d have tagged this as a sports novel, but while Wyatt is supposed to be a famous quarterback, there aren’t any game scenes.
There’s a grand gesture at the end. I love grand gestures, but by the time this one came around, all I felt was apathy.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating: 
2 butterflies out of 5 butterflies