Book Review: Play Fling by Amber Scott

Book reviews

17 Nov

Play Fling by Amber ScottebookTBR pile (on kindle)Self-published, 2010 Synopsis- Face Your Target... Brooke Munkle didn't leave a lukewarm marriage just to flounce into the first hot bed. Too young, too hot, Elliott Jovovich has no business distracting her from starting over. If only he'd get out of her fantasies. Maybe if she keeps things simple, she can allow herself one naughty indulgence. After all, who will know?Pull The String... Elliott sees through Brooke's stiff facade. Underneath her struggle to hold it all together, a vibrant, wanton woman is waiting to be freed. To win her heart, he'll play by her rules, which would be a a lot easier if her hostile best friend didn't fight so dirty. Sure, he has ammo of his own, but what he knows could hurt Brooke.Steady. Aim. Release... Millie Match isn't sure what she did to deserve this matchmaking hell. The sneaking around, the spying, compatibility issues, chemistry crises. Her target, Brooke, is keeping secrets. Elliott is definitely Mr. Wrong. And if Millie doesn't make true love magic now, she'll lose the one thing in this punishment worth fighting for. Review- Brooke Munkle is 37 years old, newly divorced and has returned to her studies. She still hopes to find the love of her life following an unhappy marriage of fifteen years. But when handsome, flirty and sweet Elliot Jovovich who is more than ten years her junior stumbles into her path she gets into a fluster. A younger man who creates an intense physical reaction was not quite what she had in mind when she intended to start her life over. Elliot is persistent and loveable, whom I imagined with big puppy dog eyes, following Brooke around until she succumbed to his charm, which she eventually does. What starts as a physical attraction develops into more and both fight their true feelings for each other because of the marked age gap.Play Fling is a contemporary romance novel by indie author, Amber Scott who writes across various genres. I picked up a copy during an indie blowout sale at just 0.99c and it has sat on my kindle for well over a year. I was looking for something light and fun to read and thought I’d give it a go. I tend to have mixed feelings about Play Fling.I did like the premise and I was intrigued by how the author would approach the couple’s age gap. What I liked was how she completely turned around the power imbalance by having Elliot as a teacher’s assistant and in charge of marking her papers. So, initially I leaned towards Brooke having a bit more control in the relationship because of her age, but then the teacher-student roles kind of balanced it out. Elliot was a likeable character and Brooke who was a little more defended was also well fleshed out as a conflicted character.However, there was another side story with Brooke’s friend Millie and her partner AJ. She’s apparently a cupid or match-maker of some sort and determined to reunite Brooke with her ex-husband despite Brooke’s obvious attraction to Elliot and clear lack of feelings for her ex. I really don’t think this sub-plot added any substance to the story and I actually found it a bit annoying. I thought Millie was self-centred and I found myself rushing through her point of view.The other issue I had with the story was the drawn-out internal monologues telling the reader about the characters conflict. It mostly happened with Brooke, but also with Elliot and Millie. There was often page after page of this internal conflict which could have been shown in just a few sentences or through the character’s interactions. I actually think if some of that had been cut out then this story would have worked quite well as a short and sweet novella.The ending was a little rushed and though I enjoyed Elliot and Brooke’s affair I was surprised when they got to the ‘love’ stage because I couldn’t really see how the leap had been made after just a few nights together.Despite some of the issues I had with the story, Play Fling is a light and sweet story that takes an interesting approach towards a relationship where the heroine is ten years older than the hero.