Tempting the Player by J. Lynn

Narrated by Kaleo Griffith

Book 2 in the Gamble Brothers series, Tempting the Playeris the story of middle brother, Chad Gamble. He is a pitcher for the Washington Nationals baseball team and he has a reputation as being the other kind of player with the ladies too. In fact, this reputation is such that it is affecting his contract negotiations with the Nationals. They want him to clean up his image or they won’t re-sign him. Chad knows he could go to the Yankees and even make more money, but he doesn’t want to leave his brothers or his home. Chad isn’t anywhere near as wild as his reputation would have people believe – most of it is media spin. But the Nationals aren’t happy so they demand he make changes.

In the meantime, Chad has met the curvaceous Bridget Rodgers at a bar. She knows who he is – she works with Maddy, the girlfriend of his younger brother, Chase. She doesn’t reveal that to Chad at the bar, however. They talk for hours and then go home to his place where things heat up but then Bridget runs away, worried he will regret his actions in the morning because she is not the supermodel he is usually seen with.

We know that Chad desires Bridget and loves her curves – he thinks of her as a 40s bombshell type and it never occurs to him that she could be less than confident in her looks. Unfortunately this issue is never really dealt with. Bridget has somewhat of an inconsistent character – she likes to wear bright bold colours and doesn’t mind if other people think they’re gaudy. She is described as a “social butterfly” and confident in her body image. But, she has major body issues with Chad and they never ever talk about it.

Time passes and the Nationals give Chad an ultimatum: clean up his act in a month or they won’t renew his contract. His manager hires publicist Ms. Gore (who is portrayed here as a ball breaker type woman but I’m expecting she will be the heroine in the next book) who suggests that Chad and Bridget pretend to have a relationship for one month to satisfy the Nationals.

Initially turning down a large sum of money for the opportunity to be Chad’s pretend girlfriend, Bridget has to be blackmailed into it. Strangely, Chad isn’t curious about her reasons but when he finally does ask her, she explains that dating him will provide her with better opportunities in the dating pool.

In many ways, it is a kind of modern “marriage of convenience” except it is supposed to be a temporary arrangement. Of course, over the course of that month, they fall in love and scorch up the sheets too, but the mystery of why she agreed to the arrangement rears its ugly head before there can be a HEA.

One bugbear for me: when a couple is mere millimetres from penetration, it’s not a good time for a discussion on the necessity of condoms. It doesn’t reflect well on either party – they both come off looking less than smart. And the excuse “I want to feel you” is rubbish frankly (as evidenced by the fact that many men don’t notice a change in sensation when a condom breaks). I’d really like a heroine one day to turn around and say, “If it’s not on, it’s not on” rather than acquiesce. /Rant.

That said, Tempting the Player was a fun, not too serious, sexy book and it was enjoyable enough though not outstanding. Kaleo Griffith’s narration elevated the experience but there were a few little issues with his performance. There was very little differentiation between Bridget and the other female characters, in particular Ms. Gore. At times I couldn’t tell the two apart. It wasn’t helped by the pronoun abuse in the text and I often had to rely on context to piece a discussion together. In addition, Chad and his brothers, Chase and Chandler (I know), and even their friend, Mitch, all had such similar voices that I needed to rely on dialogue tags (which were not always that helpful) to work out who was speaking. However, during the scenes that feature only Chad and Bridget, I had no problem determining who was speaking and I felt the narration portrayed their emotions and passions very well.

There are also times when one character interrupts another. For this to work in audio format, the second voice needs to cut in quickly. Here, there was a pause that left me wondering why the first character had stopped speaking. It’s only a second maybe but it makes a difference – not a big deal but I noticed it. (After listening to AudioGals’ Renee Raudman interview in January, where she talks about having multi-track recording so that interruptions can be portrayed more convincingly, I realise that when I hear it done well, it is probably due to the use of good equipment and has nothing to do with the narrator’s performance. However, it is so much more effective when it sounds like an actual interruption.)

With Kaleo Griffith, I know I will be getting a reliably good performance and he does deliver a sex scene very well. He makes his voice sound just that little bit rougher and, even though it makes me blush sometimes, he delivers in the dirty talking department too.

Mr. Griffith is the main reason I chose to review Tempting the Player and the first book in the series, Tempting the Best Man, last year for Speaking of Audiobooks. He is a powerful draw for romance listeners – certainly this romance listener.

Kaetrin

Narration:  B

Book Content:  C

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  None

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Publisher:  Tantor Audio

Tempting the Player was provided to AudioGals for review by Tantor Audio.