Playing the Player by Lisa Brown Roberts

Title: Playing the Player

Author: Lisa Brown Roberts

Publisher: Entangled Crush

Release Date: September 14, 2015

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

The Good Girl vs. The Player

Round one begins…

Trina Clemons needed the money. Why else would she—the most organized, prepared student in school—spend the summer as a nanny and partner with the biggest slacker ever? Now she’s ready to tackle nanny hood with her big binder of research and schedules. Just don’t ask her about the secret job of “fixing” the bad habits of a certain high school player…

Slade Edmunds prefers easy hook-ups, and Trina is definitely not his type. She’s all structure and rules, while Slade wants to just have fun. Fortunately, Trina has no idea about the bet Slade made with his best friend that he can totally get her to unwind by the end of summer…

Then the weirdest thing happens. There’s chemistry. A lot of it. But nothing gets between a boy and a girl like a big, fat secret.

The Good Girl and the Player is a cliché for a reason. It’s just a trope that works. And one I will never really tire of reading. So Lisa Brown Roberts’s Playing the Player was right up my alley. And the story didn’t disappoint me.

Trina has a plan for the summer. She has a binder filled with plans and activities to do with the two kids she’ll be nannying. If she follows everything she has in her binder, everything will work out and summer will be a breeze. That’s what she thought before the moms and Dr. Edmunds approached her about having a co-nanny. Slade Edmunds is the complete opposite of Trina, and having him around will totally ruin all the plans she had. Working with Slade is going to be a complete nightmare. But Slade might not be the complete slacker Trina thought he was. And somewhere along the way, Slade starts to become more than her co-nanny. That wouldn’t be a problem if both of them weren’t keeping secrets from the other.

As much as I enjoy reading refreshing romance, or romance stories that are unlike anything I’ve read, I can’t help but also always go back to certain tropes. I mean, tropes and clichés exist for a reason. Whether we agree with them or not, some tropes just work and there are definitely some that I can never seem to get enough of. One of those would be the good girl and the player (or alternatively the good girl and the bad boy). So really, Lisa Brown Roberts’s Playing the Player pretty much had my name written all over it. Add to the fact that I’ve loved every other book I’ve read from Entangled’s Crush imprint and it was a no brainer when it came to deciding whether or not I would be reading this book. And this ended up being the fun and entertaining story that I had hoped it would be. I got caught up in it in no time at all, wanting to see how the summer would unfold for Trina and Slade. There were twists and turns. There was tears and laughter. And there were two five-year-olds that totally stole the show. And I loved every page of it.

As much as I wanted to tell her to chill, I liked Trina right from the start. I mean, she’s a total Type A and likes everything to be done in a specific way and doesn’t like it when things don’t go according to plan. And let’s just say that made her a little rigid. But I could understand those aspects of her personalities cause I can sometimes have some of those tendencies. So I liked her a lot, but I also wanted to see her loosen up because I didn’t want her to get hurt and miss out on things. And then there was Slade who was her complete opposite, and who I also liked right from the start. There was so much more to him than I would have thought, and the way he was with the kids kinda melted my heart a little. It should also go without saying that I was totally rooting for Slade and Trina to get together. And once they did, for them to stay together. They just worked and I loved them and who they became when they were together. There were so many cute and adorable moments that totally put a smile on my face. And like I said, Gillian and Max, the two kids they were nannying, were absolutely adorable and there was more than one occasion where they totally stole the show. 

Lisa Brown Roberts’s Playing the Player was totally an “Emilie book” and I loved reading it. The story was fun and put a smile on my face the whole time I was reading. What more could I really ask for?