The Final Score

ByJaci Burton

Release Date: 2017-09-12
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Score: 4.5

4.5

From 100 Ratings

Description

In the new Play-by-Play novel by the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Contact, a star quarterback is torn between his love of the game—and the woman who may be the love of his life.

Nathan Riley is ready to follow in the footsteps of his famous football player father. He’s been drafted as quarterback for his dad’s former team, and his future is bright. When his friend Mia Cassidy moves to the same city, their years-long friendship suddenly sparks hot, reminding him of the one night they had together in college that he can never forget.

Like Nathan, Mia is from a sports dynasty family and embarking on an incredible new career—as founder of her own sports management company. Her friendship with Nathan means everything to her, and tossing sex into the mix again could jeopardize it. But the chemistry between them has always sizzled, and it isn’t long before Mia realizes she wants more with Nathan than just late-night talks and pizza.

Passion has a funny way of changing the rules, and soon Nathan and Mia discover that to win it all, they’ll have to make an unexpected play for love.

Reviews

Best friends … to lovers?
4
By Lynn B888
A fast paced adventure of friendship, hot sex and football … what more could a girl ask for? This was my first book in the series, but I had a lot of fun with the characters and I look forward to going back and catching up on the series! Both Nathan and Mia have previous family members that were in the series as they both come from a sports family. The characters were well-defined and even though I didn’t read the priors, I had no problem keeping track of who everyone was and their history.

Nathan Riley is stressing his upcoming season when he will be taking over the position his father filled before him as the Quarterback of the San Francisco Sabers. He wants nothing more than to make his teammates and his father proud, but the pressure is really piling on the closer it gets to the season opener.

Mia Cassidy is happy to be living in the same town as her best friend Nathan again. It’s been years since they got to hang out on a regular basis like they did back in college! Starting up her new sports management company is going to keep her on her toes, and she’s going to need Nathan’s jolly attitude to keep her from losing her mind.

Neither of them expects the other to be willing to become more than just friends! They shared one hot night in college, but agreed never to speak of it again and their friendship has flourished over the years regardless, but when the attraction is boiling hot between them, will they decide to rock the boat and get some real stress relief … between the sheets??
3.5 Stars!
3
By ~Mindy Lou~
Nathan and Mia have been friends since college. They had one night of drunken sex, but Mia didn't want to lose his friendship and put limits on no more sex. Nathan wants more, but he also cares about keeping Mia as his best friend so he accepted her terms. That doesn't stop him from constantly flirting with her.

3 years later, both of them are starting off in very stressful careers. Nathan as the new starting Quarterback and Mia starting her own sports management company. To ease the stress, Nathan suggest trying the friends with benefits relationship. Mia agonizes over this decision but eventually decides to try, however Mia struggles with this decision.

I love a good sports romance, but I gotta say this was super angsty. This is a friends to lovers trope and Mia struggled throughout the whole book with her relationship with Nathan. The amount of times she claimed they were just friends, was a bit overwhelming. It's a great story, I just wish we got more of these two as an actual couple vs the angst of Mia wanting to hide them.

The author brings back a lot of the characters from previous books in the series. There was no other women/men drama and no violence. It's angsty but a safe read. ARC provided by NetGalley.
strong sports romance series
4
By Tome Tender
If you are looking for a strong sports romance series, you should check out Play-by-Play.

Nathan and Mia were already really good friends. Mia moves to the same city as Nathan and their longtime friendship starts to ignite with a sexual chemistry, that much to Mia’s dismay, they cannot ignore.

I enjoyed Mia’s and Nathan’s story but found the flow of the story was slowed down by sex talk.

Fun, passionate and full of sexual chemistry, we get a front row seat to the evolution of Mia’s and Nathan’s relationship into so much more.

I received this ARC copy of the Final Score from Berkley Publishing Group. This is my honest and voluntary review.