Review: The Player by Claire Contreras

The Player by Claire Contreras
Publication Date: October 19th 2016
My rating: 4 stars. 

I'm naturally gifted on the field and between the sheets. With flashy cars and enough media attention to put the Royal Family to shame, I’m the definition of Most Eligible Bachelor. I've never met a man who doesn't want to be me or a woman who doesn't want to tame me. Until I meet Camila. From the moment I lay eyes on her, I know I have to have her. She wants to keep me at arm's length. I want her naked in my bed. She thinks our worlds are too different. All I want her to think about is screaming my name. She says I’m bad news. I have three weeks to prove her wrong.

The Player was a book which really took me by surprise, I went into it with not a lot of expectations, having not heard a lot about it beforehand, but I’ve always been a fan of books which feature a sports romance, and also having devoured Contreras’ Hearts series I knew I was in for a great read! The first thing that had me hooked were the narrators: Megan Tusing and Zachary Webber, I’m really fussy when it comes to narrators and listening to audiobooks, but these two were one of the main reasons that I enjoyed this book so much. They were both able to get into the character so well and for me actually represent them how I imagined them to be. Also I rarely ever listen to audiobooks with English accents, but Webber definitely bought all the swoons with his accent! 

The story was also typically done well; we have our major football star Warren Silva who falls for Camilla when he first sees her on a chance meeting. What I liked most about their relationship was the fact that the attraction between both characters was there and I could see the potential for a great relationship to develop. But Contreras didn’t give us what we were asking for straight away, we had Camilla who was a strong independent woman, who didn’t want to get into relationship with Warren straight away because he was famous or had loads of money, (she actually didn’t even know who he was at the beginning). So I quite enjoyed Warren’s pursuit of Camilla, I wanted to know how far he would go and just how much he really cared for her. The Player gave us perspectives from both Camilla and Warren, and this I really appreciated, as it allowed us to get into their heads and actually know what they were thinking, this also allowed me to get to know the characters better too and definitely helped me fall for Warren that much more. Contreras also bought a lot of different issues to the story too, so we had the development of a swoony, yet bumpy relationship between Camilla and Warren, Warren also had his football career to focus on, how could he make their relationship work, if they were both living in different countries and both characters had so many complex things going on with their respective families, which did bring a lot of drama to the story too. I did like that Contreras bought so many different things to the story and it really did work for me, I liked how she made family such an integral part of the story too, Warren and Camilla’s families were really different to one another, so it was interesting to see each of the interactions with each other. Overall I really enjoyed The Player, it is probably one of the best sports romances stories I have read in a long time, my only reason for knocking a star off is because I thought some aspects could be a little cheesy at times and the big revelation that came I really wasn’t surprised by it at all, I thought that Camilla could have discovered this on her own a lot sooner! This minor detail aside, I would recommend The Player to fans of sports romance stories, or even those looking for a great romance read.