The Perfect Play by Jaci Burton

Tara Lincoln & Mick Riley’s book. Need to push this rating to the 1/2 point so it was 3.5 stars
Mick Riley is a hunky star quarterback for the NFL San Francisco Sabers. At 30 he has done it all, seen it all and now just wants to concentrate on football. That is until he becomes attracted to an event planner Tara Lincoln. She is unlike any of the women he’s been with. Single mom of a teenage son, and the furthest thing possible from the Hollywood lifestyle, Tara would rather be wearing jeans and a ponytail. Tara and Mick start up a sexy summer fling that deepens emotionally further than either had expected.

I predict that in 2012 Jaci Burton’s The Perfect Play will win cover the of the year somewhere. Seriously hot cover. In fact, I am pretty sure the cover was a draw for the many book sales of The Perfect Play. I know it made my TBR list because of it. I just had to read about the cover football dude.

I really liked Mick. As a reader we got to experience a good time in his life. Being 30 yrs old, he was moving past his partying days, flighty models and the gold digging Hollywood jet set types. There was an immediate attraction to Tara and I felt it from both their point of views. I think that main reason he was so attracted to Tara at first was because she didn’t pursue Mick at all.

It was very enjoyable reading all about Tara and Mick falling in love with each other and how close Mick and Tara’s son Nathan were getting. Actually it was a really great read. It felt very real to me. Nothing was far fetched; they had real feelings of whether they wanted to go further in their relationship. I thought it was very typical and quite realistic. It didn’t seem like a forced conflict or any unnecessary drama. That is until the end of book drew nearer and then I just got pissed off. I am still on the fence on whether I liked Tara or not. I think I liked her for most of the book but near the end, I just wanted to smack her up side the head.

The read was perfect until the forced conflict was thrust upon the reader. Tara and Mick were doing so awesome together (with a few jealousy bumps along the way) and then all of a sudden Tara takes a completely stupid move and decides they better break up. What is her reasoning? Well I’m still trying to figure that out? She claims it was for the better of her son Nathan but that was the most ridiculous reason ever. Nathan had a major hero worship going on with Mick and Nathan was easily accepted into Mick’s wonderful family. It’s not like Tara was “burned” in a previous relationship before so I don’t know why she was so scared. It just didn’t make any sense to me at all.

I wish with all my heart Jaci Burton came up with a good reason or some sort of misunderstanding or jealousy drama or something other than the direction she went. In fact my head hurts from shaking it back and forth. Dumb dumb dumb. The worst reason ever. The Perfect Play was going to be a 4 stars for me until this happened and then I tossed it back down to a 3. Then I’ve had time to think about it so I will put it back up to a 3.5 but I am still mad. It just seemed to me the entire book got ruin with that direction. Even when they worked it out, I hadn’t forgiven Tara yet.

At end of The Perfect Play there was a great excerpt for the next book “Changing the Game” which includes Mick’s brother Gavin. The excerpt was fantastic so she has my commitment that I will be buying the next book. I really couldn’t care less if there is an update about Tara though.

My rating falls somewhere between here. LOL