Alexa Martin

With the stakes this high, it’s no longer just a game for the Mustang’s quarterback in this romance by the author of Blitzed. Elliot Reed is living her best life—or pretending to. She owes it to her dad’s memory to be happy and make the most of her new job as Strategic Communications Manager for the Denver Mustangs. Things are going well until star quarterback Quinton Howard Jr. decides to use the field as his stage and takes a knee during the national anthem. As the son of a former professional athlete, Quinton knows the good, the bad, and the ugly about football. He's worked his entire life to gain recognition in the sport, and now that he has it, he’s not about to waste his chance to change the league for better. Not even the brilliant but infuriating Elliot, who the Mustangs assign to manage him, will get Quinton back in line. A rocky initial meeting leads to more tension between Quinton and Elliot. But as her new job forces them to spend time together, Elliot realizes they may have more in common than she could've imagined. With her job and his integrity on the line, this is one coin toss that nobody can win.

Snapped

Elliot Reed is living her best life. After a tough year she's landed her dream job at the Denver Mustangs football club and things are starting to look up. Or at least they were until Quinton Howard becomes the first player to take a knee during the national anthem. When Elliot is brought in to help make him toe the line, she thinks he's a jerk. Until they spend more time together, and she realises they have so much more in common than she could have imagined.

Sahi K

After the disappointing third book in the series, I actually wasn’t sure if I wanted to read this one. But I saw that it was about an NFL quarterback taking the knee and because I do love my contemporaries with social justice themes, I requested for this ARC. But I honestly shouldn’t have. 

The author mentions in her note that even though she is a biracial woman like the main character in the story, this is not based on her life as well as not inspired by Colin Kapaernik’s decision to take a knee and his subsequent activism. So I’m gonna try not to relate any of my gripes with the book to the events that have happened to Colin, and hopefully no one will assume that my criticism of the main character in anyway reflects on what I think of the author. 

Firstly, this book may belong to this series and it does have an HEA towards the end (even though it felt more like an HFN for me), but this is more of women’s fiction than genre romance. Nothing happens in the feelings department for about two-thirds of the book, and even when it does, it all comes out of nowhere. So, just go into this book prepared for the romance to be a subplot only and not the major focus. 

And for the main part, the kneeling and the hero’s fight for equality and pension parity for retired players who are suffering from CTE but ignored by the league, is a worthy topic to be explored with depth but I don’t think the book does it justice. One, because the whole book is from Elliot’s POV and we never see what Quinton is thinking or feeling when he is taking the knee or speaking out, as well as about all the racist abuse he is subjected to online and in the media. 

Two, Elliot is a biracial woman raised by her loving single white father without any contact with the Black side of her family, and she has clearly internalized a lot of harmful things. She is proud to call herself colorblind, wishes that everyone would be the same and treat her with respect because of her qualifications and competence and not bring race into the mix. It’s obvious that despite being 31 years old, she is willfully ignorant about the historical as well as contemporary racial issues in the country. She touts herself as a lifelong football fan but doesn’t understand the racist implications behind the sport having majority black players on the whole but not black quarterbacks or head coaches. I rolled my eyes at this initially but then realized it’s offensive because here she is, working for a football team in PR and doesn’t understand this... I have watched exactly one full season of the sport till date (last year) and even I know that. Whenever anyone is being subtly racist towards her, she just lets it go or makes up excuses in her head, and actually becomes angry when someone else points the truth out to her. And she justifies this behavior by saying that she doesn’t like throwing the word racist around, when all she is doing is living in denial. 

I will get spoilery from here, so you may wanna stop if you haven’t read the book. You probably already realize what my thoughts about it in general are, but just to clear up, I’m not sure I can recommend this one unfortunately. Coming to the spoilers, we have a DJT stand-in who is also running for the president and as expected, he makes Quinton a major target in his campaign rallies, drumming up his base with extremely vile and racist rhetoric. But when Elliot is roped into signing an NDA by her racist boss and then asked to organize a campaign fundraiser for this candidate, she feels uncomfortable and worries for how Quinton will react if he gets to know, but I never felt she was personally disgusted at having to organize the event. She seemed quite okay with dismissing it as part of having a PR job (though this fundraiser was outside of her actual job with the team). 

And then came the end, where Quinton decides to stop taking the knee because she might lose her job working for a racist owner, this after making all the excellent passionate speeches about his worthy cause for months and getting booed and questioned all the time. And magically Elliot fixes everything by sending an email to all his teammates and they realize what he is fighting for and decide to take a knee to support him.... am I to assume that Quinton being the quarterback never explained why he was taking a knee to his teammates all through the season, and Elliot saved the day and opened their eyes with one email. And in just two weeks, whole of the media and fans across the country also start supporting him... it’s all “magically” fixed and this is the exact word Elliot uses which made me quite angry. We all wish racism would magically get fixed in this country but one Olivia Pope loving PR executive is unfortunately not capable of doing that. 

I actually didn’t expect to write such a long rant and I apologize because I try my best always not to go full negative but I couldn’t help myself here. I tried my best only to criticize the actions and thoughts of the characters in the book, but I’m also aware that I have absolutely zero knowledge about the living experience of a biracial woman in this country, so please excuse me if any of my interpretations are wrong. But I am being honest when I say that I personally can’t recommend this book in good faith.

Alexis 

4/5 Stars 

I had a great time reading this! It was realistic and moving. This is the second book I've read from Alexa Martin and I will continue to pick up her books. I love her writing and connect with her characters and stories. As I said her books are very realistic, her characters are flawed and that's part of what makes me connect to them. Honestly, I recommend giving her books a read.

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