I am a complete sucker for sports romances. Honestly, it's probably becoming a bit of a problem. I adore watching sports, so I suppose this all flows naturally. I find the fragile egos of professional athletes to be particularly pleasing romance fodder, I don't know why. I put up with more angst and ridiculousness from novels about athletes than any other character group.

PLAYING HARD is one of those books that probably would have bugged me if the dude was a rancher or a billionaire, but worked for me because he's a baseball player. Sidelined with an injury that was not his fault, Oliver spends most the story feeling quite sorry for himself. The only thing he allows to shine joy into his existence is our heroine, Amelia. Complication is that Amelia is the emotional sibling of a kid on Oliver's team, a kid who happens to both hate Oliver and be the cause of that injury.

If we're going to talk external versus internal conflict, for Amelia in this book they are one in the same. She has internalized familial expectations so heavily that she has no real idea what would possibly make her happy outside of their approval. Her journey in this story is both towards Oliver and away from them, or at least moving towards re-defining their role in her life.

On Oliver's part, he has a lot of growing to do as well. He's got the Alpha problem of thinking he is the king of all things while really having little idea about how things work, but his age (relatively ancient in baseball terms) has led to a softening. He know the difference between power coming from youth and power coming from wisdom. His journey is both towards Amelia and towards a new role within his career and I really enjoyed reading his internal struggle around that.

PLAYING HARD is a easy win for anyone who likes sports romances, but would probably also be good for anyone who likes opposites attract narratives as well.