ARC Review – The Bet (Players, #1) by Elizabeth Hayley

Copy received from netgalley in exchange for an honest review

★Book Basics★

Genre: – Cont. Romance
Series: – Stand Alone
Love triangle? – No
Cheating? – No
HEA? – Yes
Would I read more by this author/or in this series? – No
Rating – 2 stars

★Review★

Ok, so I have to say, I was sort of enjoying this, even though, in all honesty, I found it hard to warm to the hero or heroine.

It was an ok story, bit boring really, but ok, and I was happily reading it.

Lots of little threads created then nothing happens, example her bumping into the ex, kissing the hero with the oh so original concept of kissing a random stranger so the ex thinks you are all loved up, yet we never see the ex again. The whole Players Club thing was odd with the hero wondering if there was more to the clubs whole weird secrecy thing (hint, there wasn’t)

Then lots of drama, with the hero oddly estranged from his family, the heroine having issues with her boss being a dick head for no reason etc..

Anyway, then we have the heroine who is supposed to be socially awkward and makes a fool of herself when a handsome colleague smiles at her. Trips over her own feet etc….(but has anal sex for the first time on her second date!! Yay) Anyway, I think she was supposed to be adorably awkward, but in reality it came across as abrupt and rude at times. And the hero thinking it is ok to make bets about women for them to be judged on their appearance!

But you know, I was warming to it, the relationship starts off very quickly so you are just waiting for the axe to fall over the whole bet thing.

Then, about 75 % though the book, it really annoyed me. It is revealed, out of the blue the hero was born with “a Hypoplastic left heart”

REALLY!!??

Warning, rant head

Now, normally I probably would have just glided over that bit, not knowing much about it, however, recently, this condition has become quite close to us, due to a diagnosis of a baby in the family. So, we have read quite a LOT about it. And the way it was mentioned in here, just in passing, as if it was nothing, and used an an excuse for his dad to try and heal the unexplainable estrangement, quite frankly pissed me off. The hero just thinks, oh yeah, I had this, I had 3 operations and then I was fine. Just no. This is a condition in which the left side of the heart does not develop properly. The 3 operations, were only developed in the early 80’s, so before that the condition was fatal. These operations are not a cure, they do not fix that heart and make it normal. The children still have long term complications. The longest survivors in the UK are in their teens or early twenties. Children with hypoplastic left heart are always limited to some extent in their physical activities. Physical activity is encouraged, but generally contact sports are limited.

So you know what, they do not grow up to be super fit athletes in a rough contact sport, at the very pinnacle of that sport (especially not how old the hero is, so one of the earlier survivors). They certainly do not never even give a thought to their condition, and only mention it once in passing as if it was nothing. (because they need life long care and monitoring) And you know what else, they do not have a supposedly super smart Doctor of a girlfriend never ever wonder what the scars are on his chest from ruddy open heart surgery.

I don’t know, maybe this is just too close to me at the moment, I do not know what, if any the authors experience is with this condition, but the way it was just mentioned in passing, as if it is nothing serious, pissed me off.