The blurb drew me in on this one. Unfortunately for me, it did not keep me interested. This dialog between the characters was just so-so. It did nothing to make me want to care about them. It was a very slow moving book and never really gained any traction.

Haylee has two degrees from Cal-Tech and she hopes by taking a job with the Lancers football team studying head injuries and helmets, it will get her noticed. She's hoping the guy she is crushing on will offer her a job where she can put her degrees to good use.

Wish, is a hunky football player Haylee is working with from the team. He is instantly in love with her, but not disheartened to hear she "loves" someone else. He vows to change her mind.

Even though there was some funny banter between these two, it really wasn't enough to save the story for me. Haylee came off as pretty childish-especially for someone who was so smart. A fake romance with someone she only met once?-was definitely grade school level! She was way smarter than that! It made her look boy crazy and kind of like a fool. It just didn't fit right with everything else we know about her.

The lack of heat also played a factor for me. The scenes were rather mundane and not very well developed.

I really like sports books had some higher expectations for this one. I have read other books by this author and was disappointed.

Play Crush
Play Makers #3
Kate Donovan
3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was super excited to read this one cause I love sport romances. And I was hoping to add another author to my favorites. But this one just didn’t work for me.
It was a very slow start and the lead female character seemed pretty childish. She had a fake romance with a man she only met once and she was preventing herself from meeting anyone new.
The almost non existent sex scenes were very mild and not well written. I had higher expectations for this book and was a little disappointed.
Thanks NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked the sound of this book as I'm a big fan of sports romance but unfortunately this one didn't hit the spot for me.

The main female character seemed a tad childish with her big crush which she called love, this character was supposed to be brainy but felt her attitude to the crush just made her seem really stupid.

I have enjoyed reading all the books in the Play Makers Shorts series about sexy pro football players. Each book is a standalone, although all the characters from previous books make an appearance and it's a pleasure reconnecting with them. These secondary characters add another fun element to the story.

This story is about Hayley, a brainy woman who meets Wish while running some tests on the team's helmets. Her sweetness and naivety are what attracts Wish to Hayley. However, Hayley keeps pushing Wish away and telling him they can only be friends because she is in love with someone else.

I liked Wish, he is an all around nice guy and wants to date Hayley and get to know her better. The problem I had with the story is the premise is silly and Hayley acts immature. Hayley is in love with a man she only briefly met one time.

Wish is in his second season with the team and he loves playing football. He is dedicated to the game but once he meets Hayley, she is all he can think about. It is hilarious as the guys on the team try to guide Wish on how to win Hayley over. As always, Bam is funny and mischievous. I love all the guys on the team and their significant others. This is funny, heartwarming, sweet and sexy.

A young geeky—but of course hot—female techie is tasked with doing the field work to test football helmets in hopes that head injuries will be curtailed. The players love her, one—actually more than one, but only one matters in this story—in particular.
I love this girl, at least most of the time, when she’s not being a pushover. I like the set-up. The guys are okay, probably because I semi-remember some of them from a previous book. But there’s something off about this; not enjoying it like I should, given all that’s going for it. At some points it went as far as tedious. It’s easy enough to say that lack of communication is a problem, but then that happens in just about all books in this genre, so I can’t use that one here.
As I said in the other book in this series that I’ve read, it’s hard to keep track of all the players. For example, Bam feels like a giant lineman; I’m surprised each time it’s mentioned he’s the halfback. Perhaps a character sheet should be included.
The ending, and all the Star Trek jokes, made me feel better about it, but I still didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have thought.

Play Crush was a bit of a disappointment I'm afraid. I was expecting sexy, naughty, opposites attract fun with lots of football references. What I got was a silly story low on the romance and the naughty.

My main problem was with Haylee. She's supposed to be a super smart nerd, but she comes across as an immature teenager without much of a brain in her head. The dialogue is ridiculous and at no time did she seem smart or nerdy, just a rather silly young girl. I do like Wish, though, and he's the sole reason this is three stars rather than the two it probably deserves.

This was just okay for me. It took me over a month to get through it, but I just couldn't buy into the over the top villain or how (for lack of a better word) sucky all the big, rugged male football stars were. I liked the heroine but just really struggled all the way through.

Haylee one wish was to work with the man she had secretly crushed on for a year and a half. A fairy tale ending was definitely not in her reach once she decided Wish was the only man who would be her knight in shining armor. Working side by side with the Crusaders she wanted to make a change and become friends with the players. Her sweet determination was a quality that was coveted and she worked hard to,achieve her dreams. Will Wish become her one and only?

It was an okay read to me.. it wasn’t all that glorious and in cases predictable

I hadn't read any other books in this series but I DNF at 30% because of how terrible this was. It was so misogynistic and sexist! And the heroine was completely complacent in it! It made no sense for this to be a contemporary book and she was saying she would put her hair in a braid because that was safer than up or down. I was just flabbergasted that I could not even continue reading. Let alone her love obsession with some old scientist.

I have read all the books in this series. I would say that Wish and Haylees story is one of my favorites. Wish is a NFL foot ball player who is just coming off his rookie year and he helped win the super bowl. Haylee is a tech nerd who just graduated college and she wants to work for Carlos Rorsch who is a very well known man in the tech industry. Haylee moves from California to Portland to work as entry level assistant that Mr Rorsch is financing just so she can get a chance to meet him. Haylee met Mr
Rorsch at her graduation from CalTech when he gave the commencement speech. Haylee has had an unbelievable crush on him since then and that is why she moving to Portland to try and get a job with his company.

Haylees jobs is to help record data from the helmets of several different players on the Lancers Team. The project manager Dr Samson is awful to her but 5 players are super sweet. All the players are nice to her but she has an instant connection of friendship with Wish Bennett. However Wish does have friendly feelings for Haylee. He likes Halyee but he takes the friend approach as to not to try and scare her off. Wish is so sweet and doesn't push Haylee. His teammates now they are as bad as a bunch of women and are constantly giving him advice and talking to Haylee about him. Haylee tells them she has a boyfriend which is a lie but she tells Wish the truth. Wish tells her that's find he will just be her friend.

I really liked this book but I felt like the story moved a little fast to be beleievable. This book was dual POV with the right amount of sweet romance. I can't wait for the next book in this series. Mrs Donovan also did a good job of bringing all the past characters into this book.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

I enjoy books with characters who you don't think should be together and watching them work it out so they end up as the perfect couple.

Haylee and Wish are a classic opposites attract. He is a football player and she is a computer geek, working with the team to see if a new helmet will help with the severity of injuries to the players.

I liked the chemistry between Haylee and Wish, but it took too much time (at least for me) to see them as a couple, there was a lot of time together, but not enough time with them together for me to really feel invested in their chemistry and their attraction.

I also thought her boss was a little overdone. I get the idea of needing the conflict, but he seemed more like the villain in a cartoon than an actual person. I have had bad bosses, but I have never had one this bad. Overall, I just didn't believe in the character, so the conflict that was added by the character seemed really forced.

I liked this overall, and I enjoyed it...but I wanted more from the title.

This is a really cute series. And I'm a fan of the series.
I liked the premise of the story and the two main characters.
However overall it just wasn't for me. Didn't get the romance at all

What. The. Heck. Happened?!?! I am usually a fan of this author but am not sure what I just gone done reading. Besides the fact that the H and h spend literally minimal time together during this book and that the plot was so agonizingly slow, I could not wrap my head around the bad writing and confusing dialog. This was one of those books that was just kind of watching a person live their everyday not so exciting life. I loved the premise and the idea behind the book and thought for sure this was going to be a great sports romance with an interesting new twist....Not. At. All! Half way through I literally just started skimming through the pages looking for dialog and don't feel like I missed a thing other than more of the same rambling on and on and on over stupid things and her love for a guy that doesn't even know she exists! The weird dreams she was having and the back and forth feelings with Wish were exhausting. You know that book took a incredibly bad turn when I just want to shout at the Wish to go and find another more deserving female to be with. The interactions with her boss were so overdone and the constant irrelevant calls with her best friend were clearly just page fillers I always hate to slam a book as I know how much effort it must take but this was just. plain. horrible!

Play Crush (Play Makers Shorts #3)
Kate Donovan
My Review: ♥
I really liked the sound of this book. The blurb had everything I look for in a book, but unfortunately, this book wasn't for me. My main problem with it was the main female character, Haylee. She is supposed to be smart intelligent women. However, she came across as a flirty school girl who was more interested in boys than her job. If you don't mind the "Babe" etc nickname or your women a little un-smart you will get along with this book. If you are looking for a beauty and the geek book this isn't for you.

Haylee has a degree in computers and robotics. She is hoping to get a big break to jump-start her career. She has taken a job she is overqualified to do in the hope of impressing her boss. The problem is her boss turns out to be a letdown. The job entails fitting wireless helmets to a pro football team. Haylee can't help but flirt with the team even though it could cost her her job.

Wish Bennett wants Haylee. His luck has been up lately and he is getting everything he ever wanted. All he needs is Haylee to complete the picture but will she risk her future career?

I would recommend you read the blurb of this book looking closely at the language used. This is a lighthearted story which I recommend to the non-geek reader. It will appeal to the daydreamers.

*ARC received via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review* Sorry 1 star out of 5.

Kindle Edition 0.99p
Expected publication: October 6th 2017 by Beyond the Page

I liked this story but didn't love it. I liked the two main characters, Wish and Haylee. The story was entertaining, fun and sweet. I enjoyed reading about previous characters, Kate Donovan has written about in the past. This book is in a series but can be read as a stand alone.

1.5 stars This book completely was not what I expected it to be. I love football and read other books in this series and liked them. This one, I could barely finish. So, I have to be honest I flipped through most of it, because for the life of me, I could not understand anything in this book. I didn't know who the love interest was. I didn't know it this was going to be a book about anything besides how smart Haylee is and how her boss treats her like a child.

Just didn't work for me at all.

Wish is such a sweet man. He was even willing to share Haylee, if it meant he could spend more time with her. Haylee is dedicated to her job and what they are trying to do. Her boss is a douche, but if she can help engineer a safer football helmet, then she'll put up with him. Play Crush, is a cute sports romance novel.

I had such high hopes for this one.

It combined two of my favorite genres, sports and techie genius main characters. But sadly this fell short. The writing was horrible. It was like the author was thinking of the most blah dialogues between characters that had so much potential. It just wasn't a refined story. Almost like a first draft that could have been added on to.

Haylee is a double major from Cal-Tech comes to the Lancers football team to help facilitate a study in hopes of getting noticed my the study's financier, who is a tech genius who she happens to be in love with. Who she has met once. Then she meets Wish, a hunky professional football player who falls in love with her while she is in "love" with another person.

There was some cute banter between the players and Haylee that just wasn't enough to save the story.

Recommendation: Probably won't read it again. I'd skip this one.