3.5 stars. This was such a cute read. "Playing for Love" is the story of Samadhi and Luke who know each other from the office but are unaware that they are teammates in a videogame competition. We get to see two unrequited crushes involving the same people navigate different personalities and outside pressures. From the very beginning, the meet-cute was so realistic but kept its charm. I wanted to read more diverse stories this year and as an immigrant kid myself, I really appreciated the accurate representation of some of the difficulties that exist in ethnic families surrounding emotions and communication.
The unique way this story was told through a coworker romance and teammates allowed for Sam and Luke to be seen at their best and their worst. It was really refreshing to see two imperfect main characters. Many times the FMC is made to be perfect and the MMC is made to be a jerk. In this story, we got to see both characters be awkward and cocky with each other depending on where they were. While some of their actions frustrated me, I liked how they were able to grow from difficult situations and apologize to each other. My only major dislike is that it took a long time for them to figure out their secret identities when they were so close to putting the pieces together many times. However, I loved that there was no spice. As an avid spice reader, I could tell that spice would have ruined the story. Watching them fall for each other in a wholesome way was more than enough.
*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ahhhh I loved this so much! As a non gamer I found the plot so interesting and straight away was hoping luke and Sam would discover each others secret. The storyline of the game they were playing always kept me entertained as well!
I'm also a massive hater of chapters longer than 10 pages but I felt like I was flying through the longer chapters because I was enjoying it so much!
If I had the time I would've read the whole thing in one day
Highly recommend this book!!
Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and Jeevani Charika for providing me an ARC of this

(Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for a honest review)


This plot was not something I had read before and that is why I requested for it. It was an interesting read game wise but other than that nothing much.

『• • • PLOT• • •』

Samadhi 'Sam' uses her second interest, gaming to de-stress when she isn't busy expanding her business (without her identity exposed). When she's chosen to compete in a virtual tournament alongside the renowned elusive player Blaze, she can't believe her good fortune.

Blaze is brash and confident, which comes as no surprise considering his massive online popularity, and Sam feels pressured to impress him with her skills. But she has no idea that he's actually bashful Luke, the guy who can't speak in proper sentences in real life.

Sam rarely notices Luke even though he is very often at her desk because of her crush on Blaze every day. Will Sam miss her opportunity with the man right before her as her crush grows stronger?

『• • • THOUGHTS• • •』

As a gamer myself, this plot was interesting. Though I play horror, survival games more as compared to the RPG, action-platform kind that was in this book. The game itself was complicating to imagine because of the new elements, it seemed more like they were using a VR headset to play the games but that wasn't mentioned. Though, I liked how some problems happening in real life gaming world were highlighted in this book, it was very relevant and needed.

And I loved the idea of Sam's products for her business, it is very useful. I liked that her business self helped her to push on regardless of what obstacles that came her way. And I liked the inter-racial representation here, I feel like I have to highlight whenever there is one because there really aren't much out there.

But, personality wise both Sam and Luke felt like pushovers. They didn't really have any chemistry that made me go "wow" and I feel there wasn't even a "getting to know each other" phase. The online personas definitely had a part to play in this which should not have been the way as they are two different people. Sam also was super quick to swing and choose a different option every time the need arise which I found such a turn-off.

Also, this book is a clean romance that gives off more YA vibes than adult.

In all, not a bad book but the writing could have been clearer.

Outlets that keep you close with your family are precious. I love that that’s how Sam sort of got into watching Blaze. I can relate to that being deeply into YouTube for YEARS. I thought their story was super sweet and evolved nicely. I am a sucker for dual POVs.

I really did not enjoy this book. But I really wanted to!

I can see where the book was going with this and maybe if I was younger I’d enjoy it? But for a young adult in her early twenties, I got nothing from it. No feelings from the main characters and tbh, I didn’t even care for them at all. The whole story was very predictable.

Would recommend if you’re a young teen who likes romance books and gaming.

Playing for Love is a really fun idea that just hasn't been executed well. I found Sam to be incredibly annoying and there's no development for her at all. It then made it really hard to route for her and Luke together as I just didn't buy the romance. There's scope in the gaming story, and if the author just focused on that, I think this could be a stellar novel.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy of this book. This is the story of Samadhi - known as Sam - who is trying to get her fashion business off the ground, and Luke, a consultant for small businesses. Luke has a crush on Sam, but Sam’s head was turned a long time ago by a famous Youtube gamer called Blaze. When the opportunity to compete in an online gaming competition alongside Blaze comes up, Sam jumps at the opportunity. Not only can she meet her idol, she might be able to win the money she needs to get her company going. What she doesn’t know, though, is that Blaze is actually Luke.

This is quite a cute book. The writing was quite simple but it had some nice moments to it, particularly when things got more emotional. The way that Sam and Luke met was very sweet, and their friendship developed quite nicely over the course of the book. As characters, though, I found their personalities a little hard to pin down. I liked Luke as Luke - he was very sweet and cute, and I liked that he was clumsy and not sure of himself when it came to women. In contrast, I wasn’t so keen on Sam as Sam; I found her a little stubborn and some of her choices didn’t make sense to me.

On the flip side, how I felt about the characters changed when they became their online personas. Luke as Blaze was more arrogant and harder for me to like, whereas Sam as Bravura was more endearing and I liked how she grew into her character. I think this sort of evened itself out, though, and ultimately I rooted for both characters enough to carry on reading.

The plot of this was quite good, but I will say I preferred the gaming subplot overall more than the side that focused on their real lives. The choice to show their quests in-action was a good one as it really picked up the pace of the story and kept things moving along. Plus I liked the exploration of certain subcultures within gaming, and how it covered the issue of sexism and misogyny in the industry. Their real lives were interesting enough - I was invested in Sam’s business as much as she was by the end of it - but I thought the gaming plot really shone through.

Overall this was a very gentle but solid romance and I thought the set up of the story was quite clever. Once it got past the halfway mark I couldn’t put it down - it was definitely very engaging and the pacing was great. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a hidden / mistaken identity, friends-to-lovers romance with a pair of gaming MCs.

Content Notes: Death of a parent (in past), cancer (in past), misogyny / sexism in gaming, mild violence.

Fun quick read. This was a new trope for me and I find that I really enjoyed it. I loved the main characters. Read in one sitting. If you're in a reading rut this is a cute, quick and fun read.

I picked this book solely based on the cover (which I love!) and that it was a romance; I fancied that, so I thought I would add it to my list. Later, I read the synopsis and realised what it was about and thought I had made a big mistake. I don't like gaming and have no interest in reading about it. I'm glad I read it, though, as I really enjoyed it.

The plot is where the person falls in love with the online persona while crushing hard on the same person in real life without knowing that they are the same person. They also rebuff one person/persona and focus on the one they feel they like the most.

Luke and Sam have started working together in real life, with Luke helping her get her crowdfunding scheme up and running correctly. They end up competing in an online gaming competition together without knowing who the other person is.

The characters are well developed. I particularly liked how Luke was portrayed as a timid person in real life, but Blaze's confident persona when gaming or on YouTube. Sam's feeling around her family and her new business was also realistic and well portrayed.

This is a cute romance novel. It's clean as well, which I like; it's not graphic or revealing in any way. I didn't expect to like it because of the gaming element but, it added to the story and gave it more dimension. I also liked their gamer cosplay outfits; they sounded incredible.

I loved this book and read it in one sitting. I didn’t expect to like it, because I have absolutely no interest in gaming, particularly online gaming, YouTube influencers nor Avatars! I am not into fashion either, though I do rather like handbags, for some weird reason, sine I rarely use them. But the story was wonderful, moving, convincing and very uplifting. I could imagine that it would make a great film. Definitely a feel good novel to banish winter blues. .

I read this book in one sitting! I really really enjoyed it. It was my first time reading something from this author and I will definitely be paying attention to other things that she writes.

I received an e-ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've not read a lot of books that center on the gaming industry, and that's one of the reasons I was drawn to this book. I'm not a pro-gamer myself, though I've always enjoyed a couple of games on my Switch and mobile games, that's the extent of my "gaming" life.

This book reminded me of Ready Player One because of the game components and interface described here. I thoroughly enjoyed the gaming aspect of this book, it was very entertaining and immersive to read about. I also like how the book touched on the topic of how women players are perceived as weak or incompetent in the gaming industry since it's an existing issue. It's another dig on gender inequality, and so I wished they tackled it a bit more in-depth to give it more emphasis.

Sadly, I didn't like the romance. It was too insta-love on the side of Luke, which I didn't like especially it was borderline unrealistic. He saw Sam and without proper interaction with her, he was already throwing lines like "I am in love with her", I get that it can be an expression but it was just over the top and extremely cheesy.

Sam's business idea is good, but I didn't like how it came across as if she invented the product in the first few chapters. It's already been existing (in real life), especially since I'm assuming this story isn't from the '90s, so I wish they presented it in a way that Sam innovated the idea of bag inserts or it had something to do with a more ergonomic design instead.

Apart from Luke being written as a hopeless romantic, he was okay. I liked his character, both in his personal life and gaming life. It was a nice distinction and approach on how people use the online world to hide from their real lives and mask their flaws -- evidenced by how Luke struggles with socializing and confrontations, while Blaze is confident in ways that Luke isn't. His experience and thoughts on having two opposing personas are very realistic. Assuming an online identity can both be bad and good, but the common denominator is that some people use it to create a better version of themselves.

I love a strong and independent woman, but I didn't like Sam. She came across as snobbish, rude, and naive. It's sad because someone with as much dedication and spine to go against her parents' expectations, you'd think she would have a better personality and grasp of reality. I especially didn't like how she treated Kyle during their rewatch of SyrenQuest, because she didn't tell the guys how invested she is in gaming, she couldn't possibly expect them to not "educate" her. It wasn't like Kyle was purposely catching her up on the game to make her appear stupid, it was because they didn't know she played at all and would like to include her. There was a time when I agree with Sam, it was when Kyle threw out a sexist comment when he theorized why she was suddenly invested in the game. I won't pretend to understand how far and deep fangirling can go, since I've never experienced it, but it was so naive of Sam to think Blaze would fall for her just because they got paired together for a competition. Having a crush on an internet sensation is okay, but you need to level it with a sense of reality as well. And then there was a time when Sam outed Luke's gaming identity to Niro -- there was no hesitation from her end. She followed Blaze since she was a teenager and you'd think she would have known he's private when it comes to his personal life, yet she immediately gave that information freely, without an ounce of respect towards the person.

As I said, I couldn't get behind the romance in this book. There's nothing romantic about a superficial heroine who blindly falls in love with someone who's obviously an online persona. She kept saying how Luke wasn't her type, and yet when she didn't like the personality of Blaze, all of a sudden she's leaning towards the idea of Luke. It just didn't do it for me, even if she realized the error of her ways, there's just nothing romantic about it. Also, there was a lack of enough shared moments between Luke and Sam to make me believe in their romance; for the most part of the book, it was unrequited and one-sided.

This is an okay book, I enjoyed it for the gaming plot, but the romance not so much. The pacing is just right, not too slow and not too fast, although there were scenes that are random. It's not so bad that it's unnecessary and unrelated, but it could definitely use a follow-up. I hope others who would pick this up will have a better experience and appreciation than I did.

Working in the same building a friendship blossoms but neither know that they both have on line alter egos. A gaming event, the need to buy out a business partner and a crush are evident.
Can the real life against on line personalities. Can they untangle the hurt feelings, confusion and work things through? Both vulnerable and honest. Enjoy getting to know the characters. I did, I will be looking for more books by this author

A quick and easy read that I found myself picking up after a long day to unwind. The characters are beautifully written and I came to love them within the first few pages and was rooting for them all the way to the end. At times I wanted to stop reading because I just wanted the experience to go on for longer.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

OMG omgomg! That was so so nice! I really enjoyed it: read it in one day! Nice storyline, realistic problems (I mean mostly :D), characters I loved reading about. I recommend it to everyone who love the cutest romantic stories <3

This was such a unique concept for a romance, and I was initially drawn into this book because I wanted to see how it would all play out.

I'm usually not a fan of workplace romances as I find them a bit cringy, however, I felt the portrayal in Playing For Love was very realistic and relatable. Further, the gaming aspects of the story were easy to follow (coming from myself, whose gaming knowledge doesn't extend beyond The Sims).

However, in my personal opinion, I did find it hard to relate to Blaze and Bravura's relationship, and feel as though it may have worked better in a YA context. I was a bit sceptical of the fan / idol dynamic, but in the end I liked how it all came together.

Sam has an online crush on a gamer, Blaze, that she watches on YouTube and has watched since her teenage days. She also lost her job recently and is working on starting her own company designing handbag inserts! Sam enters a contest and gets to play with said gamer in a video game tournament that ends with meeting each other at a CON. Luke works in her building (a communal work space). He helps her with her web presence and pitches. ...Big reveal(NOT a big reveal...not a spoiler)...LUKE IS BLAZE.

Do they win the tournament? Does Blaze figure out that she has a crush on him? Does Sam figure out that Luke likes her after all the time they spend together? DO they figure out that they are BOTH leading double confusing lives?

This book will NOT be for everyone. That being said, this book was for me. I had online crushes. I wanted to meet them. I can't say I'm a gamer, but I have played a video game or two and understand this online presence. I have never gone to a CON, but I have met up with online folk that I've fallen for. More than once...the last time, it stuck though and now we're married ;)

This book read fast. It was fun. It didn't add extra non-needed gobbelty gook. The story stuck to exactly what parts of their life I wanted to read. I loved it. It was fun and light but enough twists and depth to not consider either MC shallow. I give this book the full 5 stars, but I think the topic meshed well with me and I don't expect everyone to love it. But man, it's cute and fun so even if it isn't your thing, give it a try!

**I read this book as an eARC from NetGalley and HQ**

This had such a fantastic different concept for me, but it fell short slightly. Whilst it was the usual predictable love story, which I absolutely adore, the plot holes just ruined it for me slightly. However, it was a welcome change from the usual love story!

First things first, I LOVED the fact that even though this book was set in the UK, the author didn’t go out of their way to write as though everyone was all “cor blimey”, “alright guv’ner” or “oh, daarrrlling how ever do you do?”. So often, when a book is set in the UK (or one of the characters within an otherwise American cast is British) the author goes out of their way to stereotype British-isms that as a British-English speaker myself, can become so overwhelmingly tedious that I have to stop reading; this most definitely was NOT the case with this book.

I also found it really quite refreshing to have a male love interest in a romance book that wasn’t an alpha male. The amount of new romance novels that are being released at the moment where the male love interest (in a heterosexual relationship) has so many red flags, toxic traits and/or so called ‘quirks’ is through the roof! Charika does an amazing job of making Luke a soft, loveable character that shows his more emotional side whilst also being assertive when he needs to be.

Even though the whole premise of the book is based on is, basically, a miscommunication (i.e. they know each other in real life, but they don’t know that their on line avatars are the same people) the communication in this books was encouraging. There were quite a few points where the author could have chosen to fall into he trap of a miscommunication trope, but they didn’t. And I hugely respect that!

It is also so relatable to me the Sam watches live steams of games without actually playing the games herself; if I was to get my hands on the games I watch being live streamed, I would be so completely terrible!

This is an own voices Sri Lankan novel, and while it is not my place to comment of the authenticity of the representation, I can say how much I LOVED the sprinkling of culture throughout the book. Samadhi was a very likeable and well-rounded protagonist, and her family ties and relationships were so heart-warmingly realistic.

Now onto the not-so-nice negatives:

The first thing that bugged me about this book was the game headset. As part of the competition, both Sam and Luke get sent a Syren3 headset to help promote the new game. It is never actually described how this headset works or what it looks like (or if it was described, it was so brief that I must have missed it). At first, I was thinking it was just headphones and a mic, then as the story progressed it seemed it was more of an eye piece/3D visuals headset. However, later on in the gameplay, there are such acute things that the headset is picking up and transposing into the game that it just seems quite farfetched; for example, they can see each other’s facial expressions, they’re able to touch each other and give each other a hand up when one has fallen, they become out of breath when doing physical activities during the game, Bravura is able to control her avatar so acutely that she’s able to look at Blaze’s lips and he’s able to pick that up through the graphics. I would just have appreciated some more clarification on how the headset works, or what it looks like as this little oversight kind of annoyed me.

Another thing was the sudden declarations of love. Sam is supposedly ‘in love’ with Blaze. Someone that she has literally NO IDEA what they look like; they could be using a voice changer, they could be completely and utterly lying about the tiny pieces of information they have given and yet Sam states that she’s ‘in love with him’. Luke, on the other hand, has bumped into Sam only a handful of times around the office space. He then takes some time to help her with her website; so, all things considered, they have been working together for maybe a few weeks. And yet, he states (at about 50% through the book) that he’s in love with her. I don’t know, it just feels a little farfetched that these two characters that, relatively speaking, know next to nothing about each other would be stating that they were in love. To be fair, they weren’t physical declarations, they were said within their inner monologues, so to speak. But even so, to have such strong feelings about someone that quickly based on such a small amount of information… just doesn’t seem particularly realistic to me.


That all said and done, I did enjoy this book for the most part. It was a quick, fun, easy read. If you’re looking for a clean romance, with a healthy end relationship with good communication, a HEA ending and you’re a fan of the movie You’ve Got Mail, I would bet you’d really love this book.

Thank you to HQ Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is out for release on 11th Feb 2022.

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ for the ARC. I found this to be a pretty typical romance novel with the added conceit of YouTube gaming and streamers. I am a big fan of watching channels like GamesDoneQuick to see people play video games extremely well and I, like Sam, fall asleep at night to streamers. I did find it interesting that the two main characters actually had a similar issue of hiding themselves from others rather than being completely opposite. It was a good way to while away the time but it does not stand out to me among others in the genre. I do hope to see more books about gaming as it is a personal intersection and I enjoy learning more about the behind the scenes.