First off, I have to say that representation matters. I grew up reading books that never had characters that looked like me or had my background and that was fine. There’s lots of great literature out there. But I can’t describe the incredible feeling you get when you see someone like you in fiction for the first time. That’s how I felt when I read Playing for Love. Sam Ranaweera is someone I could relate to, especially as her Sri Lankan background was just part of her, not the main thrust of the plot and not another pain narrative.

This is a lovely romance between Sam and Luke with false gaming identities and all the usual elements of a romance. I even got into the game play of SyrenQuest. It’s a wonderfully fulfilling story and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it (in one sitting!). A perfect Valentine’s read.

I honestly wasn't sure what I thought of this when I started it, I'm not into gaming and that features quite heavily. However, above all its a love story and the characters are endearing so as the reader you want the best for them. I did feel a lot of the same things were said and so it could have been significantly shorter, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for my arc

This was such a cute rom com!

This isn't my usual go-to genre, but I was so intrigued by the premise of this book that I couldn't pass over it.

I loved both of our main characters. I loved Sam's development and growth throughout the story. Luke is an adorable mess and I wouldn't change anything about him.

The story progressed at a great pace. It was fast paced without being rushed. I found it really hard to put down.

This is definitely an author whose name I will be looking out for.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I loved this book. I've never had a peek into the world of gaming yet I found myself as engaged in the game as in the romance. I found myself wondering how Sam and Luke (or Bravura and Blaze) were ever going to get together once they each realised the dual identity of the other. I was trying on scenarios in my mind as I read and was totally absorbed. I was glad that Sam's father accepted her as an independent adult with rights over her own life, too.

A well-written, absorbing read, that's different to everything else I've read.

This story has two parallel storylines, one in real life and another in the online gaming world. Sam and Luke both have two lives.
Sam (Samadhi) is starting a business, Shanthi Bags, with no support from her family as they are unaware of it. She has ploughed her savings into a small office within The Nest, and hopes her crowdfunding campaign works.
Luke is a shy guy who invests all his time working on projects and finds it difficult to communicate with people specially the girl he likes.
Luke plays online games as Blaze, while Sam just started playing in Bravura. Sam has been a major fan of Blaze all through her teenage years and finally has a chance to meet him in real life. Unaware that luke and blaze are the same person.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me read an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was sweet and an easy quick read, but unfortunately I didn’t really end up liking it as much as I’d hoped to. I really liked the South Asian representation, and how much Sam’s culture and relationship with her family were discussed in the story without feeling shoehorned in at any point. Luke was sweet, and it was nice to read a romance with an assertive woman and mousy man for a change. I think some people will definitely love this one, it just wasn’t for me.

My main qualm was that I felt there was a total lack of chemistry between the two main characters, both in real life and when they’re playing them game! About midway through I thought i must be going mad, because everyone in the book is commenting on the great chemistry between the two game characters, yet I really didn’t see what all the fuss was about. And don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of quiet yearning where you have to look for the subtle signs that they want each other, but that wasn’t what I got here. I think really this was part of a bigger issue for me which was that the characters didn’t really have a huge deal of personality? I know that sounds really cruel, but I found myself thinking at multiple points that both the main characters (as well as all the side characters, actually) were more like lists of basic traits and interests than real fully-formed people. Both Sam and Luke are pretty immature and honestly quite dull at times which makes it hard to root for them.

I also wasn’t a fan of how lots of time was spent discussing business admin and the set-up of the gaming competition, especially at the start. Obviously a lot of this was necessary information, but it often felt like it was coming all at once and so it didn’t flow naturally with the story.

Ironically, although a lot of time is spent discussing the layout of the gaming competition, I actually think a little *more* time could’ve been spent explaining the mechanics of the game and the headset they use. I would’ve found it really helpful just to have had one paragraph explaining how the game and headset worked, since I don’t understand how it could be so immersive that you can see facial expressions of players and feel like you are holding someone’s hand with the only equipment being a headset, which I’m assuming is supposed to be something like a VR headset? I know I’m being picky but not understanding how this headset worked when it’s such a large part of the book really frustrated me.

Also, this is not a critique of the book but more of the marketing: I think it’s unfair to market this book as being for fans of Helen Hoang and Jasmine Guillory, two authors who write steamy romances, when this book is very much PG and often reminded me of a YA vibe. This sets up the book for failure, since lots of readers will pick it up expecting one thing and may potentially be disappointed. Obvs there’s nothing wrong with a PG romance and this will be totally up some people’s street, but I think it’s important to make this a little bit clearer in the marketing.

(Rating is 2.5 stars rounded up to 3)

I loved the setting of the world of gaming and the book was easy to read and follow. Unfortunately the chemistry between between Sam and Luke was not great and at times it felt like a romance between teenagers rather than adults, I wanted this to fully grab me with geeky cuteness but my mind kept wondering as I was reading. (2.5 ⭐️).

This book was a DNF for me. The writing didn't appeal to me and I couldn't bring myself to root for any of the characters, so I ended up not finishing this book. The plot does have potential though, so maybe I'll pick it up again at a later date, but as of now, it's definitely not for me.

Playing for Love was a lovely romantic comedy about mistaken identities between Sam and Luke. While Sam and Luke get to know each other over breakfast at their shared co-working space, their gaming personas Bravura and Blaze bond while they work as a team in a competition. As time goes on, feelings get deeper, and relationships get more complicated as they find themselves entranced by two people - not realizing that they are one and the same.

This book has a little bit of everything: the gaming community, insights into desi family dynamics, the struggles of starting your own business, and healing from grief. As someone who is South Asian, I really appreciated how the author delved into family expectations and approaches to loss and life.

I gave the book 3 stars. I found it to be a quick and easy read, but it didn’t do anything revolutionary or give me any new insights into love and relationships. Additionally, I couldn’t bring myself to be very invested in their relationship. The characters didn’t seem to have a lot of chemistry and the relationship often felt one-sided, even towards the end. Overall a wholesome, sweet book to read when you want something simple and comforting.

Playing for Love by Jeevani Charika is such an adorable story! It is a love triangle that only involves 2 people, image that! Truly fascinating! The characters are so great, I can definitely picture being friends with them in real life. Sam and Luke's love story is sweet, complicated, and at some points completely awkward. I also really enjoyed the game play/online persona part of the book. Fascinating!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I especially appreciated how the plotline and careers of the careers deviated from the normal romantic comedy. It was a breath of fresh air and refreshing. Although some parts of the novel were predictable, I still enjoyed it. This would make a fantastic movie!!

Playing for love is a great book for people (like me) who love the "fall in love with the online persona while also crushing hard on the same person irl without knowing that they are the same person" trope.

I'm not really interested in gaming tbh. The only game I excel at is Minecraft (-_-). Therefore I got bored a little while reading this book. But I loved how all the issues with the gaming world were brought to the surface. I myself have noticed some of the things happening online.

I liked Luke though I'm still sorting out my feelings for Sam. I really liked how driven she was towards her work and getting success while I didn't like her fawning over Blaze (aka Luke). The romance was kinda okayish. I wasn't really invested in it.

All in all it's a book meant for people who love the above mentioned trope, gaming world and a clean (and kind of cute) romance.

Thanks a lot Netgalley for providing an e-arc of this book.

The story was well written, relevant and heart warming. Although it was clearly adult but because of the game element which was so well described, I feel that a younger audience can also read and enjoy the content and message portrayed. I gave 4 out of 5 stars because of the versatility of the target audience and the fact that the female lead is a person of colour. I just love it when the main character is someone I can identify with and route for. The fact that the difference between the main characters’ skin tone and background were not emphasised at all is a bonus because it is part of everyday life that it shouldn’t be over explained. Well done

I left a little while between reading Playing For Love and writing this review because my initial thoughts were… unkind, and I wanted to give time for them to mellow before I wrote the review, lest it turn into a hatchet job. The issue is I haven’t mellowed. I barely even remember anything about the book other than the bits I didn’t like. Somehow it’s managed to be both bad and forgettable, which I suppose is an achievement, but probably not the kind you’d put on the front cover of a book or that the author would be pleased to read.

When I buried the second Aurora book I took great pleasure in dissecting it and holding up the shittiest bits and pointing at them, before shovelling on the dirt. I won’t be doing that here. I won’t be cracking jokes or having a good time. Jeevani Charika is a woman of colour, and I don’t want to be the white guy who takes joy in crapping all over the work of a woman of colour. However, that doesn’t change the fact that I did not enjoy this book, and you know what? That makes me sad.

This book should have been my jam. I’m a gamer, I’ve spent countless hours watching and listening to Let’s Plays on YouTube. A romance about those things should have been right up my street. There’s a couple of big problems with this book though, that put me right off it and almost caused me to DNF it.

Firstly, the leads are blisteringly stupid, about as emotionally mature as the granola I had for breakfast and just generally aggravating to be around. My issue isn’t that they’re unlikable, my opinion on that word is well documented, it’s that they’re aggravating and make awful decisions. Luke is a splineless twerp, and Samadhi goes through half of the book believing she’s in love with the disembodied voice of a YouTuber. They’re supposed to be adults, doing adult things in their adult lives, but they act like children.

Then we’ve got the writing style. It felt like one of those YA books right in the middle of the boom, when adult authors, with no business writing YA, started eying the category thinking it was an easy meal, and started writing down to teenagers. I think I probably wouldn’t have been rubbed the wrong way by this, usually sparse and simplistic prose doesn’t bother me one bit, but in combination with the childish characters it becomes something much less than the sum of its parts.

It brings me no pleasure to say this, but I can’t give this book more than a single star. I mean, I finished it, but I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it, will be reading it again, or even, hopefully, be thinking about it beyond this last sentence.

I would rate this 3.5 stars rounding to 4. I requested this book as the author is Sri Lankan, just like me and I've been wanting to read stories from authors of this descent and this is not something I had when I was younger. This book was such a cute and delightful read and I will definitely be reading the rest of the author's backlist.

Sam and Luke work in the same building and both love video gaming. With their alter egos paired together in a lucrative game, can they win, and will love develop? A totally different story line, engaging and enthralling.

What a cute book! I loved the gaming and the secret identities. It's just a fun, happy, story to unwind with. I also liked the subplot of Sam trying to launch her own business of handbag inserts. That added a nice layer of depth to her character.
Luke was a lovely beta hero and a charming gamer guy.
I flew through this book quickly and thoroughly enjoyed it.

💗🎮🎧Romance and competitive gaming: winning combination🤗

4-4.5🌟 stars
It was a bit of a lovely surprise that I enjoyed this romance so much. Not because I doubted the author. She has never let me down in any of her books I've read under either of her pen names. But I have never been a gamer in any way, shape or form and feared basing a good part of the story around the gaming culture would turn me off. It didn't, and I think that is largely due to the author's adept hand at making it easy to understand and entertaining even for non-gamers like me.

The two leads, Sam and Luke, are super positive characters but they've both got some flaws that make them human and sympathetic. Sam is afraid of her father's reaction to her change of career and hung up on a fantasy man; Luke hates confrontation and is socially inept, especially around the woman he fancies. Gaming gives them the opportunity to don a different personality for a while with no repercussions (well there shouldn't be any, right?) and compete for some prize money that could help both of them bolster their real life small businesses. The whole disguised identities and cosplay had to have a wrinkle and I thoroughly enjoyed the trouble and the way it panned out.

The romance is sweet and violence is confined to the gaming scenarios. I read through this story faster than I had anticipated because of its good pace, interesting characters and original storyline. But it was the romance that drew me to the story and that left me well satisfied.

Thanks to HQ Digital and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I wanted to like this book.

The premise is so cute! Nerdy co-worker turns hot gamer who main character has a crush on.

It seemed perfect.

I liked this book, i really did.
But it felt rushed, incomplete and frankly could have used a little more...sex.

I felt like this was a YA book and I think if I had adjusted my expectations, I would have been ok.

Just two stars for me.

"Welcome to the Quest my friend, be the fastest to the end. The paths depend on which you choose, when one dies, you both lose. Choose the right, not the wrong. Spare the young, heed the song. One last thing you have to know, where on goes, you both go - where one goes, you both go,"

This book had a unique plot that was incredibly relevant in our current technology driven world. Fashion Business owner by day, gamer by night, Sam was chosen to compete in the SyrenQuest online game. Sam is in love with professional gamer Blaze and is chosen to his team mate on the SyrenQuest. Her mentor and coworker Luke is in love with Sam. But here is where things get interesting - Blaze and Luke are both the same person.

I loved the writing style in this book, the character development for Sam and Luke was amazing. I had an equal love for both protagonists. I was hesitant to read a book about gaming- but the author created such great visualizations for the non-gamer. This was a unique twist on a romantic comedy novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you are an actual gamer and book worm - you will certainly love this novel.

Personal Review: 3/5 Stars

“It’s all fun and games until your heart is on the line,”

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC.