Played is a book about dealing with loss for both the male and female character. Their career choices were interesting, we get a female firefighter and the male is the only Black hockey player on the team. The city is Boston where the Patriots rule. I enjoyed the show of loyalty by the female lead and her family to the team. It was funny at times. The male lead was attracted to the female but felt guilty about it. The conflict was somewhat predictable, he had in laws that didn’t want him to move on and the female had problems on the job. I did not feel like I got a complete ending because the people that caused problems for the couple weren’t punished

I enjoyed the book and most of the tropes. As someone who has experienced grief, the wildness of it is beautifully captured. The relationship that Adina has with her family and Noni is also done well. And it’s steamy. I think the firehouse stuff was less well done and a bit clunky for me. I am not American so calling her “ma’ and ‘lil mama’ was a bit icky for me. Also I wish we got more into Solomon’s background and his therapy. The therapy seemed like a side note. Overall a lovely book, always enjoy reading Naima’s work.

I don’t if its because I am a Rhode Island/ Providence native and a niece to a firefighter, but I really enjoyed every part of this story. From reading this description of the locations, to hearing how everyone spoke and their mannerisms. I was hooked. And yes I enjoyed the hockey without the hockey.
As for the character Adina held her own, not only when she was with Solomon but even at the station. Even when she should have opened her mouth about being harassed, not just when her life was on the line. I wished she would have had at least her best friend sooner. Matt can kick ROCKS. And Solomon, he needed to get his head out of his much sooner than he did. He let not only his grief almost steal his blessings. But I did enjoy knowing that he was falling first even if he didn’t see it we did. And he does.
I’m a going to recommend this to anyone who enjoys a HFN love story, pick this up when it comes out.

I cannot tell you how much I loved this book! There was delicious tension, an adorable little boy, a smart mouthed hockey player, and a woman too stubborn for her own good. This book had introspection, a look at the family we choose vs the family we are given, love after loss, and a TON of phenomenal lines that I can't help but highlight. Naima Simone nailed it with this one.

This book just touched my soul!! I loved it. It involved hockey and black love and I was in heaven. This book was deep because it dealt with living or existing after the death of a partner and with overcoming survivor’s guilt and guilt in general.

Adina is a lady fire fighter who finds a journal when she responds to a call at the local hockey arena. She reads the journal even though she knows that she is invading the owner’s privacy. The journal entries reveal her secret feelings and she just relates to the writer. She decides to return the journal to its owner. The owner is Solomon Young, hockey player, single dad and widower. Solomon isn’t happy that Adina invaded his private thoughts. He lashes out at her but she claps back. Despite their not so meet cute, they are both intrigued by the other. Meeting each other awakens something in them that was dormant.

Solomon and Adina have grief in common. They have both lost someone they love and they are both going through the motions in life. They get to know each other and their friendship evolves. Solomon is adamant that he is never getting emotionally involved again but his actions say otherwise. Adina softens his grumpy demeanor and she earns the love of his little boy. The issue is that they both have obstacles that they need to address. Adina is having issues with a co-worker and Solomon must deal with his boss who is also his father in law. This couple has to decide if what they have is worth fighting for, worth letting go of the past, worth taking a chance on!!

I was totally enamoured with this story. I am a Naima Simone junkie and I am never disappointed. She has a way of taking difficult issues and making them work. The chemistry between Solomon and Adina burned off the pages of my reader. I experienced so many emotions while reading and I had a book hangover when I was done. I give this book 5 gloriously hot smoking stars. ⭐️🔥⭐️🔥⭐️🔥⭐️🔥⭐️🔥Solomon Young can talk dirty to me any day!! 🙌🏾

DNF:

How our two main characters meet:

“Omg I’m so sad about my dead wife…*pretty girl walks in*… imagine what my dick would look like in her mouth.”

😐

Like, seriously? I get that she passed 2 years ago, but bro was still hurting. The split second he sees Adina all else is forgotten.

I carried on trying to get into it. But I just couldn’t.
Let’s not mention he just turns up at her parents house randomly to give her a jersey. Just go to her work dude. You know she’s a firefighter. Stalker much?

The final bit was her being pissed off with him but then telling her mum they were dating. Fake dating on top of hating each other, both having dead “love if their lives” … too much.

Unless you’re 80, the chances of you meeting someone the same age whose love of their life has died is slim.

The writing itself is fine. No complaints here. But I just couldn’t get in to the story.

I’m really sorry, but just not for me.

A massive thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy of this e-arc!

I really enjoyed this book, the set up of both being widows was something I’ve not read before especially in a sports romance and I loved the way they were trying to find love again.

The way this portrayed representation was amazing, both main characters are people of colour in fields where they are the minority. It focused on race, misogyny, and more. The author tried to be as socially aware as possible when writing this which I thought was amazing!

The plot was really good and I was gripped because although it had deeper meaning it was a fluffy, spicy sport romance. The writing wasn’t the most epic writing I’ve read but I did enjoy the banter!

Overall, I did enjoy the boon and binged it in 2 sittings! It’s a solid 3.5 stars from me!

Naima delivers an amazing romance novel. She writes in such a way that pulls you in and you can’t stop reading! Her ability to weave social injustices that people of color face every day into the story line is amazing. Her steamy scenes literally cannot get any better. She is just a phenomenal writer. Highly recommend this one.

Two broken souls discover each other despite a rocky beginning. The MCs are a hockey player and female firefighter who meet when she picks up his private journal after a fire at the hockey training facility. He is mourning the loss of his wife, she is mourning the loss of her fiancee’. Their shared grief creates a common bond between them. While I loved the concept/plot of the story, Played is not a favorite read from one of my favorite authors. I had difficulty with the author’s choice to write in slang as the characters' thoughts and speech. And it was a turnoff when the male mc nicknamed the female mc “ma, or lil mamma” - She’s not the single parent - he is, and on the other hand - just ick. And while I’m ok reading about diverse characters / intentionally trying to showcase diversity, I felt like I was being hit over the head with it here.
There were some redeeming points to the story - Solomon’s son Khalil was a firecracker, Adina finally standing up for herself with the issues in her firehouse, and there were also some holes that I felt could have been handled with better detail - the revenge porn, hockey teams have PR departments to handle sensitive issues; Adina constantly biting her tongue and letting her family/coworkers/ best friend’s sister walk all over her. After all that being said, I will still pick up the next book from Naima Simone as this is the first of all her books that missed the mark for me.

This is my first book by this author. I was surprised by how fast I zipped through this book. This sports romance was unputdownable. The banter was fantastic and I loved the firelady/professional ice hockey pairing. I also liked that there were some heavy topics covered in this book that Simone managed to pull off seemingly effortlessly. Such an enjoyable read - hoping there will be additional books covering some of the other characters.

Okay so overall I did enjoy this story. It was a quick, hot as hell read!! I finished in less than a day. There were parts that had me sweattting. I loved that our FMC was a female firefighter aka a "firelady" in a family of firefighters (reminded me of Station 19 a little). While this book has some hints of hockey. It is NOT a hockey romance. Our MMC plays professional hockey and there are a few scenes with his teammates, but it is definitely not a hockey romance in my opinion. I kinda wish we had gotten more of his teammates tho or at least his close friends.

While I enjoyed this story there were a few things that I didn't love. I had a hard time with the pacing in the writing at times. I would need to immediately re-read a sentence to understand what was just said. The book is written the way the main characters would actually speak and it made it harder to read for me. I felt myself falling out of the story and having to stop to really make sure I was getting what was actually written. Also, I felt like some things were glossed over or rushed to get to the HFN. Mind you, they were smaller things so they probably aren't that big a deal but I definitely got to the end and wanted a little more.

I did enjoy the book and my dislikes about the book honestly aren't huge deal-breakers and I could see how using the characters speech/slang may not impact other readers so I feel some people could enjoy reading or not even notice. I would rate this a 3.5 stars of 5.

For a book advertised as a sports romance I was very disappointed in the lack of both sports and romance.

I DNF’d this book at 50%. The story had great potential and the plot was an amazing idea. I just want a big fan of the writing style and the language used. The book felt a bit too casual for my liking and the language was below average. I just wasn’t a big fan of all the casual talk at the beginning of the novel. It felt more like a text message to a friend than a book. The storyline could have been great, but the language and writing wasn’t for me.

I adore Naima Simone's writing and her romances are so underrated so I was excited to see a new Montlake standalone from her! This one was as wonderful as her others and perfect for hockey romance lovers. The characters were real and relatable even if the plot was a bit contrived. Really enjoyed this new book and recommend for fans of Elle Kennedy and Hannah Grace.

I really, really wanted to love this one. The set-up sounds promising, but there were just some misses in the overall execution. I appreciated some of trope flips that the author introduced -- both have lost someone they loved; she's a female, black firefighter; he's a black hockey player. They hate the sight of each other, but can't keep their hands off each other and find love and healing along the way. Overall, I enjoyed the book, I just had to ignore some of the rough edge. For instance, their meet-cute isn't very cute. She reads his very personal journal that she found at the sight of a fire of the ice rink where he's a hockey player. It just set a bad tone for me right off the bat. I'd be pissed too.

My thanks to NetGalley and Montlake for access to an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really wish this book was a bit longer to really flesh out some things, but overall, I thought this book was really good!

Adina is a female firefighter working to move on from the loss of her fiance in a fire. It is not going all that well for her even after a year. Responding to a fire with her team she is also there going through with clean up when she comes across a dairy that turns out to be one of the hockey players. The fire was at the ice rink, she finds herself later that night reading some of the passages that were written and finds herself relating to them herself The book belongs to Solomon the player that everyone knows in town because his wife died and he is raising their child by himself. Once she tracks him down to give him back the book he figures out she read it and goes off on her and later she tells him of her loss. Throughout the book, they are dealing with loss and working at moving on. I did have some issues with the way he spoke to her being a father of four daughters we did not raise them to accept language towards them like that but this is just a book. Overall a good book.

I started this story with a lot of enthusiasm because I felt that the story of both characters was interesting and that they would be an interesting combination. But as I read I felt like I couldn't connect with the characters.

Especially when all they could think about was sexual things. Let's see, I'm not saying it's bad, but clarifying it once or twice is fine. And also, I felt that when something actually HAPPENED... it fell short. That is to say, if you are presenting me with a story where the characters EVERY TWO BY THREE are thinking about something indecent, when SOMETHING happens it should match it or at least surpass it. And not. Bland.

Beyond this, which personally ruined the story for me, I liked the development of the characters and how they open up little by little and express how they feel and what their life is like after a great loss.

I didn't like it at all, I feel that many times they want to add spice to stories that would be very well developed without it.

Thanks Montlake for the ARC I read on NetGalley.

In the current trend of college hockey romance books that I’ve been hooked on, this was not what I expected. The author takes two tragic stories and weaves them together to create a romance with a life of its own. The prevalence of therapy and mental health while dealing head on with characters with deep trauma was fabulous and at times heart wrenching.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read Played by Naima Simone!

Unfortunately, i could not finish this book, which is rare for me.

I found myself really struggling to connect or even like the characters that much. I could see the attempt made with both, but they fell flat for me. The MMC was a bit of a jerk, and had an ego. The FMC just seemed all over the place and didn't have the confidence to stand up for things that i thought she should.

Also the revenge porn thing came out of left field and then just disappeared? While it isnt a trigger for me, its something i think should be a warning in the beginning, as it could trigger others.