The Player by Kresley Cole

The Player

Author: Kresley Cole

Genre: Romance

Date: 13 August 2021

Rating: 2 stars

Review: Who’s surprised that I went ahead and read the third book in the series, too? I am not. The Player, obviously, follows the third Sevastyan brother. But unlike the first two books, this one has a much more convoluted story. A little too convoluted for my tastes. I like my dark romance books simple and the psycho element a little pardonable. 

The Player is the story of Victoria ‘Vice’ Valentine, which you have to admit is a great name for the main character in this genre of books. Unlike her counterparts in the previous books, Vice is not an innocent woman running from danger and needing protection in the form of a tall, dark and handsome hero. Vice is a con artist from a family of long-standing con artists. But she has had a streak of failed cons when she meets Dmitri Sevastyan and decides to go big by ensnaring him because his attraction to her is very evident. Tricks on her because when confronted with sexy fun times with a Sevastyan brother plotting takes a back seat. Add in a wedding without a prenup and you have the recipe for trouble or in this case a fast-paced novel.

Now the book is written in the same way as the previous ones. It was a page-turner I’ll give it that. But the plot twist was predictable and in her attempt to create the scenarios and write the explanations behind motives and moves Cole missed out on a big part of what I enjoyed in the previous books. I read these books for escapism. The worlds these characters inhabit and their circumstances may be dark and full of despair but the passion and love they find with the loves of their lives make up for it. 

Here we have a character who is pulling the long con. I can pardon Aleks’s bid to capture Natalie by pretending to have sex with her and even pardon Maks for keeping Cat in his hotel room as signs of the genre. But not only did the entire storyline of Vice tricking Dmitri and vice versa not sit well with me but it wasn’t as interesting to read either. And the latter is my bigger problem with the story. In her attempt to write a thriller-esque story Cole took away from the banter and romance that I reached out to the book for. 

With this book, the Game Maker series comes to an end. Now, I need to look for another such series to keep me entertained. But first I need to go tackle my ever-growing TBR stack and stop reading books that, in my own snobbish words, will only add to the unusable cache of information in my head. Like I now know that there are century-old sex clubs in Paris.