Source: we received an e-ARC of the book through NetGalley for review purposes.
If you are a fan of contemporary romance then you must be familiar with Susan Andersen’s books. Because her latest books have been a bit of a hit and miss for me I wasn’t aware that this book was the last one of a trilogy but the synopsis was so interesting that I just wanted to read it. I’m glad I did.
After realizing that Playing Dirty was part of a series the first thing I did was get the previous book Bending the Rules. The books are related but I think that they stand alone quite well, I haven’t read the first one but I don’t feel like I missed anything.
This series is about a group of friends that just inherited a mansion and they are remodeling it in order to sell it. This is the background in which each story takes place. Playing Dirty is Ava’s story. When she was in high school she was overweight and insecure about it, she had an overbearing mother who was constantly criticizing her. Ever since she was little she has been butting heads with Cade Gallari. Everything changes while they get assigned to work on a school project and start spending time together, in a short amount of time they become friends and she ends up losing her virginity to him. The day after, when she enters the cafeteria, she finds out that Cade slept with her because his friends dared him to sleep with the fat girl. Fast forward ten years and he is back in town and needs Ava’s help to film a documentary about the mansion and its former owner. Ava is not happy about it but needs the money, there is a lot of chemistry between them and Cade has changed, but can Ava forgive and forget? That’s up to you to find out.
