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Review
3.5 stars
Love game, written by Tracy Wolff, is an erotic suspenseful romance with lots of steam and twists and turns that kept me turning the pages.
Veronica Romero is a famous actress and one of the biggest sex symbols in Hollywood. She is good at what she does and is able to put on a show, hiding her emotions and never letting anyone get too close. She grew up with famous parents but did not have the happy childhood everyone assumes. She has walls around her heart, and has her reasons for distrusting people. She is also hiding a secret that she is determined to take to her grave.
Ian Sharpe is a non-fiction writer who focuses on true crime stories. He is commissioned to write a cover article for Vanity Fair about Veronica, the lead actress in a movie based on one of his crime novels. We soon learn that Ian has an ulterior motive for taking the job.
Veronica hides her true self from the world and from Ian as he interviews her. She deflects his questions and isn’t being completely honest with him. Ian has a knack for reading people and he is determined to crack Veronica’s shell.
Ian can’t help the instant attraction he has to her, and the sexual tension between Veronica and Ian is palpable. When the tension proves to be too much, Veronica makes her move and things do not go as planned.
He is very definitely in control right now and he wants to make sure that I know it. More, that I remember it.
The knowledge makes me wet all over again and that – more than anything else – has fear slamming through me. It’s only amplified by the need unfurling deep inside me, arousal and terror a double edged sword I am suddenly desperate to escape. Desperate to protect myself from.
Ian continues interviewing Veronica and the more time they spend together, the more Veronica slowly opens her heart to him and begins to trust him. Though he doesn’t know what is going on in her head, he understands what she needs.
I don’t know what’s going on between us – or even if there is an us. All I know if that I can breathe when Ian’s touching me, really breathe, in a way I haven’t been able to for far too long.
When her secret is finally revealed, its emotional and Ian is there for her. However, he still doesn’t come clean, and when his secret comes to light, will there be a future for Veronica and Ian?
“I don’t understand.” I turn to look at him, trying to figure out why he would do something like that.
But he looks as shattered as I feel. “I know you don’t. And that’s the worst part of this whole damn thing. That you’ve been hurt so badly and so many times that you don’t expect the man who loves you to put you first.”
“But I am, and I swear to you, Veronica, that from here on out I always will. Even if this is the end. Even if you never talk to me again after tonight. I promise you, I will never betray you again.”
Lovegame wouldn’t be a suspenseful romance without suspense and Tracy adds just enough to make you question everything. Veronica can’t shake the feelings she got when she played the role in the movie based on Ian’s book.
It’s been months since I played her, months since I had to think like she thought and act like she acted. And still she haunts me. Still I can feel her inside of me, knocking me off center. Twisting me up.
At the end of filming, she thought she wiped her hands of it all but now strange things are happening all around her. Is she going crazy or is someone else making it seem that way? The questions that filled my mind while reading kept me theorizing and eager to find out what is truly going on.
I enjoyed the book, but I did not fully connect with the characters. While both were complex and intriguing, I wasn’t fully invested in them as a couple. Veronica was broken, and my heart broke for her when we learned about her past, but the back and forth between Ian and her was a little too much. Ian was sweet and I liked him a lot, but even he bugged me a bit with his internal struggles. I think the relationship moved too quickly and when they were supposedly in love, they didn’t really know each other to warrant such strong emotions. This book has a lot of steamy sex that is raw and intense, but its a lot of the same stuff over and over. A bit more variety would have been nice. The suspense did keep me entertained and though the book started out on the slow side, the pace quickly picked up, and I wanted to know how it ended. Overall this was an enjoyable book for people who like erotic romance with suspense that keeps you guessing.
*ARC generously provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*