Review: great quick, sweet story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 14, 2013
Playing by the Rules is the story of healing a broken heart, trusting in the spontaneous and taking a chance.Kate flew home for her high school reunion after being dumped by her year long French boyfriend, Alain. A boyfriend she thought was in love with her, someone whom she thought she would be introducing to her classmates as her fiance. Instead she finds herself contemplating going to the reunion as her friend's tag along, and facing a barrage of questions about her relationship she did not want to face, and then answer. Kate has lived her life like a well planned event. She has everything efficiently planned"Planned. Plans. Planning.........She was good at plans. Planning was how she had go that great job and the flat in Paris............Not all plans succeeded. That didn't mean the plans were bad. She just needed a new plan."Kate is staying at her best friend Jo's apartment, and one morning answers the door to find her school age crush in the form of Josh Marchant, the handsome brother of Jo, standing in all his glory on the doorstep. Kate is thrown for a loop, not expecting to see Josh after all these years, feeling torn because all the old feelings have rushed to the surface when she has just broken up with Alain.Kate felt the years dissolve and her adolescent crush came rocketing up out of her subconscious, as fresh and vivid as it had ever been.Josh is a jet-setter, travelling the world, never in one place for too many years at a time due to his job. He is just as surprised to see Kate on his sister's doorstep.What follows is a funny chain of events that sees Josh pretending to be Kate's fiance for the reunion, helping her to save face. What then happens is a story of two people who fall in love, with one believing in fate that brought them back together, while the other is reluctant to let go and be spontaneous enough to see where this journey takes them.I really enjoyed the relationship between Kate and her best friend Jo. it was honest, down to earth, full of no-nonsense humor and had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion.When Kate tells Jo she is not sure if she can go to the reunion, Jo tells her in no uncertain terms to suck it up"Rubbish! you're just having an attack of the LBBs'"................." What do you mean LBBs, anyway?""LBB stands for Loser Boyfriend Blues. it is caught from Loser Boyfriends - naturally - and is what you have been indulging in ever since you got here."Jo is such a loving, loyal, supportive friend and I would love to have a friend like this in my corner should my life go pear-shaped."It never occurs to the LBB sufferer that, in fact, there is nothing wrong with her, apart from a regrettable taste in loser men."Jo tells it like it is. She also is fiercely loyal to Kate and would do anything to cheer her up, even if it means suggesting a quickie with her brother while they pretend they are engaged.I thought the relationship between Josh and Kate was great and I loved the banter between the two and the heart stealing moments when Josh is determined to keep Kate in his life and show her that they are meant to be together. I loved how he wooed her and I thought that her reluctance and self protective streak was understandable considering what she had been through.Overall, while this was a quick short read, I didn't want to put it down once I started it and was invested in finding out whether Kate would go against her plans and take a chance. I liked the authors writing style and would love to read more from her. My only want at the end of the book is an epilogue although having a snippet from the next book gave me an insight into the future that left me more satisfied than had it not had that bonus extra. i look forward to the next book in the series.