Release Blitz - International Player by Louise Bay #InternationalPlayer

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International Player by Louise Bay

The story:

Being labelled a player never stopped me from being successful with women. Until I met Truly Harbury.

Truly was the first girl who ever turned me down.

The first female friend I ever had.

And she might just be the first woman I ever fall in love with.

When an emergency means she needs my help running her family’s charity, I’m happy to introduce her to the glitz and glamour of the London business world—taking her to dinners, coaching her through speeches, zipping up the sexy evening gown I helped her pick out.

The more time we spend together, the more I want to convince her I’m not a man to avoid, that we’re not as unsuited as she believes.

She sees herself as the book-reading, science-loving introvert while I’m the dangerous, outgoing, charmer.

She thinks I love parties and people whereas she prefers pajamas and a takeaway.

What she doesn’t realize is that I like everything about her–the way her smile lights up a room, how her curves light up my imagination, and especially the way her lips taste when coated with tequila.

She’s the first woman I ever fell in love with. I just need to know if she could ever love me too.

Unfortunately this book couldn't completely captivate me. Not only did it take me a couple of days to read it and I kept putting it aside and reading somethign else instead but it also took me some time to make up my mind about it.


I must add that I've loved all of Louise Bay's other books that I've read up to now (I haven't read all of them yet but about eight of them, I think) and I really wanted to love this one as well. Truly and Noah were very lovable and amazing characters but somehow things stayed a bit superficial. I couldn't really feel their chemistry, I was missing the sparks and ..well, the special something, the real connection. It was all there, spelled out but I couldn't fell it. The whole story was great and wonderfully plotted and it was all there - except for the fact that I couldn't get into it. Usually, the author's stories captivate me and I can't stop reading but in this case...

I really enjoyed watching Truly conquering her fears and rising up to her full potential, and I loved to see that she stayed true to herself and just became a more outgoing and more confident version of herself instead of changing completely. On the whole though, the interactions between the characters were very often a bit frustrating.
Noah, well, he is a bit dense when it comes to realizing that he wants more from Truly and don't let me start on his interactions with his former...flames. Nope, I was definitely underwhelmed there.

The interactions between all of the main characters often seem a bit forced and it's not always easy to feel that they really like or love each other.

It's still a nice story and a good book, and, yes, The Wrong Gentleman did set a very high standard which made it even more difficult for the International Player to compare with it. Where the Wrong Gentleman pulled me in right from the start and didn't let me go till the very end, The International Player seemed more tentative, a bit as if the story had to get a feeling for the characters, as if they weren't fully formed yet but began to grow, to develop throughout the story. It reminded me a bit of another favorite author of mine and the first book in a highly anticipated series of his, where I also had the feeling that the author himself met the characters for the first time and had to get a feeling for them as well, that nothing was fully formed yet.
So, a nice story but not a great one.

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