USA Today bestsellng author Farrah Rochon hails from a small town just west of New Orleans. She spends most of her time reading, cooking, traveling the world, visiting Walt Disney World, and catching her favorite Broadway shows. You can find her online at FarrahRochon.com.
When it comes to personal training, Taylor Powell kicks serious butt. But it seems no matter how much hustle she puts into her business the bills keep piling up, and now the money situation is dire. She's going to need more help than her best friends Samiah and London can give her. She needs a miracle. And Jamar Dixon might just be it. The oh-so-fine former footballer wants back in the NFL, and he's convinced Taylor can get him in shape for it. There's just one catch: No one can know she's training him. When they're spotted together by a journalist, Taylor blurts the first thing that comes into her head—that she's Jamar's girlfriend. Now her game plan is turned completely upside down and she suddenly can't tell whether Jamar is playing to win . . . or playing for keeps.
Immediately what drew me in was Taylor Powell's character. A woman who has her own business and is her own advocate is super inspiring, but she's actually not doing as great as she tells her friends she is. In fact, she's in debt pretty bad, and if she doesn't figure out how to turn things around immediately, then she'll be in big trouble. A lot of romance books don't dive into the financials of any of the characters (unless, of course, they're rich), and I found it incredibly humbling to be sitting with Taylor's financial anxiety. I thought it brought light to a lot of different types of financial anxiety—such as having a lot of credit cards, or how you can hang out with friends when you're on a budget—and I just really appreciated this element of the story, especially at the beginning. It got me immediately invested in Taylor's individual success, and how Jamar and Taylor would make their professional situation work.
Jamar has some secrets that he's not immediately willing to share, and I found that thread to be compelling as we learn more. Both Jamar and Taylor have reservations about their relationship, but as they push forward and adapt to find what they want, Jamar's secret has to come to light. I believe the book was well plotted so that the revelation of his secret was at exactly the right spot, and everything fell like dominos where it was supposed to. Because of this plot structure, I found the book to be addictive and entertaining, as I always wanted to know what happened next, and how it was going to work. I believe Rochon to be a really good storyteller in this way.
The only thing for me, though, was this weird feeling that while the book was entertaining and addictive to read, I found it to be too long. I just kept wondering when it was going to end, and it wasn't as soon as I thought it would be. This felt like a pacing issue, especially since near the end, the book felt completely different from the beginning. And, knowing this book is the second in a series, I felt like I was missing out on some key elements from the first book. I've read a lot of these romance series that can be read as standalones, but I've always read them together. This is the first time I've read a series book as a standalone, and I think it'll be the last, because I felt like I was missing too much information that I couldn't read between the lines for. Not the fault of the book, but I just recommend that if you're interested in The Dating Playbook specifically, to see if the first book in the series is also interesting, and start there.
I enjoyed Farrah Rochon's writing, and I might check her out again in the future. You can find her online at FarrahRochon.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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