Review: Red Card

Red Card by Liz Crowe
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first thing that I would like to point out is that it will be hard to write a review for this second book in the Black Jack Gentlemen series, RED CARD without revealing spoilers for the book, but I will do my best to try to avoid revealing too much.  I personally hate it when I read spoilers before starting a book, so I will try to walk a fine line here.

Unlike the first book in the series, RED CARD features a male/female pairing unlike the gay relationship featured in book one.  I know that will definitely turn off some of my reading buddies, but I don't mind reading male/female romances, so despite some surprise I didn't fault the author on that point.

Alicia dreams of playing professional soccer and seems to harbor resentment towards males, almost a reverse form of typical chauvinism, if you ask me.   Strangely, she and her sister are not afraid to call the hero misogynistic or piggish.  I didn't really see the behavior he exhibited as women-hating or chauvinistic.  Yes, he was a man-slut.   Yes, he even referred to the disposable women in his bed in his own words as "bed-filler", but does sleeping around mean you are misogynistic?   I don't think so.

Because Alicia is a soccer player and the hero, Metin, is also a soccer superstar, it was a lot of fun to have a scene in the book of them playing soccer together in a flirty way.   There's a fun daydream where Alicia dreams of tackling Metin in a crazy aggressive fashion.  I love to see women get sex-crazed in the book in the same fashion as the men.  Unlike the previous book in the series, there isn't as much focus on the Black Jacks team or soccer playing in general.  It's there, but it is more of a backdrop to the main plot of the story.   So, that was slightly disappointing.  Still, it was fun that the author slipped in some scenes.

There are some sex scenes in the book that involve unsafe practices, so if that kind of thing throws you out of a book, you may want to avoid this one.  Also, if you're not someone who can deal with angst in your romance, this might not be your book as well.   Finally, there are some rather large twists in this one that might not flow with certain reader's ideas of 'romance'.  I could see the big twist coming in this one due to some foreshadowing on the author's part, but I can definitely see how many readers will likely be surprised by the big twist.   Again, I don't want to spoil things so I can't really get into it.  

On a side note - there wasn't any scalp tingling in this book, much to my shock after the fixation the author had with it in book one of the series.  There was at one point, however, a spot where the hero claimed his hair was hurting.  I guess she couldn't neglect the hair/scalp region after all.  

All in all, RED CARD was an entertaining read.   I am still interested enough in the series to read book three by Liz Crowe and look forward to getting the opportunity.


✳✳ Copy provided by the author/publisher for an honest review.

✳✳ Reviewed on I ♥ Bookie Nookie Reviews by Guest Reviewer, FlibBityFLooB


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