Olivia Shore, international opera superstar, is a driven diva with a passion for perfection, a craving for justice, too many secrets—and a monumental grudge against the egotistical, lowbrow jock she’s been stuck with.
It’s Mozart meets Monday Night Football as the temperamental soprano and stubborn jock embark on a nationwide tour promoting a luxury watch brand. Along the way, the combatants will engage in soul-searching and trash talk, backstage drama and, for sure, a quarterback pass. But they’ll also face trouble as threatening letters, haunting photographs, and a series of dangerous encounters complicate their lives. Is it the work of an overzealous fan or something more sinister?
This is the emotional journey of a brilliant woman whose career is everything and a talented man who’ll never be happy with second place. Tender and funny, passionate and insightful, this irresistible romantic adventure proves that anything can happen…when two superstars collide.
Comment: It's been years since I've read a book by the author but looking at lists with her books it seems this was her latest release, back in 2021. This is another installment in the Chicago Stars series but I will confess I can barely remember details about any of the previous books, unless I check my summaries, and while I loved the book before this one, I only remember superficial things. Perhaps too long between installments does this...
In this story we have Chicago's player Thad Owens going on a publicity campaign along with opera singer Olivia Shore. They are meant to showcase their Marchand watches and will travel to several cities within the US to do so. Each one has reasons to do it but at first Than can't understand why Olivia shows so much animosity towards him. It's true they don't have a lot in common except their personal dedication to their jobs and the drive to do them well, but if she doesn't know him, why the clash? Olivia believes Thad to have done something she condones and acts accordingly, but as soon as she discovers the truth, she apologizes but can they still have a cordial relationship? In fact, the more they get to know one another, the more in sync they seem and a future might be possible but at what price for their demanding careers?
Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a definite single style of writing. I tend to like her stories because the characters have a lot more depth than the sometimes silly situations they seem themselves in would indicate. Sometimes this works for a story to be enjoyable, sometimes it can be irritating. In this case, I liked the book, I've recognized all the little things which made me like her books but it wasn't as spectacular as other titles by her have been.
I would say that the issues for me weren't deal breakers, in the sense that more of them would have ruined the story completely, but when put together made me wrinkle my nose. First, Thad and Olivia are driven and focused on what they see as doing the best they can. This is great and especially empowering for Olivia, since often women are the ones to take a step back. But a lot of the tension/conflict for why they shouldn't be a couple is set on the idea one of them would have to compromise so that the other could shine. It is a given - I mean, this is romance! - that this situation would be solved in the end, so the stress throughout the novel felt annoying to me.
Another issue is that part of the plot includes external conflicts such as a kidnapping, letters with threats... all interesting things to add some drama and tension to what is happening, namely why Olivia isn't feeling very confident which shows on her voice skills, key to her work. I just think there were several confusing situations, some red herring scenes too, to add doubt, but since this isn't primarily a mystery novel some of those situations had details I think weren't as necessary.
Olivia and Thad should not be a good pair but of course we are eventually sold on their romance. They are both focused on their careers and as they spend time together they get to understand the other persons' work ethic, why newspapers talk about things but the truth isn't as linear and I liked they could be fun together and I could see how they would work things out so that their relationship could remain balanced, even with the work demands. Their personalities aren't too different, even if their personal preferences might contrast.
As usual, the romance is sweet, cute at times, filled with entertaining scenes and sometimes silly situations... we still get to see how they would care for one another even in the simplest moments and sometimes these can be the best scenes in the author's books. Of course I was very glad they got to talk, understand each other and all that but I can't pinpoint exactly why it felt the chemistry wasn't as perfect as I would have liked... they go from enemies to lovers rather quickly but in a sort of convincing way and it does take some time before they get to be intimate but still... sweet but not amazing, I'd say.
Something I really found interesting and even got me to google stuff (always fun when this is something I feel like doing while reading a book) was all the opera references. Since Olivia is an opera singer, there's a lot on some operas and I liked knowing more about their plots and I got to hear some of the songs mentioned. I think it's very entertaining when authors can use references well.
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