Intercepting Daisy by Julie Brannagh

Grant Parker is a quarterback for a popular football team.  His PR team works hard to make sure he appears to be a squeaky clean, church attending saint.  Grant prefers to spend his free time sleeping with women… lots of women.  After one such night of entertainment Grant discovers an e-book on the e-reader of his date for the night, a book about him.  The author certainly has some interesting ideas about what she’d like to do with Grant, but who is this anonymous author?  Soon Grant discovers that the sweet, funny flight attendant he’s seeing is the author of this raunchy story that’s threatening to end his career.

When I first started reading Intercepting Daisy by Julie Brannagh I was instantly drawn in.  The writing style was familiar and comfortable and the Grant Park seemed likeable enough.  I don’t usually read sports romance, but I liked the “mystery” aspect of the story.  Obviously, we as the readers know who wrote the story, but it was entertaining to watch the story unfold with Grant Parker unaware.

I have a few bones to pick with the novel, however.  While I don’t need my romance novels to be one hundred percent realistic, per se, I demand a certain amount of believability.  There were a few areas of the books that had me rolling my eyes with the stretches that the author was willing to make.

First, I don’t believe that a star quarterback’s career would be threatened by rumors of a sexual nature.  At one point in the novel Grant is almost fired from being a star quarterback because it got out that he wasn’t the religious saint he was pretending to be.  I mean, there are star football player who beat their wives, do drugs, and participate in animal cruelty and I’m supposed to believe that a few rumors are enough to unseat an amazing player?  I don’t think so.

Second, I find it hard to believe that a self-published e-book about a football player would be enough to unseat Nicholas Sparks in the best sellers list.  I strongly dislike when authors “date” their books, i.e. reference pop culture, it always pulls me out of my read and back into the present, which isn’t what a reader wants to happen.

My final disappointment in this novel is the lack of drama.  A football player, a flight attendant, and a secret raunchy novel?  How is there not drama?  The reveal, the confrontation, the aftermath… all boring compared to what they could have been.

So, while I appreciated the writing style and genuinely enjoyed the idea for the story, I just wasn’t feeling the slow moving, pretty unrealistic, easy-going aspect of the novel.  I am confident that there are people out there who prefer their novels this way, in which case, I would whole heartedly suggest this book to those people who don’t mind when the author takes a few artistic liberties and keeps things relatively clean.  It just wasn’t for me.

This book is on sale 9/6/2016 in e-book format.