Reviews with content warning for Medical content - The Striker

Before I start, I'm very happy I used my Audible credit for this book because I really enjoyed the English accents both narrators used!

I'm a sucker for a sports romance, and I had heard really good things about this book before I started it (this was also the first Ana Huang book I've read), and I found the storyline and characters really interesting and full of depth! I felt that I got to know both Asher and Scarlett and their backstories, and their chemistry was so fun to listen to and hear! From their first interactions into the last chapters, I thought their relationship definitely fit what they both wanted.

I listened to this over a few days at work, and while it's sometimes hard for me to pay attention to audiobooks over more than a few days, I found this was really easy and quick to fall back in line and remember what was going on where I picked up. The storyline didn't feel rushed at all, and I think Ana did a tremendous job at explaining and depicting chronic pain and the life of a professional athlete.

The main thing keeping me from rating this 5 stars is that I felt the book was a bit too long and drawn out. The audio is a little over 16 hours, and I don't listen to it sped up that much (usually 1.2x or 1.5x), so I found a few chapters containing more filler information and that kind of took me out of it.

All in all, I do think this is a good sports romance book, and it definitely has me looking into more of Ana's books!

Content Warnings

weelasswithabook's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Cw: chronic pain, car accident, medical content , graphic sexual content, knife violence, murder

🌟 Sports Romance
🌟 Forbidden romance

Ana Huang could write a recipe for buttered toast and I'd savour every word.

I went into this with a little trepidation. Most romance novels are around 300-400 pages. Normally when it's 500+ you're heading towards more fantasy romance territory where you need world building etc to establish the story. So I was thinking, at 600 pages, a contemporary sports romance, I really hope this isn't going to be a ton of filler or drag out the story. But it's Ana, so I trusted the process.

Blissfully, every page was needed. I loooooooved this book. I'm gonna be honest, I was disappointed when I was nearing the end because I could've read these two for forever.

Back to the actual substance of the story. Forbidden romances are always pure gold, there's that little undercurrent of anxiety that I always feel just waiting for that moment they get caught. This didn't disappoint on that front.

It also didn't disappoint on the romance front, Asher was just utterly besotted with Scarlett and I majorly swooned MANY times.

On a more serious front, I really appreciated the representation of chronic pain and how it impacts not only people's daily lives, but mentally as well. It wasn't relied upon as something to feel sorry for, it was just an accurate portrayal of life with chronic pain and the ups and downs that come with it. I also loved that Scarlett allowed Asher in and allowed him to take care of her. She didn't put her pride in front of her comfort (been there, regretted that), and he was so attuned to her and attentive to her pain and limitations. It was so sweet I could throw up.

As for the third act breakup, which AH is so fond of 🤣 The betrayal was disappointing but I KNEW that scenario would happen. Not specifically, but related to his "hobby" and I was screaming NOOOOOOO at the book and ready to throw it across the room when it arose. What I adore the most about Ana's heroines is they don't just shrug off betrayal, lies, or whatever causes the conflict, they take their space and make the H work for it.

You should read this if you think Ted Lasso could've really been doing with a spicy storyline. I was getting Jamie Tartt vibes from Asher. And if you love a forbidden romance (specifically brothers enemy/rival), this is so far up your street it's outside your door.

Content Warnings

cdoubet's review against another edition

Go to review page

lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

hjb_128's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

Content Warnings

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I wanted to read this because I love football and the idea that I could finally read a sports romance about a sport where it was called football instead of soccer and had British humour and romance, it was supposed to be my cup of tea. But this is the biggest let down of 2024 for me. I'm not going to lie, this is about to be a rant rather than a formal review because I have a lot to say about this.

This book has two points of view. The first is Asher Donovan, we have met him in the Twisted series and the King of Sin series, and he is a living legend, the star of the Premier League and the greatest football in the world. But his reckless antics and recent team transfer has caused a lot of controversy, and when his feud with his rival-turned-teammate costs them a championship, they’re forced to bond during the off-season cross-training. Surviving the summer shouldn’t be too hard, until Asher meets their new trainer. She is beautiful, talented and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t take his mind off her, but he is his rival’s sister and completely off limits. The second point of view is Scarlett DuBois, and she is a former prima ballerina whose career was cut short after a car accident that left her with chronic pain. She is now a teacher at a prestigious dance academy, but still haunted by the ghosts of her past, the last thing she wants to do is spend the summer cross-training Asher Donovan. She swore she would never date a footballer again, but when her brother leaves town to look after their dad, she finds herself thrown into dangerously proximity with the charming striker. The training, she can deal with. But falling in love is out of the question especially when he’s the only person with the power to break her heart.

I liked the side characters, Carina and Brooklyn saved this book from being the 2nd book I was going to give a 1 star ever. They were the only ones with their heads on straight and the only one who was cutting through all the bullshit that happened in this book. Adil as well was a golden retriever and gave bright moments throughout this book and the fact that he was wanting the team to have some sort of brotherhood outside of the field by trying to arrange a book club was so sweet. Also, Christian Harper didn’t show up to save the day like he has done for the past 7 books.

This book did not need to be 500+ pages, everything happened within the last 100. I wanted it to have plot and to show the season in full and not just the last game of the season last year and the last game of the season this year, which is how it starts and ends. There are a total of 3 matches in 500+ book over the year. This fake team was supposedly the best team in the premier league, do you know how many games they would have played in a year not including international dates such as friendlies and the euros or the world cup? If they were in all competitions and got to the final of every competition, that’s 73 games. We saw 3 and 1 of them was a charity match. We heard about 2 more games and that’s only because Asher was sidelines so it was things like “the team won against Tottenham” even if you are injured, most players go to the games to support their team, the only time players don’t go to away games or home games if it they physically can’t due to injury. I would have been happy reading a 500+ book if it shows more of the games and the brotherhood and the training and the traveling to away games. Even for Scarlett, I have no interest in ballet, but besides her doing the training which was literally “we trained today” or “I had class today” there was no intense ballet sagas. Like with other sports romance (Flawless, The Deal, Icebreaker), you end up wanting to root for the team and then wanting to buy their merch for a fake football team in a fictional book, but I don’t know how they did besides be told that they won.

Scarlett and Asher had no chemistry. We got more chemistry from Vincent and Asher after they punched Scarlett’s ex-boyfriend and sorted out their difference at the hospital. I think I would have actually preferred for this to have been a gay romance, it would have been more interesting that what we got. It was very bland and rushed again it could have been a slow-burn with the tension building if Vincent stayed around but the second he goes, they end up hooking up like five chapters later, and then spend the next thirty having sex and hiding from paparazzi and lying to everyone and then five chapters having the third-act conflict and getting back together. The smut we did get got boring after a while because it was all they were doing, I get the first time they kiss and do all the other stuff they have to go into details usually because we’ve been waiting for it to happen, but this book it happened so quickly that we got a lot of smut with no plot that was skimming it towards the end because I was getting sick of it and it was boring me. As always with Ana’s books, the third act conflict just wasn’t needed, but we knew Asher was going to break his promise and then he wondered why she ended. Like he was so boring and stupid. Scarlett then had a revelation that she was pissed and broke up with Asher for being reckless, but she was doing the same thing and then poof Asher shows up to show that he’s not going to be reckless anymore and happy ever after, and the brother approves. Not that the brother’s approval should stop them.

This book could have been soooooo much more. With Scarlett’s chronic pain and Asher’s trauma from losing his best friend which again gets resolved within the last ten chapters. It felt like Ana had watched one premier league, thought it would be good to write a book about it, listened to English Love Affair and Ghost of You and try to mix Ted Lasso with the Game Plan and it just didn’t work. I’m low key pissed as well because I was rooting for this so much again, should have been my cup of tea – romance books, premier league romance, British humour and none of it was there. I need an author to re-do this concept and for me to not actually hate it because I can’t believe this is the book that we’ve got to represent to EPL and if you think this is going to get girlies to watch the footie like Lauren Asher’s dirty air series did with Formula 1, it isn’t going to happen.

I’m actually half tempted to cancel my pre-order of The Defender, because I don’t know how it could get better or worse than this.

Content Warnings

erwikka's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

After the shit week I needed a fast trashy romance and this completely fit the bill. I really loved Scarlett and Asher and as a previous soccer player and ballerina this was right up my alley. I thought the author did really well with those aspects and you could tell she looked into the subjects. The banter was fun and my favorite part. The spice was good and even though I think 595 pages is way too long for a romance book it didn’t feel that long at all. Overall it a fun can’t put down romance and it was completely what I needed.

Content Warnings

More...