I was hunkered down in the cabin during a late-season snowstorm — the kind where the wind screams through the pines and you're not going anywhere for at least two days. Generator humming, woodstove crackling, and nothing on my phone because, well, no cell service. So I loaded up Playing Dirty on my player and let it run while I oiled my boots and sorted gear for spring. Not my usual genre. Not even close. But eleven and a half hours of step-brother college baseball rivalry? In a blizzard? Sometimes you just let the land choose what you're listening to.
And honestly? I'm glad I did.
Two Rivals, One Diamond, Zero Chill
Here's what CE Ricci does well: the sports rivalry isn't wallpaper. The Blackmore-Leighton university divide actually functions like territory — like two bull elk on the same ridge. Madden Hastings and the narrator (his new stepbrother) don't just dislike each other. They're competing for space, identity, legacy. The baseball scenes have enough grit that you can tell the author either played or spent serious time around the sport. There's a capture-the-flag sequence that escalates into something genuinely unhinged, and it works because the stakes feel physical, not just emotional. Bodies colliding, egos bruised, that raw competitive heat that tips into something else entirely.
The forbidden element — stepbrothers forced into proximity by their parents' marriage — could've felt contrived. And look, in some scenes it leans that way. But the family dinner moments, the awkward shared holidays, the way resentment curdles into attraction when you're stuck under the same roof — that landed for me. Reminded me of fire season, honestly. You can hate what's happening and still be drawn to the heat. That slow combustion between people stuck in the same pressure system — I felt something like it in Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, where proximity and family obligation do the same quiet damage before the fire finally catches.
Brandon Francis and Christian Fox Splitting the Story
Two narrators, which is the right call for dual POV MM romance. Brandon Francis and Christian Fox trade off chapters, and the contrast between them creates an immediate sense of two different people occupying the same pressure cooker. I don't have a lot of specifics on their individual vocal tics — my research came up thin there — but what I can say is that neither voice felt flat. The pacing between them stays consistent, which is harder than it sounds when you're handing a story back and forth. No jarring tonal shifts when the POV switches. That's a baseline plenty of dual-narrator books fail to clear.
At 11 hours 39 minutes, this is a substantial listen. The slow burn earns that runtime in the first two-thirds, but there's a stretch in the back half — somewhere around the "should we tell our parents" crisis point — where the emotional circling gets repetitive. I was sorting my pack by then, so the pacing matched the work, but if you're listening on a commute you might feel it drag.
The Ecology of a Sports Romance (Bear With Me)
Here's where I get weird about it, but this is how my brain works. Good romance, like good ecology, is about systems in tension. Predator and prey. Competition and symbiosis. What makes Playing Dirty work as the fourth book in the Leighton U series is that it understands the ecosystem of its own universe. The university rivalry isn't just backdrop — it shapes every interaction, every stolen glance, every argument at the family table. When the main characters finally give in to the attraction, it costs them something real within that system. Loyalty to their teams, their identities as athletes, their sense of who they are separate from each other.
That said — and I need to be honest — the resolution feels a little too clean. Nature doesn't forgive mistakes. Neither do I. The fallout of a forbidden relationship within a sports rivalry should leave scars, and the ending wraps things up with a bow that felt earned emotionally but not structurally. You don't betray your team and walk away unscathed. The book flinches from that.
Who Gets Muddy and Who Stays on the Trail
If you're already invested in the Leighton U series, this is a strong entry — arguably the most combustible pairing yet. If you're new to it, you can jump in here (it's standalone enough), but you'll miss some of the inter-team dynamics that give the rivalry its teeth. Skip this if you need your romance grounded in real-world consequences. The forbidden element is played for maximum tension but minimum lasting damage, and that'll frustrate listeners who want stakes that stick.
Last Light on This One
I finished Playing Dirty as the storm broke and the first stars came through. Not the kind of book I'd normally reach for, but that's the thing about being snowed in — you listen to what you've got, and sometimes it surprises you. CE Ricci writes athletic tension and sexual tension with the same instinct, and the dual narration keeps both voices distinct enough to carry eleven-plus hours. It's not perfect. The landing is soft where it should be rough. But the climb? The climb is worth it.
