The first book in Maggie Rawdon’s new Queen City Chaos series is here! I highly recommend reading all of her books (especially the Plays & Penalties series and Seattle Phantom series) first, because characters from those series — including her younger brother Easton and her older brother Tobias — appear in this one. Definitely read the prequel, “Before the Chaos” right before reading this one, because who doesn’t want more of Madison and Quentin?!
What is Rival Hearts by Maggie Rawdon about?
Pro football might see me as their favorite underdog, but Madison Westfield would rather see me six feet under.
My ex-best friend’s little sister has every reason to hate me. I took her boyfriend’s spot on this team, her brother might lose his too, and our short-lived engagement years ago is part of the reason our families are locked in a grudge match that has the whole league on edge.
Ruining me would fix most of her problems, but she’s stuck trying to work a PR miracle with my career instead.
Making my way through her build-a-better-image checklist is the kind of torture I’ll gladly sign up for, especially if I get to help her prove everyone wrong.
But it means we’re spending a lot of time alone together, and when it comes to Madison, I’ll take any chance she gives me. Even if it means there’s hell to pay—on and off the field.
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Review:
This is one of my favorite Maggie Rawdon books. I first fell in love with Quentin and Madison in their prequel, “Before the Chaos,” and couldn’t wait to see them get their happily ever after in “Rival Hearts.” This is a second chance, brother’s (former best friend) rival, full of fun characters and complicated family dynamics.
One of my favorite things was getting to see characters from both the Plays & Penalties series, and characters from all of the Seattle Phantom books (plus a few new faces, too)! Maggie did a great job setting up more stories for later, and I’m really excited for the rest of the series. This book feels a tiny bit like a ‘next generation’ book, even though it’s the same generation, but we’re in a new city with more of the siblings of characters we’ve met previously — and it’s always fun to see how the ‘old’ characters are getting along, too, which is something extra special about interconnected standalones.
One of the ‘secrets’ from the prequel actually gets revealed relatively early, and wasn’t quite as big of a bombshell as I was anticipating it being, but that was actually refreshing because it made the book less predictable — I was stressed out though when Madison didn’t mention the note from the prequel that we know Quentin wrote. Them claiming to be in love before did feel a bit hard to believe, since as I read the prequel, it seemed to only take place over the course of a few days, but that was really the only slight complaint that I had.
Madison and Quentin really were such a perfect match to each other. It was iffy about how pushy he was with her when he thought she had a boyfriend, but aside from that, it was obvious how much he cared for her and wanted the best for her. Between the forbidden romance of a workplace romance (she’s his PR rep), feuding families/brother’s former best friend, this book has everything and more.
Overall, this was a great start to a new series, and I’m already desperate for the next installment! I highly recommend reading the prequel, “Before the Chaos” first, and really you should read all of her books in order to get the full reading experience. Like with all adult romance books, I recommend this for 18+ due to some of the sexual content, but as always, don’t let me tell you what to do!
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REVIEWS OF MAGGIE RAWDON’S BOOKS:
“Personal Foul” (Plays & Penalties #3) — ARC
“Reverse Pass” (Plays & Penalties #4) — ARC
“Pick Six” (Seattle Phantom Football #1) — ARC
“Overtime” (Seattle Phantom Football #2) — coming soon
“Wild Card” (Seattle Phantom Football #3) — ARC
“Play Fake” (Plays & Penalties #1) — coming soon
“Delay of Game” (Plays & Penalties #1) — coming soon
buried in a bookshelf 