AngelFire's Reviews > Play Dirty

Re-Read: Mar 2024
Original Read: Oct 2022

(side note: if you're curious about what the endearments mean that Az uses for Madi throughout the book, I've listed translations at the bottom of this review)

I loved this so much! When I think of my idea for the perfect romance between two hitmen who are both alpha males, this is exactly what I envision. The MCs were perfect, their relationship was amazing and I loved how everything in the story (suspense stuff, side characters etc) were there to enhance the relationship between the MCs. This book was perfection from start to finish for me and it's one of my favorite enemies to lovers romances of all time.

As a small aside, I've tagged this as BDSM because of some minor knife play that takes place, but it's really minor in terms of how often it happens. I recall only two small scenes of a knife being used and only the later scene actually involves the knife doing any cutting. It's so minor that somebody could easily skim past that paragraph but it does represent a really important milestone in the MCs' relationship.

I adored both Madigan and Azrael. I felt the beginning was a little bit rushed with the MCs having a one night stand that kickstarts their fuck-buddy relationship as well as their hitmen-rivalry and then we abruptly jump forward 2 years. During these two years, they've continued this constant back and forth and I would have loved to see more of that, but I ended up not minding because rushing through those two years gave the MCs a strong foundation that was used to fuel the rest of the story.

One of my favorite types of relationship dynamics is having two strong, violent alpha males coming together because the resulting relationship is so interesting. They're equally strong, which puts them on equal footing and they can be rough with each other without having to worry about causing real harm. They're used to solving problems using violence but they usually realize very quickly that romantic partnership issues tend to get worse with the application of violence so they end up having to work on their communication skills and other things in order to make their relationship survive. In addition, I loved that they identified that the other person is more than capable of taking care of them the way they need so they took turns swapping between being dominant and submissive in the bedroom, which was wonderful.

I also really appreciated that the authors purposefully structured the book so the majority of the narrative had the MCs spending time together in isolation. This gave plenty of opportunity for smoking hot smut scenes (thank you, Neve Wilder!) and also quiet domestic moments between them that progressed their relationship.

By 50%, the boys are pretty much living as domestic partners and everything's very sweet and wonderful, but I was wondering what the authors would do with the rest of the story. Thankfully, the authors were on the ball and at that 50% mark when everything had been going so well, suddenly everything crumbles for the boys - both professionally and personally. Having the professional stuff go wrong was a nice surprise because they're both highly competent hitmen who plan as thoroughly as they can for every hit but nobody can anticipate every tiny detail and that's exactly what happens here. This actually happened multiple times in the book, which made the suspense plotlines a thrilling ride and added a sense of realism to Madigan and Azrael's jobs. On a small note, I also really appreciated that both MCs were professionals through and through and when they were on a job together, they stayed focused on what had to be done and kept their personal problems on the side.

The personal problems that temporarily tear them apart were also done really well because it's a result of these two dumb-dumbs not knowing how relationships work and not realizing that keeping certain things to themselves was a dumb move. It wasn't manufactured drama and it didn't feel ridiculous because their mistakes fit their personalities and lack of relationship experience.

I loved everything about their relationship: the terms of endearments Az used for Madi, the wonderful switching back and forth between tenderness and roughness in the bedroom, the way these two loved being together and how easily they settled into domestic routines no matter where they were living or for how long etc. One of the funniest but also sweetest moments was when (view spoiler)[the boys had to do a fake couples counselling session as part of a hit, but they both realized how useful the situation actually was and they both agree to keep going to counselling afterwards (hide spoiler)]. If that doesn't demonstrate how committed they are to their relationship, I don't know what does.

Unfortunately, the other side characters didn't interest at all so I'm not going to read anything else in the series, but this story was really top notch and it deserves all the praise it's getting.

(In case anybody else was wondering what the terms of endearments mean that Az uses for Madi throughout the book, I did some research to look them up - WHY DON'T AUTHORS PROVIDE TRANSLATIONS IN THEIR OWN BOOKS?!? - and I think I found what they mean. The most common endearment used is motek, which is Hebrew for sweetheart, janum/jaanum is soulmate in Farsi and meri-jaan means my life in Urdu)