Brat on the Ball is a sports romcom set in Cardiff about a closeted up-and-coming football star, and an out and proud professional rugby player facing the end of his career, at the ripe old age of twenty-nine!
From the get go, Peters uses his trademark humour to pull us straight into the story as we are introduced to George, who is so bored in a lecture he is playing hangman by himself… “and somehow losing.” When I laugh out loud while reading the first paragraph of a book, it means I know I’m going to enjoy myself. It also means I’ll probably end up getting to sleep far too late as I devour the book in one sitting. To be completely honest, I know this is fairly likely when I open a Matt Peters novel, so I only had myself to blame for the 3am bed time! Peters continues to immerse readers in the story as he weaves the character’s backstory of being publicly outed by the press into the narrative of the first chapter without it feeling at all like clunky exposition.
The flow of this reasonably short (178 pages) novel continues effortlessly as the first-person perspective is switched between the two main characters. The chapters alternate from George to Ollie evenly, with only one deviation towards the end of the novel, where Ollie is given two adjacent chapters. This style allows the readers to experience the events from both perspectives and really understand the development of the characters.
Peters’ wit and warmth really shines on the page and brings the characters fully to life. (Especially if you read them in their Welsh accents like I did in my head!) I really love the details that Peters peppers his stories with that make them come alive. There’s information about the sports, and the leagues, but delivered in a natural way through internal dialogue and conversations. There are call backs to characters from early novels that will delight fans, but I think won’t feel incongruous to new readers. There are conversations that feel like they might have come from Peters’ own life experience, including George pedantically differentiating Association Football from Rugby Football and American Football by solely referring to it as soccer, with an accompanied history lesson proving the accuracy of this!
And now the swearing, I have to mention the swearing. The characters in this book take the idea of swearing as an artform to an entirely new level. And I f*cking love it! If you ask me, it just wouldn’t be a book about Welsh sportsmen if it didn’t include over a hundred and fifty swear words. (Peters should take particular pride in no fewer than 110 uses of the F word, and not even that many of them used as verbs in sex scenes! Go on, my son!)
Be warned, there are some very sad moments in the book. I don’t want to give anything away, but if you have any knowledge about the history of British gay professional footballers, you’ll see the sadness coming. It’s not directly related to the characters though it affects them emotionally.
Fear not, fellow romance readers, you will get your HEA, and it’s a gorgeous one! There is a healthy dose of well-written steamy and even a little light kink is thrown in, but not in a way that dominates (hehehe) the book.
I really can’t think of anything to complain about regarding this book. Even the fact that it is not a long novel, can’t be faulted as the story is told perfectly in less than two hundred pages and you don’t go away thinking anything is missing.
For more info about Matt Peters and his books, check out his website.
P.S.
This is an unusual book for me to review, as it is the third in a series, and I am (mostly) just reviewing this book, not the two that came before it. That being said, Books 1 & 2 are both brilliant and I would recommend reading these first (though it’s not necessary) because the characters from the first two make more than just an appearance in George and Ollie’s story. Not to mention the fact that they’re excellent books.
So why did I review the third book of a three book series and not all three?
Because I loved it (even more than its predecessors) and I felt it deserved its own review.
Because I read the first two a while ago and I don’t have the energy to write a three book review right now.
Because it’s my blog and I can do what I want, so ner ner ne ner ner.
Also, I do stars now apparently. I don’t know why, but I felt inspired to do so with this one.
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