And the Crowd Went Wild by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

And the Crowd Went Wild by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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After a mortifying—and very public—humiliation, Dancy Flynn is desperate to find sanctuary far from the crowd. But where can a washed-up sex symbol hide? How about making an unannounced appearance at the secluded lake house of the sweet, sensitive high school boyfriend she hasn’t seen in almost twenty years?

But Chicago Stars quarterback Clint Garrett is no longer the kid Dancy remembers. Now he’s a gridiron superhero, still holding a massive grudge against her for breaking his teenage heart. With no room in his life for either complexity or distractions, he banishes Dancy to a refurbished old railroad caboose tucked away in the woods…and out of his sight.

Except Dancy’s not good at staying invisible. Her efforts to rebuild her career clash with Clint’s desperation to regain his focus, all made more challenging by a rescue dog, a local woman in trouble, a meddling mother, an ex with an agenda…and the sizzle of rekindled emotions.

As Dancy attempts to get her life on track and Clint tries to get his groove back, can these two one-time lovers navigate their rocky pasts and complicated present to find themselves…and each other?
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TIL that Susan Elizabeth Phillips can be credited with bringing us the joy of the sports romance, something that even someone like me who does not enjoy watching sports on TV can appreciate when it shows up on my reading list. I don't know when I first started reading the Chicago Stars series, as it was before I started recording the year I read my books on Goodreads (which was 2008), but I do know that it was after several books in the series had already been written because I recall a weeks long binge of those first books as I fully immersed myself in the world of this football team. As the years have gone by and the books have been spread out more, every time a new Chicago Stars book comes on the scene, it's like a wonderful surprise, and I was thrilled to have an opportunity to read this offering ahead of its publication date.

As readers have come to expect from Phillips, we get in this book a FMC who has plenty of flaws but is at her heart a strong and fiercely independent woman. We have a man who is traditionally very masculine but is a bit of a softie on the inside. We have an accompanying cast of characters that round out what is at its heart a beautiful romance that has some enemies-to-lovers mixed with some childhood sweethearts and second-chance romance, all with a dose of forced proximity to round it out. If any of these tropes pique your interest, this is one for you. Most of all, if you, like I, have been reading about the adventures of the Chicago Stars for the better part of twenty years (or thirty years...It Had to Be You came out in hard cover in 1994!), And the Crowd Went Wild will feel both wonderfully familiar to you and delightfully new, and it will immediately have you hoping that there is another Chicago Stars book on its way.

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