Review: Dead Draw by Layla Reyne (Perfect Play #1)


Note: An advance reader copy (ARC) was provided by the author via Valentine PR.

LAYLA REYNE HAS A NEW SERIES!!! I've been so itching to get my greedy hands on the first novel in her brand spanking new romantic suspense series, and Dead Draw was the awesome beginning to all things Perfect Play. One of the main characters here should be familiar to long-time Reyne readers--Special Agent Emmitt Marshall, aka Marsh. Yes, the same Marsh who was originally introduced in the Fog City series and then made a memorable appearance in What We Might Be, which is a standalone. The forty-six-year-old federal agent is in a bit of a dilemma after a botched operation may have cost not just him everything he'd been working towards the past three years, but eighteen months' worth of work one team has put in. So, when Marsh approaches that team's leader, Special Agent Levi Bishop, he proposes an unorthodox plan--one that will have the cowboy cyber agent calling the thirty-eight-year-old widower and single father husband.

I've been looking forward to Marsh's story and his journey to a much-deserved happily-ever-after for what feels like forever, and this opening salvo in the Perfect Play series certainly did not disappoint. I confess that when I read the blurb, I didn't quite get how being married to Levi was going to help both their cases, but lo and behold, I totally got it once he lay down his plan. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the fake relationship trope, mainly because so many of the books I've read that employed it followed the same outline. But then this is Layla Reyne we're talking about here, and I loved how she made everything work while giving it a fresh and creative twist. Both Marsh and Levi know all too well what heartbreak and loss feels like, but it's not like they're engaging in the whole fake marriage thing for anything other than their cases. Or at least that's how it was in the beginning. I can't wait for everything else to come for these two! Five stars for Dead Draw.

Release Date: 07 June 2022

Date Read: 05 June 2022

Learn more about Layla Reyne.

Pre-order Dead Draw on Amazon | Apple Books | B&N | Kobo.

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