Review: Crazy Love by Willow Aster (The Single Dad Playbook #5)

July 07, 2025

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

Another wonderfully addictive series is coming to a close, but Willow Aster definitely didn't miss her chance to end her The Single Dad Playbook series on a high. Crazy Love is the awaited story of Penn Hudson. At the very beginning of the series, he was one of two guys who were NOT dads but part of the Single Dad Players, but he had started to mentor a boy named Sam. Over the course of the series, we see Penn's relationship evolve into a close-knit one, with the Mustangs player becoming more of a father figure to young Sam than anything else. Two years on and Penn worries about the situation that Sam is in, stuck in a foster system that may have good intentions but may not be what's best for the eleven-year-old. When he realizes that the woman he shared a connection with while in the Bahamas--and then went on to disappear without a trace--is actually his coach's daughter and now the team's new registered dietician, Penn knows better than to become involved with Adeline Evans. But when Addy learns of Penn's desire to not just foster but adopt Sam, she makes a suggestion that could help tip the scales in his favor--for them to get married, establishing a family unit--but what if it tips them into crazy love as well?

Because Penn and Sam have been such notable supporting characters from the get-go, I've been eager to see how things would work out for them. Penn had done a whole lot of growing up over the first four books, and to see how much Sam mattered to him warmed my heart. Addy being who she was may have been a complication, but I love that she turned out to be the missing piece in the family that started out with just Penn and Sam. And Winnie! Gah! She was that cherry on top that I didn't know I needed, making an already great read about love, family, brotherhood, and football even better. Of course, there are the rest of the guys who make up the Single Dad Players, albeit now, none of them are single any longer, and goodness, but it's been fun seeing every single one of them fall for their partners, all while continuing to learn how to be good fathers. I laughed and swooned throughout this series ender, but that epilogue? Yeah, I may have shed a couple of happy tears. Talk about a hard-fought yet much-deserved happily-ever-after for everyone in the Hudson family. I've got crazy love for Crazy Love which is why it gets five stars.

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Read my reviews for the Single Dad Playbook series: