Sunday Spotlight is a feature we started in 2016. Each week, we will spotlight a book that we loved or are excited about. We’ll be sharing why we love each book so much. Being total fangirls. You’ve been warned. 🙂
All Played Out is the third book in Cora Carmack’s Rusk University series. It’s a contemporary NA that follows a couple of college kids getting their love on. It’s an opposites attract love story that hit me in my feels from the time I started the book, up until I finished it.
Mateo Torres is an unapologetic party animal who is enjoying the college scene with his football teammates. He’s loud and he’s proud and I absolutely adored him from the moment I met him in All Lined Up. He’s got an in your face personality that charmed the socks right off of me and I couldn’t wait to dig into his story and find out who his heroine was.
Nell is the opposite of Torres. She’s not a party animal. She’s spent the last four years, studying hard and getting high grades in all of her classes. She’s spent so much of her college years with her nose in a book, trying to stay on top of everything that she wants to have a little fun. Who but Torres to help her let loose? Right?
The shenanigans that these two get into in this book had me laughing, sighing and just enjoying the heck out of their blossoming romance. This is such a fun book!
All Played Out by Cora Carmack
Series: Rusk University #3
Also in this Series: All Lined Up, All Broke Down
Released on May 12, 2015 by William Morrow Paperbacks
First person in her family to go to college? CHECK.
Straight A’s? CHECK.
On track to graduate early? CHECK.
Social life? …..yeah, about that….With just a few weeks until she graduates, Antonella DeLuca’s beginning to worry that maybe she hasn’t had the full college experience. (Okay… Scratch that. She knows she hasn’t had the full college experience).
So Nell does what a smart, dedicated girl like herself does best. She makes a “to do” list of normal college activities.
Item #1? Hook up with a jock.
Rusk University wide receiver Mateo Torres practically wrote the playbook for normal college living. When he’s not on the field, he excels at partying, girls, and more partying. As long as he keeps things light and easy, it’s impossible to get hurt… again. But something about the quiet, shy, sexy-as-hell Nell gets under his skin, and when he learns about her list, he makes it his mission to help her complete it.
Torres is the definition of confident (And sexy. And wild), and he opens up a side of Nell that she’s never known. But as they begin to check off each crazy, exciting, normal item, Nell finds that her frivolous list leads to something more serious than she bargained for. And while Torres is used to taking risks on the field, he has to decide if he’s willing to take the chance when it’s more than just a game.
Together they will have to decide if what they have is just part of the experiment or a chance at something real.
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Why You Should Read It
I could probably go on and on about why you need to read this book. Is it good? Damn straight it is. Are you going to love it? I’m damned confident that you are. But, really…the one thing you need to read that should pique your interest is the following list that our brash and crude hero wrote for his girl. Check it out:
Ways to Prove that you love Nell De Luca
1. Tell her. Every day. Three times a day. As many times as it takes.
2. Never choose anything else over her. Not football. Not your own stubbornness. Nothing.
3. Be there whether she wants to go skinny-dipping or wants to study. Make sure she knows that she’s the adventure, not anything else.
4. Always tell her how amazing her food is (okay . . . that one is partly for you, too, because it means you get to keep eating her food).
5. Give her the best sex of her life (also works out pretty well for you).
6. Teach her whatever she wants to know, and learn from her, too. She’s a fucking genius.
7. Tell her she’s a fucking genius. All the time. When she doubts it and when she doesn’t. Just tell her.
8. Never walk away after a fight. Don’t. Fucking. Do it.
9. Prove you love her (preferably in bed, but that’s optional) once a day. Three times a day. As many times as it takes.
10. Be worthy of her. Not by playing football or pretending to be something you’re not. By being the man she makes you feel like you are. Strong and smart and kind and so damn lucky to have her.
Are you curious about why he felt the need to write out a list to try to prove his love? There are lots of things that go down to bring about this list. Don’t you want to find out why? You should pick this book up because it’s funny, it’s crazy passionate and you’ll fall in love with the main couple just like I did.
You won’t be able to help yourself. You’ll be just like Nell when she thought the following:
“Because Mateo Torres is loud, and I’m quiet. Because he’s reckless, and I’m cautious. Because he belongs everywhere, and I don’t.
Because I think I’m in danger of falling in love with him.”
Yep, it’s a good story with fabulous characters and a steamy romance. Don’t miss out!
Rusk University
Giveaway Alert
We’re giving one lucky winner their choice of one of our Sunday Spotlight books. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter for one of this month’s features.
Do you love this book as much as we do? Let us know what your favorite parts of this book are!
About the Author
Cora Carmack
Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She’s done a multitude of things in her life– boring jobs (like working retail), fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). Raised in a small Texas town, she now splits her time between New York City and Austin and spends her time writing, traveling, and marathoning various television shows on Netflix. In her books, you can expect to find humor, heart, and a whole lot of awkward. Because let’s face it . . . awkward people need love, too. Her first book, LOSING IT, was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.
Represented by the fabulous Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary.
