Most Valuable Playboy

Ballers and Babes, Book 1

By: Lauren Blakely

Narrated by: Jason Clarke, Andi Arndt

A brand new production of Lauren blakely's first ever sports romance now in duet performed by Jason Clarke and Andi Arndt!

When I enter the Most Valuable Playboy charity auction, my goal is simple—be the player who goes for the most dough. But when trouble shows up at the auction, I need a whole new play.

Enter Violet—she's my best friend's sister and she's my close friend too. With a smile as sweet as cherry pie and a mind that runs quicker than the 40-yard-dash, Violet saves the day with the highest bid. I don't even give her a two-minute warning before I kiss her in front of the whole crowd and then announce that she's my girlfriend. Which would be fine except my agent tells me we've got to keep up the act while he's negotiating my contract.

Violet takes one for the team and pretends to be mine, and soon our boyfriend-girlfriend scrimmage quickly turns into a full contact sport.

But falling for her wasn't in the playbook…

©2024 Sourcebooks (P)2025 Lauren Blakely Books

Duet Touchdown!!

Cooper and Violet’s story is the reason we all love a Blakely sports romance story!! The first foray into the lane and it’s a touchdown !! I love the refresh the story took on. Andi Arnt never disappoints and she captures Violet’s vulnerability and sass perfectly! Jason Clark can do no wrong in my book and continues to throw the perfect spiral in this role as well. Sexy… Confident… Alluring… He captures Cooper in every word he others!!

Friends to lovers through a necessary rouse is always always a fun trope that I gravitate to and the story does not disappoint! Lauren Blakely is a Mastercraft woman in this arena and she won the Super Bowl with this new twist on an old favorite!!

Phenomenal listen!

Sports romances are so much fun, always the handsome athlete gets the hot, popular girl. This friends to lovers story is a wonderful twist on the story, giving a fresh look at the star quarterback. Lauren Blakely has a way of writing that takes us inside the hero's vulnerability and shows the true heart of the character. Cooper and Trent have been best friends forever. Trent's little sister Violet has been part of their group too, knowing Cooper better than anyone. When a situation arises that pushes them together, the sparks that have been smoldering since childhood ignite. And Lauren Blakely makes those embers HOT! The question is, can their situation result in a happily ever after? Cooper and Violet give you that feel good rom com I love from Blakely, and look forward to the next in this series.

Andi Arndt and Jason Clarke narrate this book in duet and it's perfection! I love this team! Arndt is Violet and she is spot on as this woman! A bit of a flirt, she knows her heart and is ready to give it to Trent. Clarke is Trent, he becomes this player. I love the conflict, the emotions of dealing with his best friend's sister, and their hearts as they fall in love. The comedic timing of this pair could not be better and it was an amazing listen!

Love this the second time around!

I loved the 2025 (from 2017) updated story of a QB, and his best friend's sister.

I absolutely loved this friends to lovers tale. As is her M.O., Lauren gives you the sweet with quite a bit of dirty (wink!). Cooper is an all around good guy, but in addition to leading his team hopefully into the playoffs, he's worried about his impending contract end/renewal. He's got family, friends, and teammates depending on him to keep it cool, but Cooper's working overtime to keep everything balanced.

When Violet (Cooper's best friend's sister) helps him out at a charity auction, she ends up kind of not denying she's Cooper's girlfriend. Violet has known Cooper since she was in elementary school, and they've been good friends ever since. In order to help her brother's buddy out of a sticky situation, Violet agrees to pretend to be his girlfriend. They both do a great job pretending, until they're not, and that's when the fun starts.

With the original narrator of Andi Arndt, Lauren brings in Jason Clarke this time to play our favorite QB. I love his smooth, sexy voice, and the way he brings life to not only Cooper, but Trent, Jones, and the rest of the gang.

No spoilers, but I devoured this story--not surprising w/LB books. The story was happy, funny, so sexy, and there's football! Five stars!!

Weird duet narration- Jason voiced male and some female characters? ☹️

This story starts off with Cooper & Violet fake dating to get Cooper (quarterback for the Renegades) out of an uncomfortable sitch with a media host trying to win him in an auction for a date night.

The more they pretend, the more it doesn’t feel fake. Will they risk their hearts & try to score big? If you love spicy, friends to lovers, sports romance, stars aligning swoon-worthy couples, you will love this story.

The story itself is 5⭐️ for me. Normally I love duet audiobooks so much. There was something weird about this one though. Andi Arndt & Jason Clarke were stunning voicing their characters and conveying the wide range of emotions they were feeling. What threw me and consequently put me off quite a bit was hearing Jason Clarke voicing all the male voices PLUS a few of the female characters. Got me confused thinking it was dual narration instead, but nope. It is indeed duet style. I could only hear Andi voicing Violet and Holly, but Jillian, Vera, Maxine, and others were Jason voicing them. So it was odd and pulled me out of the story pretty often. Due to that, I dropped my rating to 3 1/2 ⭐️

Cooper & Violet - long time friends to lovers

Jason Clarke is my favorite, absolute top male narrator. Andi Arndt is my favorite female narrator. 'Nuff said, right? They do a fabulous job in this book, which, while told primarily from Cooper's POV, is still a duet with Andi voicing Violet whenever she has dialog.

Cooper Armstrong is an NFL quarterback, first year as a starter. Football has been his life, long supported by his mom. His best friend since 2nd grade is Trent, and Violet is Trent's sister. Cooper has always considered Violet a friend, but one night at a bachelor auction for charity, Violet has to come to Cooper's rescue to save him from an aggressive, borderline stalker-type local radio host.

Violet kisses Cooper at the auction and it lights up everything in his brain that used to only light up for football. As Cooper's team approaches the last few games of the season, hoping to clinch a playoff spot, they start spending more time together. They don't really have to get to know each other, but they get to a point where they each realize that they've actually been hiding deeper feelings for one another for a very long time - longer for Violet but we know boys are usually slower to catch up on these things ;)

No dramatic 3rd act breakup, just the tiniest little miscommunication that is resolved within just a few pages.

This is a FUN feel-good story with quite a bit going on in the spicy scenes too.

Sweet Scale: 5/5
Spicy Scale: 4/5