A Game of Hearts and Heists: Girl Games, Book 1

4.4 | 2,488 ratings

Price: 29.66

Last update: 01-11-2025

About this item

Two enemies, one goal: steal each other's hearts.

Scarlett Grey, disgraced assassin, is determined to get revenge. Quinn Adams, medic turned-poisoner for hire, is her deadliest rival. For years, they've stolen each other's clients, sabotaged each other's business, and occasionally… slept together.

When the Magician Queen offers an irresistible deal, Scarlett and Quinn are forced to work together. But this is not a simple job.

With an impossible heist ahead, they're going to have to trust each other… And that's not easy when they both have secrets to hide. Harder still when those secrets will betray the ones they love.

Now, neither woman is sure if it's a heist they want to win or a heart.

Two women, two deadly professions, and a romance that could be their downfall.

This is a steamy lesbian fantasy romance with enemies to lovers, a heist, found family, a secret royal, and only one bed.

Includes bonus prequel, A Game of Love and Hate.

Keyshla Melendez

I loved it!!!! Please read this book

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2024

This book was amazing. It had all the things I loved loved.

This is the second book by Ruby Roe that I read The House of Crimson Hearts being the first and I loved it just as much. Every book Ruby writes is amazing. This book is in the same universe as The House of Crimson Hearts but I another city. I just love when series interconnect in some way with each other.

The world building and magical system in the book had to be my favorite. Scarlett and Stirling I fell in love with instantly. All the characters were very unique and their interactions with each other you can't help but get attached to them especially the Heist team.

I gotta admit though took me a few short chapters to like Quinn. I found her selfish and self-centered at first for stealing Scarlett business when her own business was doing perfectly well on its own given she was an amazing potion maker and medic. Scarlett literally lost everything and was about to get evicted and Quinn stole the only thing Scarlett had left. So in that small regard took me a bit to like her if anything I was enjoying Scarlett tormenting her LOL.

I did found very unnecessary and irritating how Quinn got angry at the end even when she learned the truth from both Scarlett and Quinn's own brother. After learning the truth she had no reason to be angry if anything Scarlett was the one that should have been more angry at Quinn than she was. Especially given what she learned and her business being stolen. She was more forgiven than me LOL.

I'll admit despite Quinns selfishness and some of her behavior annoying me she eventually grew on me if you don't include her getting angry for no reason at the end and what she did to Scarlett. I loved her character overall. I can't stay mad at her lol ????

The book was overall amazing and I highly recommend it the book is amazing, characters are really good you can't help but like them all, the world building and magic system is so unique and perfectly explained so you can follow along.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating from me
????️????️????️ and half chilly peppers for spice
Although that cage spicy club scene deserves its own rating so i rate that scene a ????️????️????️????️????️
holy cow was it spicy ???? ????????

My review was going to be more detailed but my phone deleted what I wrote 3 times so I don't want to risk a 4th.

Please read this all Ruby Roe books they're amazing so far the two I read are incredible and deserve all the praise and reviews and 5 stars.

Arianna

LOVE

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2024

It was a GREAT read. It is a quick moving book but it’s also a refresher from typical assassin v poisoner books. 10/10 recommend. PERSONALLY, I’d like a bit more detailed smut scenes, but the scenes we still soooo good!

Taylor Brown

wonderful

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2024

A wonderful story with vivid characters. I am not usually a fantasy girl, but this story has opened my eyes to it. I loved the magic, loved the spice, LOVED the angry women.

Kindle Customer

Enjoyable fast burn and quick read.

Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2024

I liked the pacing of the book, the characterization, sapphic romance and gritty fantasy world. I would recommend this steamy novel to anyone who likes a fast burn romance story, but also with a solid plot with surprising twists.

Chelscey

mostly carnal desire without a deeper romance

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2024

Seems like enemies-to-lovers is all the rage for most romances these days, and while it has never been a favorite of mine, I do want to read more of this trope to see if the problem I have is a me thing, or if the enemies-to-lovers’ books I have read simply haven’t done it for me. I’m sad to say that this book doesn’t get me closer to those answers. But, oddly, my issues with this steamy, sapphic enemies-to-lovers’ fantasy romance wasn’t the trope itself, but the world building. Set in a semi-urban fantasy, you have a kingdom torn in two (literally) where magic is determined by if a certain sentient house likes you enough to gift you magic. There’s a magic house for everything, and if you are gifted said magic, you’ll be given a tattoo so everyone knows you have Assassin guild magic, or mechanic magic, or rune magic, or herbal magic, or well, pretty much anything I guess because the world building never gets that defined. Everything felt a bit vague, and hurried, sacrificed mainly so we could be told more just how much our rivals turned enemies want to fight, and sleep with each other.

If you want a steamy sapphic romantasy with a defined world and magic system, this book is not it. But if you just want a lot of passionate, carnal scenes with a sprinkling of danger and a light heist, then this will scratch your itch. I’ll be honest; I came to this book specifically for the spice, so I shouldn’t be as bothered by the lack of strong world building as I am, and yet… I guess I was expecting more after all the glowing reviews and the comparison to "Six of Crows", so maybe this was just another victim of the hype train in that regard. Quinn and Scarlet are fine as main characters, even if their angry personalities could feel a bit too similar at times. Yet their biggest issue is that they simply lack chemistry when together. Their relationship seems to center on that passionate desire to rip each others clothes off and... not much else? Which is ok, but I always prefer when the romance goes deeper than just a lustful desire to have the other person, so to speak. Perhaps because they were already having hate sexy time, a lot of the tension that I expected with enemies-to-lovers wasn’t there, at least to me. But who knows. regardless, something just felt like it was missing throughout the duration of the story.

All in all, this was a super easy and fast book to knock out in a weekend. The romance scenes are hot, and I like that each book is its own self-contained story within the series, where each new book focuses on a new couple. However, that does mean I have no real desire to continue, either, and that is because the world these characters occupy is just not interesting enough for me to stick around, though I did like Stirling a lot. I just think the romantic plot of Stirling’s book sounds too similar to Scarlet’s for it to be appealing, at least for now. The ease of the story and the spice is what makes this a 3 star read for me, because, unfortunately, the rest is rather mediocre.

Amazon Customer

excellent read

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2024

I loved this book and I will definitely read it again. Not only was it well written but it had just the right amount of spice. In addition to this, I loved the protagonists and all the characters that made up their team.

MLTU

What a Ride!

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2024

Wow! I've been looking forward to this series for so long, and if Book 1 is anything to go by, then it will be AWESOME!

Scarlett and Quinn - sexy, hot, hateful, lustful... everything you want in enemies-to-lovers! The story itself is exciting, comedic, adventurous, thrilling - very well written! Some fantasy novels are hard for me to follow, but this was brilliant....really enjoyable to read!

I can't wait to dive into the next book.

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