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Verdict: The most-recommended sports romance in Kindle Unlimited and one of the least sporting — a warm, devoted, enormously long hockey romance where the hockey is mostly watched from the stands.
Best for: Readers who want an openly adoring hero and two adults who actually talk to each other, who like a big cast to move into, and who are untroubled by a book that could lose two hundred pages.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — “explicit open door” on romance.io, from 379 reader ratings)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.6/5 — a 3.82 Goodreads average across 246,431 ratings, with the highest did-not-finish rate of any book on our sports shelf)
Tropes: Playboy captain reformed, he falls first, hockey, found family, grumpy-sunshine inverted, height difference, insta-attraction, dual POV, interconnected standalone, mental health.
This is an LRR evidence review. We have not read this book cover to cover; every claim below is built from named public sources — Goodreads, StoryGraph, romance.io, Amazon, Dear Author and other long-form blogs — and where the evidence stops, we say so rather than filling the gap.
Consider Me is Becka Mack’s 2022 series opener and, by our count, the single most-recommended sports romance across the competing Kindle Unlimited guides we audited — it appears on four separate lists, more than any other title: Carter Beckett is the NHL captain everyone has already decided about, and Olivia Parker is the high-school PE teacher entirely uninterested in being another of his stories.
It carries a 3.82 average across 246,431 Goodreads ratings — the largest readership on our sports shelf by a wide margin — with 3.74 on StoryGraph from 9,890 reviews and 3.75 on romance.io from 379. Two numbers on that list are unusual for a book this beloved, and they are the ones worth understanding first.
What Is Consider Me About?
This is a hockey romance that we classify Sports-Labeled on our Kindle Unlimited sports guide, and it is important to say straight away that this is not a downgrade. Twelve of the thirty-four books on that shelf are Sports-Labeled and a great many readers specifically want an athlete and a love story without a play-by-play. This is the flagship of that group.
Carter is introduced through his reputation and spends the book dismantling it; Olivia is introduced through her refusal to be persuaded and spends the book being slowly, patiently persuaded anyway. The book is dual first-person point of view, which is what makes the “he falls first” structure work — you are inside his head while he is doing it. At around 460 to 545 pages depending on the edition, it is one of the longest books on the shelf, and that is the crux of almost every criticism it attracts.
What Makes This Hockey Romance Work
- Carter is the whole engine: devotion rendered as consistency rather than declaration, and the most-cited reason readers finish a very long book.
- Two people who communicate: repeatedly named as a strength. In a subgenre that runs on withheld information, a couple who talk is a deliberate and unusual choice.
- The found family is real: the side cast is one of the most-praised elements and the reason the series has four more volumes people binge.
- It is the consensus pick, and consensus is data: four of the competing guides we audited feature it, more than any other sports romance. Whatever the book is doing, it is landing with a very large number of readers.
- Dear Author graded it B+: the only substantive professional criticism this book has, and it is positive on the romance even while being blunt about the hockey.
Book Synopsis
Carter Beckett is the captain of an NHL team and the subject of a settled public opinion: charming, everywhere, not serious about anyone. He has never particularly minded the reputation, largely because he has never had a reason to.
Olivia Parker teaches physical education to teenagers, has a very clear sense of what she will and will not put up with, and recognises Carter for exactly the kind of man she has decided not to spend time on. Their first meeting does nothing to change her mind. Neither does the second.
What follows is not a seduction so much as a campaign, conducted entirely in the open. Carter decides very early and does not hide it; Olivia does not believe him, and has reasons of her own for not believing anyone. The team, the season and a circle of friends assemble around them while she works out whether a man who has never been serious can become serious, and whether she can risk finding out.
My Review
Let me deal with the hockey first, because this is a hockey romance appearing on a sports guide and our framework exists to answer exactly this. There is not much hockey in it. Dear Author’s Kaetrin puts it as plainly as anyone has: “pretty much the only on-page game play is when Olivia is watching the game”. We rate the book Sports-Labeled with LOW on-page sport on that basis.
In fairness, that is contested. Reckless Reading calls it enough hockey to make it a legitimate sports romance. So we went looking for a tiebreaker and could not find one: across six sources and forty-plus reader voices, Kaetrin is the only reviewer who actually quantifies the on-page hockey. Nobody else engages the question at all, and crucially nobody asks for more. That silence tilts it. We are going with the specific claim over the general one, and showing you both.
What the book is instead is a very good example of a hero doing the work. Carter’s devotion is the most-cited thing about him and it is expressed as consistency rather than grand gesture, which is why the “he falls first” label sticks so hard to this book. The second real strength is that these two talk. Repeatedly named, and genuinely uncommon.
Now the length, which is the dominant complaint by a distance and not a close-run thing. On a single StoryGraph page five separate reviewers raise it — one writes that it was “5 books in one” and unnecessarily long, another that it “had absolutely no business being as long as it was”. A long-form reviewer wanted three hundred pages cut. The audiobook runs twenty hours and forty-three minutes. And it shows up in the number that matters most: a 5% did-not-finish rate on StoryGraph, the highest of any book on our sports shelf, where the rest sit at 1–2%. One in twenty people who start this book stop.
Underneath that sit three smaller, very consistent irritants: the heroine’s height is mentioned so often that reviewers count it, her insecurity persists past the point where Carter has given her any reason for it, and the “not like other girls” framing does real damage for some readers. There is also insta-attraction here, tagged nineteen times on romance.io, which sits oddly against how patiently the rest of the book moves.
My honest note: The warmest hero on the shelf inside the most over-long book on the shelf. If you want a man who decides early and never wavers, this delivers it better than almost anything in the programme. If you want hockey, this is the wrong book and there are eight better ones on our guide.
| Element | In Consider Me |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Carter Beckett & Olivia Parker — an NHL captain with a reputation and a high-school PE teacher who has heard it |
| Sport | Hockey — professional |
| Sports centrality | SPORTS-LABELED — the athlete is a character type, not a structure. Not a criticism, and a great many readers want exactly this |
| On-page sport | LOW — Dear Author reports the only on-page game play is watched from the stands. One blogger disagrees; nobody else engages the question |
| Core tropes | Playboy reformed, he falls first, found family, height difference, insta-attraction, mental health |
| Heat level | 4/5 — “explicit open door” (romance.io, 379 ratings) |
| Burn speed | FAST — insta-love is tagged 19 times; the delay is in her believing him, not in the attraction |
| POV | Dual, first person — Carter and Olivia |
| Length and pace | Roughly 460–545 pages depending on edition; 20 hours 43 minutes in audio. 5% did-not-finish on StoryGraph — the highest on our sports shelf, where most sit at 1–2% |
| Series | Playing For Keeps book 1 — interconnected standalone, new couple each book. Full HEA with an epilogue. No cliffhanger |
| Kindle Unlimited | Included, verified on the Amazon product page on 22 August 2026 |
| Content notes | No public warning set found — we checked beckamack.com twice; the site has no content-warnings page. Reader-sourced on StoryGraph: infidelity, pregnancy, sexual content, cursing. Reviewers also flag persistent body-image and self-worth material. That is a reader-built list on a book with a quarter of a million ratings, which is a gap worth naming |
Is Consider Me on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes. Consider Me is included with Kindle Unlimited as of 22 August 2026, verified on its own Amazon product page by reading the Kindle format swatch rather than a search tile. Check the current status on Amazon before you download. All three Playing For Keeps books we track were verified in the programme on the same day.
Audio inclusion is unverified. The Podium Audio edition runs twenty hours and forty-three minutes, which is a real commitment; whether narration comes with a Kindle Unlimited subscription is a separate entitlement and we have not confirmed it.
How Spicy Is Consider Me?
Band 4 of 5 on romance.io, labelled “explicit open door,” from 379 reader ratings. The heat is not what readers argue about on this book — the length is — and no reviewer we found asks for more or less of it.
The elements worth flagging in advance are emotional rather than explicit, and there is no author-published set to check them against. Readers repeatedly name the heroine’s persistent self-worth and body-image material, and the constant references to her height; StoryGraph readers add infidelity and pregnancy tags. If you want the same heat band with the sport genuinely on the page, Face Off and The Dugout are the two books on our shelf that deliver it.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want a hero who decides early and stays decided, you like couples who talk instead of withholding, you want a big found-family cast to move into for five books, and length is a feature rather than a cost.
You may want to skip it if: you came for hockey, a heroine whose insecurity outlasts the hero’s reassurance will frustrate you, “not like other girls” framing is a dealbreaker, or a five-hundred-page romance with a thin plot is not how you want to spend a week.
In short: the best hero on the shelf, in the book most likely to defeat you before you reach him.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
This is the consensus title of the entire subgenre in Kindle Unlimited: it appears on four of the competing guides we audited, more than any other sports romance, and it has accumulated 246,431 Goodreads ratings. Why it dominates is a question we cannot answer with evidence — we looked and found no analysis, only discovery pages — so we are recording the cause as unknown rather than inventing one. The plausible correlates are that it opens a five-book series, that it is the archetypal “he falls first” book, and that scale compounds. There is no Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal or Booklist review; Dear Author’s B+ is the only substantive professional criticism. Reddit: unknown / not accessible — reddit.com is blocked from our research environment and nothing has been substituted for it.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Carter, first and by a wide margin — his devotion, his consistency, his golden-retriever energy. Then the communication between the leads, which readers name approvingly and specifically. Then the found family and the side cast, which is what turns a book into a five-book habit.
What readers argue about and complain about: Length, above everything, and it is not close. Five separate reviewers raise it on a single StoryGraph page; a long-form reviewer wanted three hundred pages cut; the audiobook is over twenty hours. The consequence is measurable rather than rhetorical — a 5% did-not-finish rate, against 1–2% for almost everything else on our sports shelf. Second, the heroine: her insecurity persists past the point the story has earned, and reviewers find the repeated emphasis on her height wearing. Third, the “not like other girls” framing. Fourth, insta-attraction that sits oddly against how slowly the rest of the book moves. And fifth, the hockey — not as a complaint so much as an absence: Dear Author quantifies it, Reckless Reading disputes it, and nobody else mentions it at all.
On audio: narrated by Alex Kydd and Kasha Kensington, 20 hours 43 minutes, published by Podium Audio in September 2022. That runtime is worth knowing precisely because it corroborates the most common criticism of the book. No Libro.fm listing surfaced, so there is no audio link here.
The series question worth asking first: it resolves completely — full HEA with an epilogue, no cliffhanger, and Playing For Keeps follows a new couple each book, so nothing is required before or after it. If you continue, Unravel Me is the highest-rated volume in the trilogy and reads perfectly well alone. Both it and book two, Play With Me, were verified in Kindle Unlimited on the same day as this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Consider Me on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes, included with Kindle Unlimited as of 22 August 2026, verified on its own Amazon product page rather than a search tile. All three Playing For Keeps books we track were verified on the same day. Audio inclusion is a separate entitlement and we have not confirmed it.
How much hockey is actually in Consider Me?
Not much. Dear Author reports that pretty much the only on-page game play is when the heroine is watching the game. One blogger disagrees, and across six sources and forty-plus reader voices nobody else engages the question at all — and nobody asks for more. We rate it Sports-Labeled with LOW on-page sport.
Why is Consider Me on every sports romance list?
It appears on four of the competing Kindle Unlimited guides we audited, more than any other title. We could not find evidence explaining why, so we are not going to invent a reason. The plausible correlates are that it opens a five-book series, it is the archetypal he-falls-first book, and it has 246,431 Goodreads ratings.
Is Consider Me too long?
That is the dominant complaint and the data supports it. Five separate reviewers raise length on a single StoryGraph page, a long-form reviewer wanted three hundred pages cut, and the audiobook runs twenty hours and forty-three minutes. Its 5% did-not-finish rate is the highest on our sports shelf, where most books sit at 1–2%.
Is there a cliffhanger, and do I need to read the series in order?
No cliffhanger, and no. It is book one of Playing For Keeps, which follows a new couple each time. Full happily-ever-after with an epilogue. Book three, Unravel Me, is the highest-rated in the trilogy and reads alone.
How spicy is Consider Me?
Band 4 of 5 on romance.io, labelled explicit open door. Heat is not what readers argue about on this book; no reviewer we found asks for more or less of it. There is insta-attraction, tagged nineteen times, which sits oddly against how slowly the emotional arc moves.
Does the author publish content warnings?
No public warning set was found. We checked beckamack.com twice and the site has no content-warnings page. Everything in our content notes is reader-sourced — infidelity, pregnancy and cursing from StoryGraph tags, plus persistent body-image and self-worth material named by reviewers. On a book with a quarter of a million ratings, that gap is worth naming.
If You Loved Consider Me, Read These Next
If Carter is what you want more of, The Right Move by Liz Tomforde carries the highest single-character consensus we have measured on any book — twenty-seven of thirty reviewers name the hero. If you want the same series-cast habit, Unravel Me is the strongest book in this trilogy. And if this made you realise you actually do want hockey on the page, Face Off is the book to take next. All three sit on our best sports romance on Kindle Unlimited guide, and the wider shelf is in Book Reviews.
The Bottom Line
This is the book the whole subgenre points at, and the reason is Carter: a hero who decides early, says so, and then behaves accordingly for five hundred pages, inside a relationship where two adults actually talk. That is rarer than it should be and it is why a quarter of a million people have rated it. Against that, it is long enough that one in twenty readers abandon it, the heroine’s insecurity outlasts its own justification, and the hockey is essentially watched from a seat. Come for the hero and the found family, and know what you are signing up for on length. Check Consider Me on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Consider Me ranks as the consensus Sports-Labeled hockey romance — the warmest hero on our Kindle Unlimited shelf, held back by a length that measurably costs it readers, and best approached for the devotion and the found family rather than for the sport.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ 3.82 Goodreads average across 246,431 ratings
- ✓ On four competitor lists — more than any other title
- ✓ Dear Author graded it B+
- ✓ 5% did-not-finish, highest on our sports shelf
Romance ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Carter’s devotion is the most-cited strength
- ✓ He falls first, openly, and never wavers
- ✓ Two leads who communicate rather than withhold
- ✓ Insta-attraction tagged 19 times despite the slow arc
Characters ★★★★☆ 3.5/5
- ✓ Golden-retriever hero readers finish 500 pages for
- ✓ Side cast strong enough to carry four more books
- ✓ Olivia’s wariness is well motivated early
- ✓ Her insecurity outlasts the story’s justification
Writing ★★★☆☆ 3.2/5
- ✓ Communication written as a deliberate choice
- ✓ Comedy and warmth sustain long stretches
- ✓ Dual first person makes he-falls-first legible
- ✓ Five reviewers on one page call it unnecessarily long
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 3.7/5
- ✓ Devotion lands for the vast majority of readers
- ✓ Mental-health material handled with care
- ✓ Epilogue delivers a full payoff
- ✓ Repeated height references wear readers down
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ romance.io band 4, “explicit open door”, 379 raters
- ✓ No reviewer asks for more or less spice
- ✓ No consent question raised anywhere
- ✓ Heat is not the reason anyone finishes this book
Ending ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Full HEA with an epilogue
- ✓ No cliffhanger; new couple each book
- ✓ Nothing required before or after it
- ✓ Dear Author found the final conflict forced
Re-read Value ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ Series cast rewards continuing
- ✓ Largest readership on our sports shelf
- ✓ Audiobook offers a second route in
- ✓ Over twenty hours of audio discourages a return
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