This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance
Published by Intermix
Released on October 21, 2014
Pages: 255
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley, Publisher
The Delight
A sweet one of the guys report falling for her interviewee kicker on a football team. Throw romance and football together and I am ready to tackle it and score a touch down!
Just look at that cover. It makes me want to drool. I can take hair on a man’s chest or not, so this is one of those not moments. Makes you want to oil him down doesn’t it girls? *wink*
Jeanette Murray has grabbed me as an author I have read almost all of her books on. Well, I am two behind actually on her military series, but hey, I am sticking with these Bobcats to the end! She writes honest humans who deal with issues we all deal with. Her heroines really knock me over for their strength, level headedness, honor and sense of humor. Throw in hero’s that also have these qualities and you have romance made in football heaven!
Killian is a quiet charmer as the Santa Fe Bobcats resident kicker. Quiet charmer, well, he gets charming but he comes out rough, abrupt and totally a grumpy guy in the first part of the story. For a hero, he was on the short side, but I wouldn’t call him short at 5′ 10″. It seems football is just a job. Not what I was expecting when I went into this football romance. He keeps quiet, too himself and never goes out with the guys or talks to the press. And he is hiding a secret. One he plans to not reveal and will do anything to protect.
Then Aileen, a sports reporter, figuratively slams into Killian and sends his world spinning both in good ways and bad. Aileen is also vertically challenged. Short, petite, but a firecracker. She doesn’t really know how to seduce a guy and frankly that’s not what she cares about either. She’s a fireball for sure and no quitter. She has integrity that I admire as she isn’t looking for a sex scandal or digging into everyone’s private lives. Wanting real reporting stories, she is told to get an exclusive interview with Killian and she just might get a better stories to report on. Oh, her boss is a total sexist sleaze bag.
So Killian tries everything to get her to forget about him, but Aileen just wants to interview him and starts following the team around to do fluff stories like how many marshmallows can Michael put in his mouth. Or how Josiah knows bike tricks. Getting under his skin with silly stories and while she looks like she might be flirting with the players, she actually is more like a sister to them. Neither one really want to fall for the other, but they are extremely attracted to each other.
I loved these two and how they interacted. There was humor and sass. As down to earth as you can get with parts like this….
[quote]She almost pulled off her own shirt while he toed off his shoes, then remembered she was wearing the world’s ugliest, oldest sports bra. Nasty. She couldn’t have had the foresight to put on a cute bra to meet the guy she’d slept with? What was wrong with her?
Oh, right. She didn’t own any cute sports bras.
Aileen sat up and pointed toward the bathroom. “Condoms. Go get them.”
He blinked, then pushed at her legs, widening them. “In a minute.”
She would never be able to concentrate on the sexy times before the sexy time if she was worried he’d see this gross bra. She snapped her knees shut. “Get them now, so I’m not thinking about it later.”
When he hesitated, she batted her eyes. “Please?”
He grumbled, but took off to the tiny bathroom. It wouldn’t take him long to search. Wrenching her arms up and around, she slipped off her T-shirt and bra in record time and stuffed the offending piece of stretched elastic and holey fabric under the bed a mere second before Killian popped back out.
“If they were ever in there, they must have gotten up and jumped out the window or something. I couldn’t find them.”
She laughed and rolled over to open her nightstand. “Stupid me, forgot I put them here instead.” Yesterday . . . when she’d come home. For luck, she’d told herself, all while cursing her thoughts.
[/quote]If you want football, there are small snapshots throughout the story, but mostly this takes place off the field. In the bed, in the bed, oh, did I mention they had some sexy times in bed? But I do have to point out on glaringly bad part that I hope gets fixed in the final draft, which I didn’t have at the time of this writing.
[quote]Though it was mid-September, edging up on play-offs, the Sante Fe heat turned his uniform into a sweat box.
[/quote]Well, if this is the NFL, football season starts in the beginning to middle of September, with pre-season before hand. There are 16 games in 17 weeks….so if it is mid-September, the play-offs don’t even start until January. See my dilemma…yeah, I am a huge football fan so this got me right off. Edging to play-offs doesn’t seem to happen till game 8 in my mind. Ok, let’s let this one drop and move on.
Loving Him Off the Field a smart romance full of heartwarming moments, depth of character and surprises that even got me. I just can’t wait for the next football player to fall…into my book grubby hands!
Do you like a lot of sports scenes in your sports romances?
Have you read any sports romances?
Shari
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This reminds me. I have this series marked to read b/c I loved what you said in all your reviews for the books.
I have one or two books left to read from this series. The author took a break from writing when she went through a divorce. I need to check her account again because she was working on a trilogy I think and wanted to release them close together.
Awwww love when there is good sass and humor with couples <3
This was a fun romance! Hoping the author comes back to writing more!