Amber “AJ” Johnson is a freelance writer who has her heart set on becoming a full-time sports reporter at her paper. She has one chance to prove herself: capture an interview with the very private goalie of Baltimore’s hockey team, Alec Kolchak. But he’s the one man who tries her patience, even as he brings to life a quiet passion she doesn’t want to admit exists.
Alec has no desire to be interviewed–he never has, never will. But he finds himself a reluctant admirer of AJ’s determination to get what she wants…and he certainly never counted on his attraction to her. In a fit of frustration, he accepts AJ’s bet: if she can score just one goal on him in a practice shoot-out, he would not only agree to the interview, he would let her have full access to him for a month, 24/7.
It was a bet neither one of them wanted to lose…and a bet neither one could afford to win. But when it came time to take the shot, could either one of them cross the line?
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Short and Sweet: A quick, cute and steamy read for a night in.
Sports romances aren’t normally my thing to read. I mean, I’ve never followed sports, never been interested in them. This book surrounds Hockey and it may make me a bad Canadian, but I’ve never cared about that sport either.
But, like any good romance novel, the sport is not the center of the story. The main focus was on Amber (or A.J.) and Alec who seemed to know each other from a previous experience of her interviewing the team for a sports column. They didn’t seem to like each other very much, which I enjoyed of course. The tension and the dislike between the two was fun to read. The banter between the two of them had me laughing at some points.
Alec was a nice character to read about. He wasn’t overly cocky or a complete douche bag. The chemistry between the two characters was strong enough that I didn’t want to stop reading.
There was a few issues I had with this book. One: the whole situation with Alec’s ex-girlfriend at the end of the book was frankly just stupid and could of been edited out completely. She was like an additional antagonist that was completely unnecessary and was only involved in around the last 10 or so percent of the book. Had she popped up way earlier, it may have made sense. But with being so close to the end it was pointless. The way the author described her was just irritating, as well. Blond hair, collagen enhanced lips, and a squeaky voice. Oh, also her name was Brandi. It was basically just a typical ex-girlfriend character. Some woman named Brandi must of seriously pissed off a lot of romance authors, because I swear I have read about this character in about six of them at least.
The other issues basically just revolve around pacing. Everything wrapped up a little to quickly and simply. There was a whole other run of story lines hinted at in the novel that the author could of used in addition to or instead of the ones that she did.
All in all, it wasn’t an unpleasant read. It was steamy and cute and cheesy and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
In the spirit of this wonderful holiday, I’m going to do a giveaway! All you need to do is comment on and like at least one post during the next 25 days and you’ll be entered to win a book($20.00 or less) of your choice from Book Depository. Winner will be chosen and announced December 29th.
Bree Howland 