A sports romance box set–five full-length novels! Only 99-cents for a limited time–get yours today!
Heart of a Champion
Blurb: He’s impossible to resist…with a ripped body and a heart of a champion…
Romance and athletic heroism combine in this ultimate boxed set containing five full-length sports romances by popular authors Cassandra Carr, Kelly Jamieson, Morgan Kearns, Roz Lee and Chanta Rand.
Enjoy football, baseball and hockey heroes in Should’ve Known Better, Offside, In It To Win It, Inside Heat and The Highest Bidder.
Should’ve Known Better (Storm Series, #1) by Cassandra Carr – Sarah Jenkins, a math geek and hockey fanatic, is thrilled when the NHL hires her as an advisor for the Buffalo Storm. She meets Sebastian St. Amant, a young hockey player looking to make the jump from the minors to the big leagues. When Sarah and Sebastian meet, sparks immediately fly. A relationship is out of the question—Sarah’s an influential staff member and Sebastian’s a player, not to mention over ten years her junior. But the impossible becomes the necessary when they can no longer fight their attraction. Will they weather the storm, or should they have known better?
http://www.booksbycassandracarr.com/
Offside (Heller Brothers, #5) by Kelly Jamieson – Honey Holbrook’s attention-grabbing antics were tabloid fodder for years. Now she’s trying to leave her past behind her and make a new life for herself. Matt Heller is recovering from a serious injury that changed his whole outlook on life, determined to resume his hockey career. Neither of them are happy to be working together again after their wild and wicked fling eight years ago ended badly…
In It To Win It (Deadlines & Diamonds, #2) by Morgan Kearns – Back in the day, ‘Plain Jane’ Alexander blended into the background, content to watch from the sidelines while Grayson Pierce soaked up the spotlight. Content until he broke her heart. Bitter, she did the college thing, came out of her shell, and never looked back. Grayson loves baseball. It was his pastime in high school, his passion in college, and now…his career. However baseball isn’t the only thing in Grayson’s heart. He likes fast cars, loose women and expensive liquor. When her job as a Sportscaster sends her to Grayson’s doorstep, she realizes that not everything is as it appears. http://www.morgankearns.com/
Inside Heat (Mustangs Baseball, #1) by Roz Lee – Jeff and Jason are at the top of their game. Jeff is the Texas Mustangs’ closer, revered throughout the Major League for throwing inside heat, while his twin brother Jason is the team’s starting catcher and star hitter. The two have always shared more than their identical DNA, so when they meet Megan, it’s no wonder they both want her.
Megan doesn’t know baseball, but she does know a sexy guy when she sees one – or two. When a potentially career-ending injury sidelines Jeff, his ego takes a hit, too. Megan finds herself on the outside – the dirty little secret. It doesn’t help that Jeff has gotten the wrong impression about her and his brother. It’s all fun and games until someone falls in love.
The Highest Bidder by Chanta Rand – Quarterback Tristan Rexford is a hunter both on and off the football field. With a seven-figure income, a dazzling smile, and a body resembling Michelangelo’s David, he’s every woman’s fantasy.
But Doctor Alexa Kennedy barely has time for her patients, much less fantasies. When it comes to men, she’s short on patience and long on disappointment. When one of the hospital’s board members attends a charity benefit and ends up with the winning bid for a date with Tristan, Alexa is chosen to escort him.
They share a night of passion before Tristan retreats to his glamorous world, leaving her aching for more. Alexa tells herself it was all in the name of charity. She’s too sensible to fall for someone like Tristan. Or is she?
Review:
This past weekend, I read Should’ve Known Better by Cassandra Carr from the anthology Heart of a Champion. I’d been meaning to read Carr’s Buffalo Storm series for a while now, and so was very excited to see that this collection included the first book in the series–seemed like the perfect excuse to finally get started!
Should’ve was a cute read. It definitely centered more on the romance than the hockey, but it did give an interesting look behind the scenes of a professional team. I also liked the fact that it was a romance with an older heroine–though most of the time the age difference felt as if it didn’t even exist. Sebastian acted much older than many twenty-somethings, due in part to the fact that he had a career that he took seriously and that he lived away from his family and was on his own where many others his age were just getting out of college and still a bit wild. Honestly, much of the time I forgot he was younger until a character brought it up.
He was a rookie, but was given a pretty big role on the team as well, apparently due to his skill level. He was French Canadian, and had a tendency to throw a lot of French into his conversation, which was cute though sometimes the translations felt overdone. It didn’t always feel totally natural that he’d repeat himself in a second language every. single. time. The cover model looked far too old to be a rookie player and didn’t fit the vision of Seb that I had in my head at all. Still, though, I liked his character quite a bit.
Sarah’s role with the team was interesting–she’d discovered some mathematical formulas that allowed her to help a hockey team be more efficient on the ice and gain an edge over their opponents–clearly two things a Buffalo sports team needs 😉 The story spans an entire season as she’s brought on board to do her math geek thing even though not everyone in management is convinced that her math machinations are going to make a difference. Sometimes she actually came off as less mature than Sebastian, which was a bit odd.
For much of the book, I was with Sebastian–Sarah’s insistence that they stay apart because of the respective roles with the team got to be a bit much. I didn’t blame him at all for being upset. The last third or so of the novel was, I felt, much stronger than the beginning, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the wrap-it-all-up-in-two-pages epilogue. Sure, it was nice seeing what happened after, but it was very rushed and I’m not even sure readers needed to know all the information given. Perhaps some of it could have come through in later books in the series? Or stayed unknown?
Overall, I did enjoy it in spite of its shortcomings and I will probably pick up later books in the series to see where Carr is going with it…and pretend that I don’t have to resort to fiction to find a winning Buffalo sports team. 😉
Rating: 3 1/2 stars / C+
For 99-cents, this collection was definitely worth it. I’m planning on reading the rest of the collection when I get a chance, especially Kelly Jamieson’s offering since I’ve read and liked a few shorter pieces from her already. (Plus, more hockey! Yay!) At that price point, it’s a great way to get an introduction to a group of authors and read about several different types of sports heroes at the same time–a win-win.
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