Red Zone (Daniels Brothers 2) by Sherri Hayes

Hello to all,

 i won't be long because i'm really out and i'm not sure how long the connection will last.. i should be in bed the never ending winter is taking me down with his freezing weather and snow when my flowers should start to bloom.. it starting to get depressing. Fortunately they are always good books to keep you happy as long as you stay warm^^ ( i love the fireplace so much this year)

So i wanted to post this earlier but life happened so you get it today ( better late than never). As you can see i'm following my goal of discovering the subgenre of sport romance. When i've discovered this book book newly released i knew i wanted to read it so i'm really glad i could. I'm back with football for the sport but don't worry, i got some other sports in my pile so you won't get only football or motor racing^^.

So today a sport romance mixed with romantic suspense: Red Zone by Sherri Hayes, it's the second book of a series but keep in mind that if this book is a sport romance it's not the case of the series as a whole. Books can be read out of order without problem.

Happy reading!

Publisher: The Writer's Coffee Shop Publishing House

Publication: 2013

ISBN:  1612131433

Genre: romantic suspense, contemporary, sport romance
Violence: mild
Language: normal
sex: strong
Public: 18+

Source: won

Short description from goodreads :

 After a case ended badly for Rebecca Carson, she’s losing her mind sitting around her apartment waiting on her superiors to allow her to return to work. Since she was a teenager, the only thing she’d ever wanted was to join the FBI. Now that dream was in danger.

Gage Daniels has made a pretty good life for himself. A nice house. A career he loves. As a professional football player, he’s used to getting almost everything he’d ever want with just the snap of his fingers. This includes women. A well-timed smile is usually all it takes to attract the opposite sex, especially in Nashville.

When a stalker threatens Gage, the team owner calls an old friend, Rebecca’s ex-partner Travis Hansen, to help protect his star quarterback and find the person responsible. Hansen offers Rebecca the job, and she jumps at the chance. It’s work, and it will get her out of her apartment. How bad can it be?

Posing as Gage’s girlfriend, however, isn’t as easy as it seems. The man is relentless. Rebecca must work to protect Gage while staving off his advances. She’s there to do a job, nothing more. The last thing she wants is to be another notch on a hotshot athlete’s belt.

As the stalker continues to up the ante, Rebecca finds it harder and harder to keep her distance from Nashville’s star quarterback. He isn’t what she expected in one of the city’s most notorious playboys. Now all she has to do is keep him safe until they can find his stalker, and hope she doesn’t lose her heart in the process.

My opinion:

          As soon as I learned about this book I wanted to read it because it has one thing I love and one I was looking for: suspense romance and sport romance…together these things made this a book to be read for me and I was delighted to win it during the blog tour.

This is the second book of the Daniel Brothers series but it can be read as a stand alone without difficulty which I really appreciated. As we learn about Gage, we also discover his family a little but nothing is amiss and I would be happy to read book 1 even if I started with the younger of the brother in book 2 first.

Now like I said I enjoyed this story even if it wasn’t my favourite either but I will come to that later. First let see what was good or wonderful.  I really loved how Gage was trying to make Rebecca crack her walls. They were really funny together. Gage is arrogant sometimes full of himself but he is also really dedicated to his team and sport. When he is practising he become a different man and show how reliable he can be. He isn’t bad but when  suddenly he find himself forced to live with Rebecca he decide to make things hard on her so it could be fun for him… not really kind but understandable in a sense and he wasn’t never cruel.

Rebecca has been really damaged by her childhood and I feel like we don’t know the entire story still. Sometimes she reacts like she has been beaten or worse, but she only speak about attending some illegal acts and a drunken mother… I feel like something is amiss..; the way she doesn’t like to be touched, like she closes herself to the world… Perhaps it will be hinted later in the series but as it is  it didn’t feel right ( not exactly wrong but unsettling at least) She is a responsible, even too much, woman. She took care of her sister since young and the result is destroying her life. She is seeing all the wrongs, seeing how her sister is repeatedly heartbroken and thus

She doesn’t even try. I understand that but it also make me think…. When Gage immobilise her to get answers…the result should have been violent in the sense she must have been freaked, panicked no matter what he was doing and trying to break free… but no she panics a little, gets distracted and worse…she obeys? That didn’t feel right to me.

The plot is well done and I enjoyed it even if I did guess who the culprit was (too used to see police’s investigation on TV^^;;) , the romance progresses nicely and I appreciated that she didn’t wield immediately and tried to stay professional. Really it was enjoyable but they are others details that bothers me at least a little…for example the ending. I appreciate the happy end really I do but I still find curious that with everything that happens they aren’t any repercussions…part of me is glad there are none but another part finds that too unrealistic at least without some explanations… now that’s me and perhaps you will read it and not see at all what made me say that ( it’s great then) but perhaps you will too^^. It doesn’t makes the story bad far from it it’s just that I think it could have been even better

 I would be happy to discover the rest of this series though and if you want a sport romance with suspense this really a good book^^, I enjoyed to see a little how a football player lived, the system for the wives and also^^ how the coach reacted when they are distracted^^. I’m not someone fan of this sport or knowing a lot about it but really it was one of my favourite part^^.

To recommend

Score:  3,5/5

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own and no compensation was received in exchange for this review

Challenges:

The Perfect Play ( Play by Play 1) by Jaci Burton

Hi!!

Before i go back to rest a bit to be ready for my long day tomorrow, i wanted to share with you another step  in my discovery of the erotic romance sub genre. I heard a lot of good thing about Jaci Burton's series but until know i hadn't started it , a bit afraid i guess and now ^^ i can tell you i want book 2 as soon as possible but first  enjoy my opinion of book one " The Perfect Play"

happy reading!

Publisher: Berkley Heat

Publication: 2011

ISBN:  0425238814

Genre: erotic romance, sport
Violence: none
Language: mild
sex: highly strong
Public: 18+

Source: won

Short description from goodreads :

 Football pro Mick Riley is an all-star, both on the field and in the bedroom. But a sexy, determinedly single mom just might be the one to throw him off his game...

For years Mick has been taking full advantage of the life available to a pro athlete: fame, fortune, and a different girl in every city. But when he meets and beds confident, beautiful event planner Tara Lincoln, he wants much more than the typical one-night stand. Too bad Tara's not interested in getting to know football's most notorious playboy any better.

As the single mother of a teenage son, the last thing Tara needs is the jet-set lifestyle of Mick Riley; even though their steamy and passionate one-night stand was unforgettable. Tara's life is complicated enough without being thrust into the spotlight as Mick's latest girl du jour. Tara played the game of love once and lost big, and she doesn't intend to put herself out there again, especially with a heartbreaker like Mick.

But when Mick sets his mind to win, nothing will stop him. And he has the perfect play in mind.

My opinion:

          Far from my comfort zone but what a ride! I’m not that fond of sport but I’m going to be if all the series is like this^^.  I didn’t know what to expect in fact but certainly not that, it’s true I knew it was erotic but not at that level so it’s quite a surprise for me to have enjoyed it this much. Jaci Burton really writes well and the story is centred about the romance but not only so I spend I excellent time reading this book.

Mick was a playboy, at thirty years old he is wiser and intelligent enough to know the majority of his career is behind him however he is still playing and planning to keep doing it until he can’t anymore. All that is surrounding his sport starts to bother him a little; he doesn’t enjoy the apparitions as much as before but as a professional he accepts the fact that he must do a minimum more than playing. He never thought he would suddenly feel attracted by a woman, a normal one, mom of a teenager. It strange in the majority of the erotic romance I’ve read so far the schema is quite similar: a man, playboy, womanizer suddenly around 30 fall for a woman total opposite of the ones he dated before, a normal woman, with curse and natural beauty. .. I think I would like for once a good man who waited not one with a radical sudden change of heart. Anyway, in this case it’s really well written and not that sudden since he started to think about it before he met Tara.

Tara had a difficult life as a child and ended up pregnant at 15, not something I recommend. However, she didn’t give up at all and she is hardworking and independent. She has her own work, she is a event planner, and she take care of her son alone putting him above everything else. She has no life, all her time is working or tending to Nathan, her son. When she meets Mick she can’t understand why he wants to speak to her, wait for her…at the moment she decide to follow her heart and enjoy what it’s offered to her but she is not thinking of the long term at all. But more than great sex there is a connection between them and she is afraid of that. When Mick comes pursuing her and staying even with Nathan around, inviting them to family event…she sees something she longs for but still has reserves , thinking to protect a son who would like his mother happy and not scarifying herself for him. It’s time to learn and trust because you have to work to obtain your happiness and to keep it.

I really enjoyed the story, to the detail about protection. It can seem to be not important but for me it’s even more in a contemporary story, I appreciate that the author speak about it, makes her characters use it again and again. The message is important and perhaps it will save someone somewhere. Its proof the author thinks about her readers a minimum (at least in my opinion). I really want to read the others books of the series now even if I’m quite sure I will be blushing madly too often.

To recommend to fans of erotic romance above 18

Score:  4/5

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own and no compensation was received in exchange for this review

Challenges:

This book enter in the Romance and Me Challenge

Book read for the 2012 TBR reading