Kristie J’s review of Catching Heat (Feeling the Heat, Book 3) by Alison Packard
Contemporary Romance published by Carina Press 10 Feb 14
I’m a sports fan, and especially while the Blue Jays were still in the hunt, I read quite a number of sports/baseball romance books. Catching Heat is the third book I’ve read in the series, and, like the first two, I enjoyed it very much.
J.T, the hero, and Angie, the heroine, have been secondary characters in the first two books and this is their story. Off camera, so to speak, they had been quite attracted to each other and had a one-night stand. The book opens up with Angie discovering she’s preggers and not quite sure what to do. Now, I HATE the secret-baby plot. I think it’s disgustingly unfair of the mother not to let the father know he has a child. Thankfully that’s not the plot of the story.
It takes no time for Angie to realize J.T. has a right to know and so she tells him. Surprisingly enough, he wants to do the honourable thing and marry her. Angie is very much against this plan, as she has no trust in professional athletes, ball players in particular, being faithful. This has been reinforced all her life by her very bitter and angry mother who had been done wrong by Angie’s father, a ball player himself. But Angie’s just been laid off and trying to find a new job while pregnant is not an easy thing to do, so she reluctantly agrees to marry J.T. with a few conditions, one of them being it’s a platonic relationship.
It turns out that J.T. is a really nice guy. He’s not a player at all, except for baseball. There has always been an attraction between the two, but now a real friendship begins to develop between them.
Most of this book takes place during the off season, but I was OK with that. I bought the whole series in one swoop without having read anything by Alison Packard before. It was a gamble, but a gamble that really paid off, as I have SO enjoyed the first three books. This one is my favourite so far and I’ve two more in this series to go.
If you like sports romance, heck, even if you don’t, this is an excellent book. While characters from the first two are mentioned in this book, it also works very well as a stand-alone. Alison Packard is now on my autobuy list of authors. It seems she is on the growing list of self-published authors and kudos to her. Try her!! That is what I have to say.
Grade: A
Summary:
Life has taught Angie DeMarco that all baseball players are womanizers, and her incredible one-night stand with sexy San Francisco Blaze back-up catcher J.T. Sawyer seemed to prove it. Determined not to give in to their sizzling chemistry a second time, she’s kept her distance ever since, focusing on her accounting job with the team. But now she’s laid off…and pregnant.
J.T. was hurt by Angie’s rejection, but with one more year with the Blaze, he has no time for love. He needs to spend the off season training hard so he can negotiate a better contract with a new team at the end of the year. But when Angie shows up on his doorstep, he’s overwhelmed by wanting to not just do right by her but pursue a relationship with her. Hoping for a second chance, he proposes.
Angie agrees to marry J.T. on one condition: the marriage will be purely a business arrangement. But as Angie spends time with him and his family, and J.T. neglects his training to spend time with her, what begins as a union in name only slowly grows into something more—something that looks a whole lot like love and friendship.
No excerpt available.
Other books in this series:
