Tabs’ review of Rookie Move (Brooklyn Bruisers, Book 1) by Sarina Bowen
Contemporary Romance published by Berkley 06 Sep 16
I am a big fan of Sarina Bowen’s emotional NA series, The Ivy Years, but adult romance is much more my general speed than new adult. So I was superbly excited to hear that she’s writing a full-length adult spin-off series. Luckily this book does not disappoint. It’s a really sweet reunited lovers romance that deals with some difficult themes in a thoughtful manner.
Georgia Worthington has her dream job as head publicist for the Brooklyn Bruisers hockey team. She’s temporarily assumed the top spot due to a vacany and is out to prove that she’s ready to handle it permanently. Unfortunately, the team’s brand new rookie not only turns out to be her high-school ex-boyfriend, but he also immediately causes an accidental PR nightmare. Georgia’s got to do damage control and somehow untangle her complicated feelings for Leo Trivi at the same time.
Leo also has personal and professional problems to juggle. He’s just been traded up from the minors and should be ecstatic, except it turns out that his trade was done without the approval of the newly appointed head coach. This wouldn’t be a huge problem except that said new coach is both Georgia’s father and a man with a personal vendetta against him (that nether Leo nor Georgia particularly understand). Leo’s determined to prove he can be valuable to the team before Coach Worthington trades his ass either back to the minors or to another team.
Leo and Georgia have a complicated past. They were high-school sweethearts madly in love with each other. But, during their senior year, Georgia was drugged and raped at a party while away at a tennis camp. She abruptly ended things with Leo a few months later, and neither one of them really got over it. Neither has truly been happy since. Can they really make something new and move on together or is there too much water under that bridge?
I think this book does a good job of showing the ripples that a violent crime can have on not just the victim but that person’s loved ones as well. Georgia has spent the subsequent six years healing and coming to terms with the rape. She’s in a good, healthy place. Both her father and Leo, however, are still very much suffering from PTSD and in many ways the denial that there’s anything wrong is really eating at them. I think this is handled in a way that doesn’t diminish Georgia’s own pain and grief. She’s been in the healing process for a long time, but they’ve been avoiding it entirely and things were bound to come to a head.
If you are very strict on sports realism, this book may irk you a bit. The tech billionaire team owner pretty much does whatever unconventional, crazy thing he wants, so the usual rules of sanity don’t always apply. And, if the hints for the rest of the books play out, it looks like employee fraternization is not a thing frowned upon at all on the Brooklyn Bruisers! These factors don’t bother me, because I know pretty much nothing at all about any sports whatsoever, but your mileage may very.
I really enjoyed this book. It’s both fun and entertaining as well as endearingly sweet and emotional. Georgia and Leo are just downright adorable, both separate and together, and watching them find each other again is eminently satisfying. “You and I don’t have one-night stands. We have forever night stands.”
Grade: A
Summary:
In high school they were the perfect couple—until the day Georgia left Leo in the cold…
Hockey player Leo Trevi has spent the last six years trying to do two things: get over the girl who broke his heart, and succeed in the NHL. But on the first day he’s called up to the newly franchised Brooklyn Bruisers, Leo gets checked on both sides, first by the team’s coach—who has a long simmering grudge, and then by the Bruisers’ sexy, icy publicist—his former girlfriend Georgia Worthington.Saying goodbye to Leo was one of the hardest things Georgia ever had to do—and saying hello again isn’t much easier. Georgia is determined to keep their relationship strictly professional, but when a press conference microphone catches Leo declaring his feelings for her, things get really personal, really fast….
No excerpt available.
Other books in this series:
Pipe Dreams – May 2, 2017
