Throwing Heat by Jennifer Seasons


                      Throwing Heat (Diamonds and Dugouts #3)
Grade-C
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-No Kink
Series-Diamonds and Dugouts #3
Genre-Contemporary
Reviewed by Kay
100 pages
 
 
This is the third installment in Jennifer Seasons’ Diamond and Dugouts series.

Leslie Cutter has always had horrible taste in men. One knocked her up in her teen years, one ruined her name by embezzlement and the latest is a player on and off the field. He’s also her brother’s best friend and the starting pitcher for the Denver Rush. The book starts off years ago in Miami after her ex leaves the country after the embezzlement fiasco. After a drunken night, she and Peter Kowalskin have a sexual encounter, not full blown but an encounter nonetheless.
Peter can’t go through with it and leaves, causing an already insecure woman to doubt herself even more.

Peter is battling his own demons. He is retiring at the end of the season due to a degenerative eye disease and he wants a World Series win to go with it. He regrets not sleeping with Leslie years ago in Miami and wants another chance with her. He offers his place to stay after the building he owns that she lives in has a flood. He makes a wager with her. He will play guitar at the nightclub she manages and help her buy it if she can NOT sleep with him until after Halloween. Leslie jumps at the chance because this is her opportunity at self redemption. She can’t lose, right?

I thought this was a cute read. A lot of sexual chemistry and sexy scenes. Only one full blown one though, which was disappointing. There were very good secondary characters and I hope they all have a book. My only complaint was that I wished it was as hot as Jaci Burton’s sports series.

                      


The Sum Of All Kisses by Julia Quinn

The Sum of All Kisses (Smythe-Smith Quartet, #3)
Grade-B
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-No Kink
Series-Smythe-Smith Quartet #3
Genre-Historical Regency Romance
Reviewed by Kay
384 pages

Julia Quinn, Julia Quinn! Why do I always push your books to the bottom of my to be read pile, only to be put in my place time and time again by your wit, writing and story telling? I don’t know.
Hugh Prentice made a terrible decision in his younger days and has paid the price ever since. He challenged his friend to a duel and it left both men changed mentally and physically. Hugh has a lame leg and he shot his friend in the shoulder. His friend was exiled by Hugh’s evil father until Hugh could figure out a way to bring him home. Hugh is very clever and quite obsessed with figures and sums.

Lady Sarah Pleinsworth wants to marry, not only to love but to escape having to play in the family quartet. She’s a Smythe-Smith and that’s what the unmarried females in her family do. The only way to escape it long term is to marry or die. She can’t stand Hugh Prentice because of all that she and her family have lost due to him.

These two polar opposites made me laugh so hard. I mean laugh out loud laugh. Belly laugh! It was such a delight to watch them to fall in love. Despite their families’ problems these two realized that sometimes the best things in life are right in front of you. If you haven’t read Julia Quinn, you really should.

Issy’s Infatuation by Shelley Munro

Issy's Infatuation

Grade: C-
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary, Novella
Published: 3/10/2007
Reviewed by Anne
47 pages
 
Issy is a rugby player hoping to move up from her small team to a more competitive one.  She’s surprised when her new coach is her long time crush Tyler.  He proposes a month of hot sex between them and she takes him up on it, hoping he’ll be hooked on her and want to stick around until the month is over. 
 
This one just didn’t work for me.  The writing was hot, but the pacing of the relationship felt rushed. (I know, I know, it’s a novella, but still!)  I think the sex was well written, but the plot was weak and Tyler was kind of a douche.