Kelly Maxwell and Matt Scanlon met a few months before they had to work together.  It did not go well, and now they are basically enemies.  His best friend is dating her sister, so their paths cross even without work.

 

Kelly is still mad at the confrontation they had when they first met.  He is hurting from something in his past he does not want to share with anyone.  Now, he has been traded and works for the same MLB team she does.  When she asks him to do interviews, he always refuses.

 

Matt has a had a rough year and is trying to make it better.  Meeting Kelly actually woke him up and made him see the errors he was making.  Now, he is working hard to be the best catcher in the league.  

 

The attraction between them is obvious.  The room literally sizzles with the sparks that fly around them.  Kelly hates that she is attracted to him.  She has a past full of pain as well.  Can they find that a friendship of honesty works for them and move on?

 

I was impressed with the writing and how these sensitive subjects were handled.  I loved the honesty and heat between the leading characters. This is book # 2 in Feeling the Heat series.  A must read for lovers of sports.  I give this book a 4/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

Kelly Maxwell has finally landed her dream job as publicist for the San Francisco Blaze. But the team's newest member, handsome bad boy catcher Matt Scanlon, is refusing every interview. She's got to get him to open up before the season ends, or she may not be back next year. And after everything she overcame to achieve her dream, Kelly's not about to let that happen.

 

Matt Scanlon just wants to be left alone to rebuild his life and his career. After a year of masking the pain of a recent loss with hard partying and fast women, he finally hit rock bottom and was traded to a team he's loathed his entire life—a team with little to no chance at the post-season.

 

Butting heads is getting Kelly and Matt nowhere but annoyed, and with the team's schedule on the road, they can't avoid close quarters—or their surprising attraction to one another. As the season winds down, Matt finds his growing feelings for Kelly have brought his numbed emotions back to life. But when betrayal shatters their fragile trust, winning it all seems more impossible than ever.

― Alison Packard, The Winning Season

(Feeling The Heat, Book # 2)

A sports themed story plus a bad boy hero and a sassy, no-nonsense heroine equals a stellar combination in THE WINNING SEASON!

I must admit I am kind of a sucker for the ‘famous bad-boy falls for the average Jill’ type story. Isn’t the bad boy to romance readers like apple pie or better yet, baseball is to Americans? I think that is a pretty accurate assessment.

As a life-long fan, Kelly Maxwell is blissfully happy in her dream job as the publicist for the professional baseball team, the San Francisco Blaze. The stars have aligned and everything is just perfect… that is until The Blaze acquires Dodgers bad boy, Matt Scanlon. Although Kelly can admit that Matt is a super-sexy specimen of male perfection, he is kind of a publicist’s nightmare. With all his hard partying and womanizing, he has done a pretty good job at owning the title of “bad boy.” On top of that, his attitude sucks, he won’t do interviews and he doesn’t play well with others. The chip he sports on his shoulder is large enough to rival Mt. Rushmore, but with all that said, he has his reasons.

The more Matt refuses interviews, the more the media wants an interview. Kelly is a tough chick; she has to be tough in this male dominated industry. If she want’s to keep her job, she’s going to have to change her tactics in order to get through to him, but she’s not going to compromise the respect she has earned by being his door just to feed his ego. Maybe he’s not looking for that at all, maybe he just wants her to see him for the man he really is, not that bad boy that got him traded to begin with. The sooner Kelly realizes he is a changed man, the sooner she will get what she wants, but the real question is: What exactly is it that she wants from him?

The chemistry between Matt and Kelly is undeniable and watching them fall was such a satisfying and sexy adventure. If sporty romance reads are your thing, THE WINNING SEASON is a home run that’s sure to hit the spot!


✳✳ Copy provided by the author/publisher for an honest review.

✳✳ Reviewed on I ♥ Bookie Nookie Reviews

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I really liked The Winning Season. It was a sweet, charming romance that moved at a good pace. Kelly and Matt didn't have an easy start, they could barely stand each other at the beginning of the story. But there is no denying the spark between them that slowly rises to a simmering passion.

Matt and Kelly both have demons from their past that still taunt them, and they are reluctant to let anyone past their shields because of that. As they are forced to spend days together on the road and in the locker room though, those walls slowly start to crumble. But when one is betrayed, will it shatter the fragile relationship they have built? And will they loose more then just a game?

The Winning Season is a wonderful story for sport romance fans, that follows the baseball season but doesn't overshadow the relationship between these two main characters. The characters were well written, the author is obviously knowledgeable about the sport, and the plot kept me turning the pages. This one will defiantly put a smile on your face by the end.