Review: A League of Her Own by Karen Rock

Genre:
Romance

Format:
E-ARC

Publisher:
Harlequin

Release Date:
December 2014







Synopsis from Goodreads:

He was attractive, talented…and way off limits.

Heather Gadway may have been a world-class college pitcher and a top university coach, but she's a rank amateur when it comes to managing the Falcons, her father's struggling minor league team. And when it comes to managing her aggravating attraction to Garrett Wolf, their talented new pitcher. It's going to be difficult enough to make it as the first female manager in the league and prove to her overly critical father she's worthy. No distractions. No missteps. And certainly no romances with players. Everything stands between them—including their troubled pasts—even as Heather's world falls apart and Garrett's the one who's there to catch her…

Romance, Baseball, Rivals to Lovers, Contemporary Romance

My Review

When her father suffers a heart attack, he allows Heather Gadway to manage his minor league team, the Falcons. It’s an up hill climb for Heather as she can never do enough to please her father. Nothing is ever good enough for him, but Heather is determined to prove him wrong. It’s not easy for her to prove herself in a primarily male sport.

Garrett Wolf is filled with demons. He is given the chance to pull himself out of his problems and be successful in his beloved sport of baseball. His dream is to pitch in the major leagues, but after dealing with alcohol addiction, he fears it might be too late. He’s already gone through twelve months of sobriety and he vows to continue and turn his life around.

Heather has dealt with her own mother’s addiction to pain killers and has no intentions of getting involved with another addict. However, she can’t help finding herself attracted to the man, but she just can’t get past her trust issues to let down her guard. Then, Heather’s life falls apart and it only draws her closer to Garrett. He’s more than happy to pick up the pieces.

First, I have to start off by saying I’m a huge baseball fan and love baseball romances. I never think there are enough of them so I thought this is the perfect read as the official baseball season is right around the corner. This story has a lot of potential and is very well written.

Heather and Garrett are two flawed characters with pasts they are fighting to overcome. Their struggles are very realistic and portrayed out of the pages of real life. I absolutely adore Garrett, flaws and all. I felt his pain and anxiety throughout the story. I did, however, have more of a problem with the heroine. To me, she felt too unforgiving and too unwilling to give anyone second changes. I wanted her to soften up a bit, especially towards Garrett. She painted everyone with an addiction with one big paint brush. She couldn’t see beyond her own experience.

Although Garrett had wonderful character growth, I thought Heather still had a long way to go. She is getting there, though. As a result, I found myself questioning why Garrett even bothered trying to win her over instead of cheering for their happily-ever-after.

This is certainly an emotional book dealing with many different emotions from betrayal to disappointment to hope and to faith. This book deals with it all. Despite my problems with the heroine, I would definitely continue reading books by this author. She does an excellent job of bringing the reader into the story and making them feel as if they are right beside the characters.




For reading challenges:
Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge 2016
NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2016
Women’s Fiction Reading Challenge 2016
Blogger Shame Reading Challenge 2016

FTC Disclosure: NetGalley provided me with a copy of this book to review. This did not influence my thoughts and opinions in any way. All opinions expressed are my own.