Eleven authors. Eleven Novellas. This is one thick . . . book.
Christmas just became a whole lot merrier...
TEAM PLAYER, A Christmas Anthology featuring titles by LJ Shen, Kennedy Ryan, Adriana Locke, Mandi Beck, Emma Scott, Charleigh Rose, Ella Fox, Sara Ney, Meghan Quinn, Kate Stewart and Rochelle Paige is available NOW!
Publication Date: December 14th, 2017
Genre: Contemporary/Sports Romance
Hot jocks. We love them all.
Sexy baseball players. Intense footballers. Sweaty MMA fighters, and sizzling hockey hotties. Score!
The good news? Eleven bestselling authors have gathered to give you a set of stories focused on the men we love most—sports heroes. We bet you’ll love this thick…book.
The bad news? The men in these novellas don’t actually exist.
*This anthology does not contain calories, just eleven original, never-before-seen stories by the following authors: Adriana Locke, Mandi Beck, Charleigh Rose, Kennedy Ryan, LJ Shen, Meghan Quinn, Rochelle Paige, Ella Fox, Kate Stewart, Emma Scott, and Sara Ney. We aren’t responsible for melted devices.
My Review:
3.5-4 stars
****
Overall, this was an entertaining anthology of sport romances! Sports romances are often romantic comedies, so I was expecting some light, funny stories. But the stories in this anthology are more angsty and emotional, sexy and edgy. I had read some of these authors' books before but most of them were new-to-me.
Here are my thoughts:
Sin Bin by Mandi Beck: 4 stars. I love a surprise pregnancy story and this was a good one! I really liked this story. It is fun and sexy, with some angst. Stella and Jason were hot together. Jason had a few jerk moments, but Stella was strong and pretty awesome at standing up for herself. I would have liked more closure at the end or an epilogue.
Yard Sale by Charleigh Rose: 4 stars. This was another fun surprise pregnancy story! I liked this story a lot too. This book was sexy and edgy but still funny. I really liked Cam and Mollie together and I really liked the snowboarder angle.
Sweeping the Series by Kate Stewart: 3.25-3.5 stars. This book was the main reason I wanted to read this anthology. I love Kate Stewart's Balls in Play series, which this story is set in that series' world. But I have to say I was disappointed. I wanted to like this one more but it just fell short for me. It really is a good story and parts of it I really liked. This is a second chance love story. The couple previously dated but after they broke up, they were both a mess before they met again three years later. Ren was especially a hard character to like at first. He was a terrible manwhore, published all over the press, caught naked having a threesome, and sleeping with everybody under the sun. He engaged in destructive behavior, fighting, whoring, and there is descriptive sex with other women. It was just very hard for me as a reader to come back from and forgive him. There was a lot of angst and drama, and I felt there needed to be more time to resolve it. I didn't fully feel the love between Ren and Erika and I wasn't fully convinced he would stay faithful, based on past behavior. So this was only an okay story for me.
Slapped into Love by Rochelle Paige: 3 stars. This story was only okay for me. It was pretty slow moving and, at times, boring. I didn't feel any chemistry between the couple at all. The story was okay, but this one wasn't my favorite.
Out of Formation by Ella Fox: 4 stars. I really liked this story. I really liked Eleni and Colin. They were perfect together. Colin was swoon-worthy and totally in love with Eleni. Great story!
Back in the Game by Meghan Quinn: 3.75 stars. This was a cute, sweet and funny story. This is single dad /professional hockey player meets a kindergarten teacher and sparks fly. It was an enjoyable story, but it was also not especially memorable.
One Good Man by Emma Scott: 4 stars. Wow, this was a really different book that most things I have read. This book is set in 1970 in Paris and is a romance between a pro soccer player/med school student and a journalism student. It was sweet and emotional. I thought it was slightly YA feeling, but I still enjoyed it.
Switch Hitter by Sarah Ney: 3 stars. I wanted to like this one more than I actually did. This is the story of twins - Lucy, who is dating Dash and several other guys at the same time, and Amelia. Lucy double-books her dates on the same night and asks her twin to go on a date, pretending to be Lucy, with Dash. It turns out that Amelia really likes Dash and he likes her, where he never liked Lucy all that much before. He doesn't know she isn't Lucy, though. This leads to drama and guilt before the truth comes out. I just had a really hard time with the fact that Dash had made out with Lucy before he starts liking (and making out with) Amelia. That is a huge turn off to me as a reader. I also felt the book seemed a little juvenile and the characters immature. And I wanted more resolution at the end too. The story wasn't bad, but there was a few things that kept me from loving it.
The End Zone by L. J. Shen: 3.75 stars. I enjoyed this story. It was good, sexy and angsty. I liked the childhood friends to lovers trope. I liked Sage and Jolie. I did hate the OW drama and felt like this story would have been so much better without it. It was really good, but with that unnecessary drama, I liked it less. Still it was an enjoyable story. I would have loved to know how their future and careers turned out since that was something they were worried about.
Overall, I did enjoy this anthology! There was a great variety of stories, characters and different sports. Full of sexy times, emotional and angsty moments too, I definitely recommend this entertaining read!
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Meet the authors:
LJ Shen
L.J. Shen is an International #1 best-selling author of Contemporary Romance and New Adult novels. She lives in Northern California with her husband, young son and chubby cat.
Before she’d settled down, L.J. (who thinks referring to herself in the third person is really silly, by the way) traveled the world, and collected friends from all across the globe. Friends who’d be happy to report that she is a rubbish companion, always forgets people’s birthdays and never sends Christmas cards.
She enjoys the simple things in life, like spending time with her family and friends, reading, HBO, Netflix and internet-stalking Stephen James. She reads between three to five books a week and firmly believes Crocs shoes and mullets should be outlawed.
Connect with LJ Shen
Stay up to date with LJ Shen by signing up for her mailing list:
Kennedy Ryan:
Kennedy Ryan is a Southern girl gone Southern California. A Top 100 Amazon Bestseller, Kennedy writes romance about remarkable women who find a way to thrive even in tough times, the love they find, and the men who cherish them.
She is a wife to her lifetime lover and mother to an extraordinary son. She has always leveraged her journalism background to write for charity and non-profit organizations, but enjoys writing to raise Autism awareness most. A contributor for Modern Mom Magazine, Kennedy’s writings have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, USA Today and many others. The founder and executive director of a foundation serving Georgia families living with Autism, Kennedy has appeared on Headline News, Montel Williams, NPR and other outlets as a voice for families living with autism.
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Adriana Locke:
A contemporary romance author running on coffee and sticky kisses from my rowdy four little boys.
From Indiana, I’m a true Mid-Westerner. Life, for me, is about family, faith, and food. When I’m not running my kiddos around or having a lunch date of fajitas with my husband (and high school sweetheart), you can find me outside. I love a good sunny day almost as much as I love candy, random quotes, and steamy bad boys in fantastic books.
I’m on nearly every social media platform. Please find me on the ones you frequent – I love chatting with readers.
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Mandi Beck:
Mandi Beck has been an avid reader all of her life. A deep love for books always had her jotting down little stories on napkins, notebooks, and her hand. As an adult she was further submerged into the book world through book clubs and the epicness of social media. It was then that she graduated to writing her stories on her phone and then finally on a proper computer.
A nursing student, mother to two rambunctious and somewhat rotten boys, and stepmom to two great girls away at college, she shares her time with her husband in Chicago where she was born and raised. Mandi is a diehard hockey fan and blames the Blackhawks when her deadlines are not met.
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Emma Scott:
I write romances with flawed characters, characters with artistic hearts: builders, poets, and writers of various makes and models. I love to write book lovers; those who have found refuge, companionship, and escape in books, much as we do in real life. I like realism, honesty, authenticity in storytelling. I love to write about enduring love, soul-deep love, in as real a setting as I can make, but with big smooshy HEAs. I believe in diversity, open-mindedness, and inclusion. I like sweetness mixed with steam, love conquering all, and above all, hope. Love always wins.
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Charleigh Rose:
We are a duo of an international best-selling author and a blogger who teamed up to write the taboo, thought-provoking stories we want our audience to have--without filters.
Both Charleigh and Rose are committed to giving you witty, sexy, intelligent novels that will leave you wanting more.
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Ella Fox:
When she’s not writing, Ella indulges the gypsy in her blood and travels the country. Ella loves reading, movies, music, buying make-up, reading Tmz, Twitter and pedicures… not necessarily in that order. She has a wild sense of humor and loves to laugh. Her favorite thing in the world is hanging out with her family and watching comedy movies.
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Sara Ney:
Sara Ney is the USA Today Bestselling Author of the How to Date a Douchebag series, and is best known for her sexy, laugh-out-loud New Adult romances. Among her favorite vices, she includes: iced latte’s, historical architecture and well-placed sarcasm. She lives colorfully, collects vintage books, art, loves flea markets, and fancies herself British.
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Meghan Quinn:
A BLONDE AT HEART
Born in New York and raised in Southern California, Meghan has grown into a sassy, peanut butter eating, blonde haired swearing, animal hoarding lady. She is known to bust out and dance if “It’s Raining Men” starts beating through the air and heaven forbid you get a margarita in her, protect your legs because they may be humped.
Once she started commuting for an hour and twenty minutes every day to work for three years, she began to have conversations play in her head, real life, deep male voices and dainty lady coos kind of conversations. Perturbed and confused, she decided to either see a therapist about the hot and steamy voices running through her head or start writing them down. She decided to go with the cheaper option and started writing… enter her first novel, Caught Looking.
Now you can find the spicy, most definitely on the border of lunacy, kind of crazy lady residing in Colorado with the love of her life and her five, furry four legged children, hiking a trail or hiding behind shelves at grocery stores, wondering what kind of lube the nervous stranger will bring home to his wife. Oh and she loves a good boob squeeze!
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Kate Stewart:
Kate Stewart lives in Charleston, S.C. with her husband, Nick, and her naughty beagle, Sadie. A native of Dallas, Kate moved to Charleston three weeks after her first visit, dropping her career of 8 years, and declaring it her creative muse. Kate pens messy, sexy, angst-filled contemporary romance as well as romantic comedy and erotic suspense because it's what she loves as a reader. A lover of all things '80s and '90s, especially John Hughes films and rap, she dabbles a little in photography, can knit a simple stitch scarf for
necessity only and does a horrible job of playing the ukulele. Aside from running a mile without collapsing, traveling is the only other must on her bucket list. On occasion, she does very well at vodka.
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Rochelle Paige:
Rochelle Paige is the Amazon bestselling author of nineteen books. She absolutely adores reading and her friends growing up used to tease her when she trailed after them, trying to read and walk at the same time. She loves stories with alpha males, sassy heroines, hot sex and happily ever afters. She is a bit of a genre hopper in both her reading and her writing. So far she's written books in several romance sub-genres including new adult, contemporary, paranormal and romantic suspense.
She is the mother of two wonderful sons who inspired her to chase her dream of being an author. She wants them to learn from her that you can live your dream as long as you are willing to work for it.
Connect with Rochelle
Harper is a NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL and USA TODAY bestselling author residing in Georgia with her husband and three daughters. She has a borderline unhealthy obsession with books, hibachi, tattoos and Game of Thrones. When she isn't writing you can almost always find her with a book in hand.
