Tapout by Nicole Disney

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

I've been unusually remiss in neglecting to write a review of The Cinch by Nicole Disney, which is one of my all time favourite books. It's set against the background of the brutal MMA world, but the romance is just so wonderful in that. Really my bad in not writing the review for that one earlier.

The cover of Tapout indicated the same world so it was an immediate got-to-read for me. And it doesn't disappoint. It delivers a powerful one-two punch of raw, visceral energy and tender emotional depth. Writing the romance, the realness of the MCs, their chemistry and connection is Disney's superpower. 

It starts with a dramatic fight sequence in which Laila Moretti is massacred in her UFC attempt. And she as good as gives up. She's pretty much at the rock bottom, when her friend, Vic, drags her to an illegal, underground fight at the Yard. There she meets Harlow, the organiser of the event. 

The undeniable, electric attraction between them is portrayed with a potent blend of tension and tenderness, making every interaction crackle with possibility. 

Laila’s struggle is about physical recovery and the psychological battle of rebuilding a shattered identity. Harlow is a force of nature—all sharp edges and ruthless ambition, yet the braver of the two in sharing her vulnerabilities... the reason why she does what she does, despite the risks.

The world of underground fighting is gritty and edged with danger. While the detailed fights may not be everyone's cup of tea (they are written is rather explicit detail, given Disney's own background in the field), they are pretty much the driver of the psychological shift in Laila. (An aside: I couldn't quite 'see' either the mechanics of the fights or the actual physical movement. But I guess that's on me, not the author.)

Between the two, Harlow's humanness, humaneness, depth and care constantly more visible. She is the one staking much more into the relationship. Laila's emotions and actions are pretty immature and self-centered. It somehow works, because of the charactisations: Harlow's love language is taking care of others while sacrificing herself. Laila's love language is being belligerent and expecting open arms, all the same. 

Tapout  excels in interpersonal relationships, not just between the MCs, but with every other secondary and minor character. That's what makes it a compelling read.

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Finding a Keeper by Nicole Pyland

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

New adult, slow-burn, self-discovery, growing up fast, dealing with painful exigencies – this book covers a lot of dimensions with panache.

Sloan Rossi is the daughter of a US diplomat posted in London. She’d been in London since she lost her mother at eleven and shares a close, loving relationship with her father. Sloan is a gifted footballer playing forward and was already in the under-18 team in a prestigious team. However, when it comes to further studies and training, she chooses to accept the full soccer scholarship offered by Winterpark, her mom’s alma mater, in the USA. Winterpark’s soccer programme is noteworthy and making headway in the NCAA championships. 

Marley Nichols is a junior in Winterpark. Also playing soccer, Marley is a goalie. She is keen on getting scouted and has only two years to catch the eye of the scouts. As luck would have it, Marley injures herself practically in the first training session and is out for the season. Since the team is running low on goalies, Sloan is roped in and proves to be a natural. 

Sloan and Marley are on the path of friendship since their first day in dorm and the friendship grows organically. It takes a deeper dimension when Sloan loses her father and Marley is the rock to support her. When Marley faces rejection from her parents because of her sexuality, Sloan is her support. So the relationship is beautifully balanced and equal. 

The romantic relationship takes time to emerge but the way the relationship between Sloan and Marley develops and deepens throughout makes it feel organic. Marley is out from the beginning but for Sloan, the attraction towards Marley is a journey of self-discovery. Mercifully there is no angst. Well, okay, there is about half a scene of angst with Marley acting like an unreasonable jerk and her friends telling her to get her head out of her ass asap. But besides that, the relationship between Sloan and Marley is beautifully built. 

Sloan is someone we can totally fall for. Everything about her is fall-for-worthy. She’s certainly one of our favourite fictional sportswomen along with Sonja Romanov from Delicate by Sarah Sanders, Callie Mulligan from Fire & Ice by Rachel Spangler and Madison Fletcher from A Shot at Gold from this series.

We really liked the highly-sexed friends, Emily and Alison, and think they deserve a book of their own. At least a novella.

This is a very, very good read.

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

The Unexpected Dream by Nicole Pyland

Review-lite

...because we dropped it like a hot potato

• Mia is someone we really liked immediately 

• In practically her first scene, Skylar is being self-centred, selfish and mean to her absolutely love girlfriend of two years. She compounds her despicable behaviour with jealousy and uncaring.

• Existential Question: We like Mia but hate Skylar with a passion...should we waste time reading this one further?

• Follow-up Question: Do we like Mia enough to tolerate Skylar?

• Mia does deserve love, romance and happiness, but it will be with Skylar. And we hate the thought of Mia being saddled with her as a partner. Ergo: Abandon asap.

A Shot at Gold by Nicole Pyland

⭐⭐⭐☆

Madison Fletcher is a quiet, hardworking, determined young lady with a single goal in life -- to win an Olympic gold for archery. Already a national champion, she believes that the right coach can make her Olympic-ready and to Madison that coach is Elodie Booker. When she was competing, Elodie had transcended the gender divide and was known as the best archer in the world. After winning a clutch of medals, culminating in an Olympic gold, Elodie disappeared from the scene post the death of her coach.

Madison gets to know that Elodie is going to be coaching at an archery academy and joins just for her. However, at the last minute Elodie reneges on her coaching commitment. Madison tracks Elodie down and convinces Elodie to become her personal coach.

The relationship between the student and coach is rocky and labours under the baggage Elodie is carrying. It is not exactly helped when the attraction between them becomes impossible to ignore.

Madison is such a wonderful person. Initially, she does seem a little cocky about her skills but as you get to know her you realise she's just confident. She is matter of fact, honest, open, forgiving and one of the most straightforward people ever. She expresses her emotions truthfully and without ambiguity. Whether her ambition, her past, her anger, hurt, attraction or love -- she doesn't prevaricate about expressing. While her goal of the Olympic gold is supposed to be all-consuming, Madison is, in fact, ruled much more by her heart than anything else. She is a great human. We'd love to have such people in our life. 

Elodie, right in the beginning, proves herself to be undependable. She does redeem herself somewhat later, but her biggest positive quality is that Madison likes her and is willing to repeatedly give her chances. 

This is book is an engaging read that we do recommend.

 

⭐⭐⭐☆

Playing For Her Heart (The Ashforth Series Book 1) by Melissa Tereze

Dominique (Dom) Simmons works in a coffee house and plays football. At one of her practise sessions, the team notices a tall, beautiful, posh lady hanging around. Unwittingly Dom bumps into the posh lady’s expensive car and is at the receiving end of some (deserved) attitude. The lady, Blair Harrington, gives Dom her number with the expectation that Dom will speak to her insurance company and get back to her. Dom drags her feet on this till Blair reappears.

Dom begins to know Blair more and discovers that under the posh, put together exterior is an intense lived life and a woman struggling with her own complexes.

Big trigger warning: domestic violence plays an important part in the book and is a big part of both the characters’ backgrounds, albeit in different forms.

Right in the beginning it is established that Dom is a hook-up specialist and has a long-term friends-with-benefits thing going on with her roommate Charley. But at the same time, she is described as honest (particularly about her disinterest in relationships), considerate and kind.  

Blair is much more complex. She’s recently divorced from a verbally, emotionally and physically abusive man after twenty years of being married to him. She’s had therapy to deal with many, many things in her life. She obviously has a lot of self-worth and self-esteem issues. She has a son in university who is gay. All these things make Blair a real person with depth and dimensions.

The writing is good, yet we struggled through half the book because Dom was just so meh (despite all the virtues attributed to her). She was seemingly all sweet and considerate but in her actions, she kept rejecting Blair in many ways, practically ghosting her and constantly giving Blair the message that she was unimportant. And then, with her words, Dom said otherwise to Blair. Despite all good intentions, we didn’t find her behaviour with Blair okay.

Then there was Charley. Another person who was always there for Dom, was obviously interested and whom Dom kept rejecting. Again attributed to Dom’s cluelessness rather than uncaringness.

We confess that at the point where Dom is completely breaking Charley’s hear we had to abandon this book. We have a huge thing about love being returned. About love being treasured. About love being treated with gentleness. We think it takes immense self-absorption and absence of niceness or caringness for a person to be so clueless and callously break hearts (Charley’s) and confidence (Blair’s). It takes a huge amount of being emotionally absent with everyone to not see them at all.

We found Dom totally not nice. However, we’d like to be fair – the book is doubtlessly well written and draws you in. You actually feel Blair and feel for her every step of the way. While we have certain idealistic expectations, admittedly, Dom will not be a write-off for others. Even up to the part we read (which may be a little over 50%) there are certain sweet scenes.

However, this one wasn’t for us. At. All.

Out on the Ice by Kelly Farmer

⭐⭐⭐⭐★

This one has a fantastic synopsis that encapsulates the characters perfectly.

Caro Cassidy used to be a legend.

During her career, Caro was one of the best defense players in women’s hockey. These days, she keeps to herself. Her all-girls hockey camp is her life, and she hopes it’ll be her legacy. Sure, her new summer hire is charming and magnetic, but Caro keeps her work and personal life strictly separate.

Amy Schwarzbach lives life out loud.

Amy’s as bright and cheerful as her lavender hair, and she uses her high-profile position in women’s hockey to advocate for the things she believes in. Ten weeks in Chicago coaching a girls’ training camp is the perfect opportunity to mentor the next generation before she goes back to Boston.

Letting love in means putting yourself out there.

Loving means putting yourself out there. Yes.

It is impossible to not get completely swept away by the wonderful whirlwind that Amy is. But exciting-ness and guilelessness is not all that is there to Amy. She has her own issues but more importantly, she is entirely amazing as a person and as a partner. She totally has it all together and all right.

Caro is more about her baggage and issues. About her fears and about her personality problems. By the end of the book, Caro is making and effort and moving out of her own mental and emotional prison, largely because of Amy’s positive impact on her.

Farmer write both characters with depth and empathy. She creates three-dimensional women who such completely realised characters that they become real. You can totally feel them.   

As a couple, we aren’t completely happy with the pairing. We found it very, very one-sided with Amy putting herself out there and making all the effort. We felt Caro didn’t give nearly enough (and far from equal) to either Amy or the relationship. We appreciate that relationships probably work out that way, but it is hard reading it. Harder to feel so invested in Amy and feel she’s not getting nearly as much as she deserves on the caring and emotional level. Yes, by the end, Caro is more open but everything she is doing is about herself and self-acceptance; we didn’t find anything about her putting herself out there for Amy.

So that was our rant about wanting a character we loved to get more.

Rant apart, this is a very, very well written book. Completely engaging, thoroughly involving and, well, Amy.

We unhesitatingly recommend this one.

 ⭐⭐⭐⭐★

Always More (Sports Series #1) by Nicole Pyland

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Low on angst, pure romance with two utterly pleasant leading ladies makes this a great little read.

Wyatt Wicked is a leading volleyball player in the world. She’s “the most sought after volleyball player in the world, male or female”. Since ladies volleyball doesn’t have a league of its own stateside, Wicked has spent years being a part of teams in Europe and South America. But now the US is taking its first baby step into creating a woman’s volleyball league and Wicked’s charisma is the biggest factor and draw for this happening. Everly Holman had a promising career as a volleyball player but on the way to her very first match she had a serious accident and multiple injuries put paid to that avenue. She trained in psychology and sports psychology is her dream posting now. On her way to the interview, Everly and Wicked literally bump into each other and under the little sniping, there is a load of attraction there.

Everly gets the job but resists the girl. With Wicked being the star player of the team and Everly being the team psychologist, all sorts of lines would be crossed, not to mention a possible conflict of interest.

Both the ladies are immediately delightful right in from the first scene. There is great chemistry between them and you’re totally rooting for them right away. The character development is wonderful. There are many more details of the past and circumstances in the present with Wicked so there are more dimensions to her, but Everly holds her own with flair. The sex scenes are so good and the relationship between the two is superb. There was a brief scene where it looked like Everly wasn’t particularly on the ball as a psychologist, but that was thankfully rather short. The whole impact on their professional dealings in light of a romantic relationship conundrum never got resolved so looks like Everly’ll have to rethink her job in near future. But as a romance, this one works perfectly. The details of the game, the strategies and the actual matches are all excellently done.

Definitely recommended. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goode Girls Steal by J.J. Arias

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sports, cute girls, shared past, softball rivals, some complexes, some grand gestures and great chemistry make this one a nice, romantic read.

Gabriela (Gabby) Rosa Pino is Goode College’s star pitcher and their MVP. She is a person who loves with her whole being and follows her heart, which is why she gives up her summer study abroad seat in Buenos Aries (though she wants to be a Latin American history professor) and goes to Avignon in France with her girlfriend, Arden. Clearly, she is a deeply emotional person. And the emotion she has for Brooke Trainor, the star hitter of an opposing team is deeply and actively negative. Returning with a heartbreak (Arden dumped her three days into their stay in Avignon) from France, Gabby is none too pleased to see the new transfer to their softball team, viz. one Brooke Trainor, who seems to be everywhere, seems to be seeking Gabby who makes no bones about not wanting to have anything to do with Brooke. Gabby’s continuous rudeness to Brooke stems not only from their rivalry on the pitch but goes back longer to their teens.

Narrated from Gabby’s PoV means that we are privy to all her thoughts and emotions, but Brooke is also excellently drawn. Both the ladies are super cute and likeable. The chemistry between the two is like a constant huge wave that is impossible to miss.

The ladies and their interactions are so well written that we felt a multitude of emotions while reading – a protectiveness about Gabby’s emotionality; irritation with Gabby’s initial bad behaviour with Brooke; an affection for Brooke for her efforts with Gabby and for struggles she’d be facing as a new transfer in the final year; an unnameable big emotion for their past; anger at ghosting; understanding at the fear and confusion created by the teenage years; heartache for dealing with a narcissistic (as in the psychological disorder) parent; romantic willies at sweet text exchanges; complete awwww love at the big gesture – so many emotions.

All those emotions evoked by a book clearly mean that this is a very involving read. So, of course, recommended.

PS: We absolutely love the beautiful lady on the cover. Those eyes!

⭐⭐⭐⭐