Overall Grade: A
I have recently spent quite a bit of time reading sports romance. It has slowly taken over my Kindle, and I enjoy the stories. Hit Me with Your Best Shot, an anthology of 6 new sports romances from some beloved authors, is a wonderful surprise. The stories in its pages are engaging, entertaining, and exciting.
My favorite of the lot is Saffron A. Kent’s “Love Made Me Do It,” a short story from SAK’s St. Mary’s Rebels and Bad Boys of Bardstown series. It’s actually a story I didn’t even know I needed until I found myself lost in its pages. It follows Riot Rivera, a fellow soccer player on the New York FC soccer team and the nanny of his daughter, Sophie, Meadow. If you’ve never read SAK, it’s imperative to know that she has a specific style, a pared-down, almost stream-of-consciousness way of writing, and her signature is all over this story. Even more, she writes forbidden angsty romance like it’s her job (which it is), and her MMCs cannot help their obsession with the FMC and vice versa. It’s stylized, engaging, and messy. And this reader loves it. The way that SAK decidedly and deftly develops tension between her MMC and FMC (in this case, Riot and Meadow) intrigues me every single time. She hides the attraction fo the MMC to the FMC, drawing you deeper into her story, anticipating its revelation. In the short space of “Love Made Me Do It,” SAK reminds us of her writing voice while enticing us with Riot and Meadow’s love journey. It isn’t necessarily a surprise, especially if you know SAK’s storytelling, but it’s a delight to be introduced to these characters and reminded of some of her beloved ones.
Hit Me with Your Best Shot is a MUST-read if you love sports romance. The authors represented in this anthology are next-level, and they remind you why you LOVE to read their stories, even ones laden with sports.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 