Taking a Shot by Jaci Burton Series: Play by Play #3
Series Rating:
Published by Berkley Heat on March 6th 2012
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Sports
Pages: 309
Format: Audiobook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Apple Books
If you want to score, you have to get in the game... The last thing Jenna Riley needs is more sports in her life. While her brothers are off being athletic superstars, she's stuck running the family's sports bar, whether she likes it or not. Then in walks pro hockey stud Tyler Anderson. As much as Jenna would like to go to the boards with him, she's vowed to never fall for a jock-even one as hot as Ty.
Ty, intrigued by the beautiful bar owner, becomes a regular. He senses that Jenna wants to do something more with her life. And as he gains her trust, the passion between them grows, as does Ty's insistence that Jenna should start living for herself. With his encouragement, Jenna starts to believe it, too...
But first, Jenna has to figure out what she wants, what she needs, who she loves, and if she has the passion and pride to take a shot at having it all-including Ty...
So… My laptop is off being repaired this week, which means that some of the reviews will be shorter than usual because it’s a real PITA to create and format them on my iPad mini.
I was really excited to get to this one after reading the first two books in this series. Jenna, as the only girl in the Riley clan, intrigued me. I could tell that even though she tended her family’s bar every day, she didn’t love it. Ty Anderson obviously had a thing for her, and just as obviously, she wanted nothing to do with him, though I didn’t know why.
Unfortunately, even after reading this one, Jenna still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I get that she’s been surrounded sports her whole life, and I can understand her not wanting to date an athlete. But she doesn’t refuse to date just athletes, she refuses to date anyone who even enjoys sports, either participating or watching. Play for your company’s softball team in the summers? No go. Sit around on Sundays and watch a football game? Nope. Bowl on the weekends? Forget it. Ever even heard of your city’s professional football team? No chance. It was pretty over-the-top.
She’s also apparently a very gifted singer/songwriter, but no one in her entire huge family has ever heard her sing. Which just struck me as strange. She’s writes a ton of music on her guitar and has for years. None of them ever heard the music coming out of her room, or noticed that she spent her entire allowance on sheet music as a kid?
Jenna has a deep, crippling fear of failure. She lets it hold her back in everything she did. She wants to perform, she wants to open a second Riley’s Bar, focusing on open mic nights and finding new performers, but even though she’d done a lot of research and figured out exactly how much it would cost and how to do it, she wouldn’t even bring it up to her family. She enjoyed tending bar for her family, but she wanted more out of life than that. And yet, she refused to even try.
One place she was fearless, though, was the bedroom. Or the pool table. Or against the boards in the ice rink. She had no hang-ups, and wasn’t afraid to ask for what she wanted. Sometimes to an off-putting degree. “Ooohhh, that feels good. Do that more.” is one thing. “If you do that more and continue on with it, I’m going to have an orgasm.” is a little different. IMHO, of course. No matter the phrasing she used, though, a woman knowing what works for her and getting it is always sexy.
Ty was a little easier to understand. His parents’ marriage was ugly, so he had decided he wasn’t interested in anything long-term. Jenna got under his skin, though, and he didn’t put up much of a fight. Jenna was the one who really fought against their relationship. For reasons that only made sense to her.
Overall, I was disappointed with this one. Jenna had impressed me as independent and together in the previous books, but this almost seems like a diffeent person. She wasn’t as much independent and together as she was stuck and afraid to move. This wasn’t so bad that I’ll stop reading the series, but I probably won’t pick up the next one for a little while.
About Jaci Burton
After spending too many years to count in the high stress business world, New York Times and USA Today Bestelling Author Jaci Burton is happy to be living her dream of writing passionate romance. She has written over forty-five novels and is contracted to write ten more. Jaci has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business that she is thrilled not to be using in the corporate environment anymore. She grew up in Missouri but migrated to California, where she lived for thirteen years, but now makes her home in Oklahoma with her husband and five dogs. She enjoys being outdoors in the summer and she and her husband are avid Harley riders.
Jaci writes in multiple genres, from erotic romance to romantic suspense to contemporary romance. She has won the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Award, and has been nominated for the award four times. She has been a finalist in the Bookseller’s Best and National Reader’s Choice Awards, and has won The Romance Studio’s CAPA Award four times.
oh sorry to hear this one was so disappointing!! I have read one of Burton’s books, liked it, but I have a hard time with purchasing them since they are quite pricey. But what a HOT cover.
Even though I didn’t love it, it was worth reading just for that cover. 🙂