P. Dangelico - Wrecking Ball

Cam DeSantis’ life is a mess. How else would you describe losing your husband, your job, and your money all at once? Desperate times call for desperate measures. So when salvation comes in the form of one intolerable jerk, she has no choice but to accept his offer as a nanny for his eight year old nephew. Now all she has to do is find a way to ignore him for the next three months. Which is easier said than done.
NFL quarterback Calvin Shaw has zero interest in women. It’s not that he doesn’t like women. In fact, he loves women. He just doesn’t want anything to do with them. What he needs to do is focus on winning another Super Bowl before he retires. Problem is, the woman living in his house is a major distraction. And he doesn’t know what’s worse, that he promised to be civil, or that he’s attracted to her.
Best laid plans are going to get wrecked when a reclusive football star is forced to live with a reluctant nanny.

Comment: I got interested in this book after seeing some comments on it being a slow burn and with a heroine that was down on her luck. I mean... talk about catnip!

In this book we meet Camila DeSantis, a widow whose husband has done a ponzi scheme and was considered guilty in court so everything she owned was also arrested and now she doesn't have a job nor does it seem anyone would want to hire her anyway, she lives with her parents again and she doesn't see a lot of hope in her future.

The temporary employment agency she registered at has an offer, though. She is offered the three month possibility of being nanny to a little boy who is now living with his uncle and the pay is very good but the catch is that the uncle is famous and she can't talk about it. The day of her interview, however, she hears that guy and his lawyer discussing her and she doesn't like hat they say so she leaves.

What follows is the guy's attempt to convince her to come back, he apologizes and she returns because she also needs the money. But two lonely people living together most of the time can't really stay away from each other's business, can't they?

I was positively surprised by this story. I knew it would be a slow burn but I must repeat I was very happy with the fact the main characters didn't immediately jump each other. The fact most of the story happens in the house they share while she works for him would be an easy tool for them to be together but thankfully, the author increased the sexual tension scenes and it's more about the possibilities than the actual sex. 

This means that when they do get together, it should be amazing but to be honest, I think the conflict used to keep them apart in the end - before they reach HEA status - sort of downgraded the intensity of their intimate moments. After so long, the actual chemistry seemed weak.

I still liked the story and most of its scenes/situations.

However, I can see many readers really disliking a particularity of the HEA for its magical solution but for me it wasn't such a bother. What I'd change in the whole thing was its presence to begin with. I don't think it really added much to the character's issues if it was just there to be changed...

This makes me think about the hero. He is famous, has very humble origins and now has to deal with the price of having become famous and rich. I can understand the way the author made him seem so reserved after what happened in his past and with his ex wife but his reasoning to some things he does now don't seem to match, after all this is a romance, not a psychological study on personality.

For instance, the heroine also suffered some setbacks and she still has the power of context, of putting things in a different perspective not hers alone. 

I think, as I usually defend, one problem is the fact this is a 1st person narrator. If this had been like this but with alternate narration between heroine and hero, perhaps the reader could have had a better idea of both their thoughts through the novel and not just when they were discussing what could be their future.

Despite the things I found less well done (to my taste), I had a good time reading, I was eager to know what happened and I liked how the character's lives were complex, they had their problems but they were also part of a good sized network of secondary characters I liked seeing them interact with. The pace seemed a very good match to how their relationship developed and I did want to see what next scenes existed with them sharing things, whether in an intimate or funny situation.

I'll read the next story one day, for certain, just to see if the same slow burn tendency holds up.

Grade: 8/10