Friday, December 22, 2017

Kat Latham - Knowing the Score

Rugby player Spencer Bailey is determined to win a spot on England's World Cup team. But with a month break before the selectors start watching him, he's eager to have fun with a woman who knows the score: the relationship will end when rugby season begins. The lovely American Caitlyn Sweeney seems perfect for the role of temporary lover, since her visa will run out soon anyway.
Caitlyn works for an international disaster relief organization and can handle the world's worst crises, but she flinches from her own. Her past has left her with a fear of intimacy so deep that she has trouble getting close to anyone - until she meets sexy Spencer. His hot body and easygoing nature are too much for even her to resist.
Neither Caitlyn nor Spencer expects to fall hard for each other. But with their relationship deadline approaching, the old rules of the game seem less important than before... until past secrets surface, challenging everything they thought they knew about each other.


Comment: I got interested in this book because I've read somewhere the relationship between the two protagonists was interesting to read about. After several months in the TBR, I finally picked it this month.

In this book we meet Spencer Bailey, an English rugby player who has been accused of statuary rape when he was younger. Seeing his career go down because of some careless and reckless attitudes, he changed his behavior and has slowly becoming more conscious and aware of his actions.
The story begins when Spencer's grandfather Philip is saved by a woman in the street after a heart attack. When Caitlyn, the American woman who rescued his grandfather, shows up at the hospital to check on him, Spenser is attracted and thankful. After a promising conversation, they start seeing each other casually but the more they know each other, the more they want to be together. But there's something they need to deal with first...

I liked this book, overall. The story is compelling enough, there are several scenes and situations that are good to read and that entertain the reader and the characters have several emotional layers to uncover between them, so their reactions are never boring or cliched. I think my biggest issue is that they almost seemed to be an island and despite the secondary characters and the scenes where several people would interact, the two protagonist just felt a little bit too isolated and that made the focus on them seem too restrictive. Of course, this might be just my impression.

I liked each protagonist on its own.
Caitlyn is a young woman who has gone through a lot, she has a very impressive job and I really liked knowing about the things she does and how important it is, even if w don't usually think of the details people like her need to. 
I also liked her personality and her way of dealing with the emotional things she has filling up her head. I also liked how vulnerable and insecure she was and how she changed when the right person came along. So often books show characters do or say things to please the other person but in this case, it was nice to see her change for herself but always with a man who supported her.

Spencer is also a captivating character and I really appreciated some of his qualities and characteristics. I liked how much he grew up after a hard lesson and I respect some of his actions and choices after that.
I think the conflict between them when the story is almost close to the end was a bit too obviously done and didn't really add much to the plot because we can see it would have been easily solved differently or it didn't even had to exist int he first place. 
Some passages were also a bit boring, I confess. I lost focus here and there while reading but as a whole, this was an enjoyable read.

The plot, like I said, wasn't complicated, it provided interesting and provoking thoughts but there's something about the details and the execution I'd have done in a more imaginative way. Well, I prefer to think some parts could have been different.
This is a sports romance so there is a lot of talk about rugby and while it can be interesting enough for fans, for me personally wasn't that memorable because I'm not familiar with the game and the way things happen I didn't become interested either so...

In the end, my favorite part was Caitlyn's personality and way of dealing with things most woman don't even wonder about and in this regard, it was worth reading the novel. I sort of expected more but overall, it was OK.
Grade: 7/10

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