baseball – GoodeyReads

Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 368 pages
Author: Holly James
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: June 10th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

You’ve Got Mail meets The Hating Game! Vying for a promotion against a bitter rival as the only female data analyst for a professional baseball team, Emmy finds solace in the text-flirting relationship that started as a wrong number exchange—unaware that the man she’s texting is the one she’s fighting for the promotion.

Emmy Jameson lives by three no dating, no sharing personal news at work, and baseball above everything. As the only female data analyst for a professional baseball team, Emmy is constantly trying to prove herself.

Especially when she’s put up for a senior analyst position against her arrogant, infuriating coworker Gabe Olson. Sure, he’s gorgeous and smart and he was a baseball star in college who knows the sport inside and out, but so does Emmy. She is not going to lose to him again. There will be no distractions this summer. Not even her sister’s pending destination wedding in Mexico for which she needs to find a plus one.

But then she receives a text from an unknown number with a simple “Last night was fun.” When she strikes up a conversation with the mystery texter, they realize that he was given a fake phone number after a bad date that just so happened to be Emmy’s. Despite her rules, Emmy can’t deny the instant connection she feels and soon finds herself falling for the stranger on the other side of the screen…and inviting him to her sister’s wedding.

Thank you to Avon Books for the gifted copy.

IT WAS FUN.

This was a new to me author and I did like it y’all!!! Random book mail success story here.

I thought most of it was super cute. I loved the texting conversations and banter and the way that the reader knows what’s happening but the characters haven’t clued in yet. It’s got an overall sweet quality to the story line.

BUUUUUT. Y’all know I will rant about a ridiculous third act and here we are. I haaaaate the let me interrupt you ten times rather than just letting you finish one sentence so I can understand what’s happening trope. Gabe deserved ONE SENTENCE. Meh.

Anyways, I think I would read another book from this author. It was a quick read that was overall on the lighter side and hit the spot.

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary Romance
Language: mild+
Romance: 2ish open door
Content warnings: loss of a brother (recounted, addiction)

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Rating: ★★
Audience: Contemporary Sports Romance
Length: 320 pages
Author: Emily Childs
Publisher: Victorious
Release Date: April 26th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

He’s baseball’s biggest heartbreaker. Now…he’s stealing mine.

Parker Knight is a smooth-talking pitcher with a smile for days and a roster of broken hearts behind him. Those are only a few reasons why a guy like him is never getting near my heart.

After making a cross-country move to prove I deserve a place within my dad’s baseball empire, the last thing on my mind is a play boy pitcher.

But when we randomly meet off the field, it’s clear Parker has no idea I’m the team owner’s daughter. He thought I was going to be his next conquest. I didn’t mean to shut the guy down so hard, and I certainly didn’t expect to oversee his foundation on my first day at the office.

No one has ever seen the real guy behind the bad boy of baseball, but the more I get to know Parker, the harder it is to ignore the feelings I’m catching.

I’ve had my heart broken too many times before. How can I trust it with the biggest heartbreaker of them all?

NOT IT Y’ALL.

Well. I shall continue my quest for the ultimate baseball romance. This ain’t it folks.

Things started off fine, I can’t say I was sold initially but I gave it a chance.

Everything was a bit insta-love. I thought the banter started off well, then by halfway there’s major pronouncements of love and other things that just didn’t click.

I also never liked the female main character. She was weirdly obsessed with things like the Titanic? And she had all sorts of self loathing that I don’t love reading about and need to be addressed personally without the love interest’s involvement.

Mostly I think this book was trying too hard. And it’s hard to keep explaining that one major point, but that’s what it boiled down to for me. Trying to create emotions for me that I wasn’t feeling whatsoever.

On to the next.

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary Sports Romance
Language: very little
Romance: make-outs
Trigger/Content Warnings: discussions of traumatic brain injury from car wreck, bullying, harassment, blackmailing, absentee parents, loss of parents (off-page)