Catching Heat

By: Alison Packard

Narrated by: Maxine Mitchell

Life has taught Angie DeMarco that all baseball players are womanizers, and her incredible one-night stand with sexy San Francisco Blaze back-up catcher J.T. Sawyer seemed to prove it. Determined not to give in to their sizzling chemistry a second time, she's kept her distance ever since, focusing on her accounting job with the team. But now she's laid off...and pregnant.

J.T. was hurt by Angie's rejection, but with one more year with the Blaze, he has no time for love. He needs to spend the off season training hard so he can negotiate a better contract with a new team at the end of the year. But when Angie shows up on his doorstep, he's overwhelmed by wanting to not just do right by her but pursue a relationship with her. Hoping for a second chance, he proposes.

Angie agrees to marry J.T. on one condition: the marriage will be purely a business arrangement. But as Angie spends time with him and his family, and J.T. neglects his training to spend time with her, what begins as a union in name only slowly grows into something more - something that looks a whole lot like love and friendship.

For more stories about the San Francisco Blaze, check out The Winning Season!

©2014 Alison Packard (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Fantastic hero!

I absolutely adored J.T.! Such a great guy--a dedicated athlete, loves his family, idolizes his dad and wants to be the same kind of man he is--what's not to love? Watching him agonize over Angie in the last book had me practically salivating to get to his story :)

Angie's a strong character, though hooo boy, did her parents do a number on her. Her mother's extreme bitterness over her father's infidelity was mind-boggling, and the way it warped Angie's view of male-female relationships is pretty much unforgivable. As a result, it took Angie waaay too long to figure out that J.T. was nothing like her dad, and I spent a good chunk of the book shaking my head at her in exasperation, but come around she did--thank goodness.

Once again here, though, we had a black moment that hinged on a slightly over-the-top reaction from one of the characters since the thing they were upset about wasn't something that had been kept from them at all. It was a brief moment of aggravation, though, and it all was resolved satisfactorily in the end. Plus, the epilogue was abso-freaking-lutely adorable!

And J.T.'s family? Let's just say I'm hoping every single one of those brothers is getting his own book :) (Even Justin...even though he's a total butthead for 95% of this book, I'm sure getting his own HEA would cure that ;))

But Angie's mother? If I never see her again it will be too soon... (shudder!)

The narrator wasn't quite as strong as the narrator of the last book ( The Winning Season )--a few of her pronunciations had me shaking my head, and there were some odd moments in the narration here and there--but overall she did a decent job.

Rating: 4 stars / B+

Cute Love Story

Would you consider the audio edition of Catching Heat to be better than the print version?

Yes.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Catching Heat?

I wanted to kill Angie's mom, (maybe kill isn't a good to use) on Christmas Eve dinner. But, it was a good scene.

Have you listened to any of Maxine Mitchell’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, Maxine did a good job as the narrator.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When Angie confessed her love to JT and JT didn't accept it. It was so sad that I wanted to cry.

Nice sports romance

Setting: San Francisco/Sacramento Contemporary
Genre: Romance
Baseball players have always been on Angie DeMarco’s no-go list. So why did she end up going home with San Francisco Blaze backup pitcher JT Sawyer? Now she’s pregnant, and to top off her her troubles she has been laid off from her accounting job. When JT suggests marriage, she refuses several times, then when she finally acquiesces she places the conditions that it will be a marriage in name only, and that they will divorce after 2 years. At any rate, that “in name only” condition falls by the wayside pretty quickly, and the 2 year expiration date looks in danger as their feelings for one another grow. The situation is complicated by JT needing to concentrate on his training so he can get a starting position, and the fact that Angie’s father was a philandering baseball player so she is predisposed to believe the worst of anyone in that profession.
The characters are well written. They each have strengths and weaknesses. Even the secondary characters are engaging. Only Angie’s mother is a one-dimensional caricature of bitterness. It was, however, easy to forget the who’s who among JT’s brothers, because all the Sawyer brothers have first names beginning with J. While the premise of the one-night-stand-with-consequences isn’t new, it is handled well here. The situations are largely believable, and the dialogue is dynamic. This is a nice character-driven story.
I will say that this came close to being an early DNF for me because indicators were that Angie was too stupid to live, with her repeatedly refusing JT’s offers of help. She didn’t have a job or health insurance, and she wasn’t going to be able to afford to take care of herself on unemployment, so why wasn’t JT’s offer a no-brainer? It was like she was trying to martyr herself. Luckily, the story moved past that and the concentration turned to the relationship development.
The narration is good. Although there is some difficulty differentiating make characters, Maxine Mitchell does a creditable job giving voice to the protagonists.

ummmmm, just no

Its well written. The narrator was spectacular. The characters wer just stupud. I couldnt connect with either of the H/H. I did not care for the Heroine in a previous book and found her character to be flat land lack the ability to make sound decisions or make any statements reflecting an intelligent thought preceded it. The hero is ok but hs reasons for marrying the hwroine fir the sake if the unborn child was antiquated and feminine. The heroine wont give the hero a chance to accept help from the hero in hr state when she has zero family help, no job and insurance that willl end soon. These two arw morons ... i gave up after 4 chapters. in sure all will be ok in the end but i cant tolerate the level of ignorance these two eminate so early in the book.

Shallow story.

Oh my word...I found Angie to be the most annoying heroine ever created. If I never hear another homespun pearl of wisdom from her Grandma Sophia, it will be too soon.

I found all of the characters to be boring, not relatable, not believable, and barely likable. With the possible exception of J.T. who is just too good to be true. Two-dimensional characters; I kept waiting for the story to get better...but It. Never. Did. That's nine hours that I'll never get back.

The narrator had a style that grated on my nerves, but I'm sure that's just me. I've listened to the other three books in this series, all of which were head and shoulders above this one. Cannot recommend this one.