17 October 2014

Book Highlight, Book Review, Giveaway | Game On by Collette West


Title: Game On
Author: Collette West
Genre: Romance
Publication: October 17th, 2014

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Pitching phenom Bruce "Jilly" Gillette has a hard time talking to women. His hulking presence of tattoos and muscles is what makes him an intimidating closer on the mound, yet off the field, he's painfully shy, uncomfortable in his own skin.

Desperate to revamp his loner image, the New York Kings hold a dream date contest, granting the lucky winner a night on the town with their surly reliever, doing whatever it takes to force Jilly out of his comfort zone.

Hailey Halpert enters the contest on a whim, looking for answers as to why her high school relationship with Jilly hit the skids. Now she’s a popular romance author writing under a pen name, and her reappearance in Jilly's life is no accident. It turns out that her novels are all about the sexy players on the Kings, and Jilly has no clue that he's about to become her new leading man.

Purchase Links:
Smashwords - http://bit.ly/101INeb

My review

Jilly is someone who would catch your attention reading Game Changer (Brooks & Sasha’s story). He’s one of those I’d fondly referred to as gentle giants. He is big and shy. It didn’t help that he’d like to be left alone, and enjoys his solitude.

When he was perceived to be broken hearted, the New York King decided to overhaul his image by doing a dream date contest, granting the winner a night she couldn’t forget with Jillie. But instead of getting excited, he was getting anxious and worried, all this PR stuff was getting into his comfort zone.

But it all turned out great for him, when he found out who his date was – Hailey Harper. The girl who looked like Sasha, and the one who he couldn’t forget in high school. She’s here in New York. She entered the contest and won. She’s his date. He had once let her go, and this time, he’d make sure he won’t make that mistake again.

Hailey might have entered the contest in a spur of a moment decision, but she just wanted to see how is Jilly holding up. She had no intention to stay, ruin his life or cost him problems. She’s now a romance author, writing under a pen name, and she’s writing books all about sexy players on the Kings…

How will Jilly react when he finds out about this? How will the Kings react?

I always loved second chance romance, and for Jilly to have this kind of plot would be a bonus, because just him experiencing an HEA is all I ever wanted. However, when I was half-way through the book, I was like… WTF… is this…

AM I READING THE BEHIND THE SCENES DRAMA OF THIS BOOK?

There were a lot of complications once her secret was out – suddenly, it wasn’t just Jilly, but the whole team was on her. Their love life and sex life was out in the open, and some of them thought he was feeding it to her, good thing the girls were more understanding.

Jilly was torn between her and the team, but in the end, he chose wisely. Between his injury and his love life, his life was no longer ‘peaceful’. It was in chaos and it was a bit crazy. All he ever wanted was the girl, but how can he tell her that? How can he trust her after what she did?

As for Hailey, there were times when you’d wanted to smack her just for her self-sacrificing attitude and not letting her emotions out in the open. I mean, she’s the best thing that ever happened to Jilly, and if she was just honest enough, or perhaps made the first move – it would have saved them the time, effort, trouble and heartaches. What do you think?

However, there’s trouble inside the Kings, and I can’t wait till the next book to find out how are they finally going to approach this trouble…

Is this fact or is this fiction? I think the question had me torn than the budding romance here in this novel. Nevertheless, I’m glad after everything that both of them have been through in this book, all those trials, and scrutiny that they have encountered, they have made it out stronger, and totally different person. Indeed, love can make you do things you can’t possibly imagine yourself doing.


________________________

EXCERPT

          His clumsy attempt to show his feelings started off as something beautiful, something I'll never forget, and I want him to know that.
          "Jilly…" I say tentatively, and his eyes instantly snap to mine. "The way you held me all through the night, felt so…right. The way you touched me, running your hand up and down my arm, and later when you were stroking the inside of my palm with your thumb. God…it felt so good. You didn't have to say anything. I could feel it."
          "You don't know how long I'd wanted to do that," he whispers softly, his face turning red.
I smile, breaking eye contact because I'm completely overwhelmed. He's saying the words I've always wanted him to say. This is the talk we should've had a long time ago, and I want him to know everything that's in my heart.
          I meet his eyes again. "What made it even better was that…you didn't have to touch me in all of those places…any other guy would have to make me want you. Your fingers on my arm were enough. I was in agony being so close to you and not being able to do anything more. I wanted you to take me somewhere, anywhere, to finish what you started—upstairs to one of the bedrooms, outside on the porch, in the back seat of the car—so I could kiss you everywhere I wanted to—but you didn't."
          He's staring at me so intently that I'm afraid to go on, but I have to. I'm almost there.
          "I know neither of us got much sleep that night because all I could feel was your hand caressing my body from my neck to my fingertips. But the next morning, as soon as it got light, you couldn't wait to get out of there. You started muttering to yourself about being late for something, propped me up on the side of the couch, and left me there. You didn't even say goodbye. Do you have any idea what that felt like?" 
          He meets my eyes for a second before looking away. "If you were tightly wound, you can imagine how I felt. You don't remember what you were doing right before that, do you? How you were running your leg up and down mine? Your knee at my—” He stops, burying his head in his hands. “I had to get out of there because I—"
          I swallow, realizing now why he did what he did. 
          "But I could've…" I stammer. "Helped you…with that."
          He pushes himself away from the table, and I'm afraid he's going to leave me sitting there all alone again. "I didn't know what to do. I—"
          "Jilly, I was yours for the taking." 
          "Are you still?" His gaze burns into me.
          I look into his soulful, brown eyes, which are holding nothing back from me. He's taking a giant leap for me now, even if he couldn't do it back when we were kids. Things could've turned out so differently if he had, but here we are, in New York City, sitting across a table from each other, four years older, four years wiser. 
          I’d thought he was lost to me forever, never to be a part of my life again. But he's here, offering me a second chance at what I've always wanted—to be with him.



books by collette west
19384278  22464513 
Night Games (Chase & Grey)
Game Changer (Brooks & Sasha)
Game On (Jillie & Hailey)


THE AUTHOR

Collette West grew up as somewhat of a jock-nerd hybrid. Entering the world three weeks premature, her dad nearly missed her birth because he had seats behind the dugout for a sold-out, highly-anticipated match-up between two of baseball's biggest rivals. Not to be outdone, her book-loving mom taught her how to read by the time she was three. A love of the game coupled with an appreciation for the written word were instilled in Collette's impressionable brain from a young age. No wonder her characters believe in the philosophy: sports + romance = a little slice of heaven.

Splitting her time between the Pocono Mountains and Manhattan, Collette indulges her inner fangirl by going to as many games as she can from hockey to baseball and downloading every sports romance novel in existence onto her iPad. When she's not clicking away on her laptop, she enjoys walking her dog in Central Park, satisfying her caffeine craving at the Starbucks on Broadway and keeping an eye out for Mr. Right. But above all, she loves dishing with her readers. Email her at collette_west@yahoo.com.

She is the author of NIGHT GAMES, GAME CHANGER and GAME ON.










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