Tracy‘s review of Quarterback Blitz by Frances Stockton
All Anna wants for her fortieth birthday is a ladies night out. Her plans are stalled when she ends up stuck in her griffin costume. The mascot for the Alexandria Griffins, she never expects to be rescued by the star of her midnight fantasies, quarterback Kyran Black. Called “The Rebel” by the press because of his long hair, tattoos and playboy stats off the field, he’s everything Anna should avoid. Kyran is gorgeous and irresistible and he suggests they celebrate her birthday together. Certain she’s too old for him, she agrees to one night. Kyran’s charm and dominance in bed blitz Anna’s defenses, teaching her things about sex she never thought she’d experience. But when their one-night stand turns into a relationship, his bad-boy past comes back to threaten their future.
Anna is a PE teacher in Maryland and an assistant boys football coach. For extra savings, for her eventual retirement, she works as the Griffin Football team as their mascot. On her 40th birthday she plans on spending the evening with her friends at a male strip joint. All of her plans come to a halt when she can’t manage to get her mascot uniform off. Luckily for her Kyran Black – 2nd string quarterback for the Griffins – comes into the locker room and helps her out. But that’s not why Kyran is in the locker room. He’s there to see Anna (as well as to get away from a ferocious reporter). Kyran and Anna had one date months before and though Kyran was excited to see where their relationship would head next, Anna gave him a false number when he asked, and the two hadn’t spoken since. Kyran had wanted to use his contacts to hunt Anna down but felt that it would scare her off. He was tired of waiting for her to come to him so now was his second chance to get Anna James right where he wanted her.
You see, Kyran may be only 30 years old but the man knows what he wants – and that’s Anna. Not only in his bed but in his life for a darned long time. Anna has reservations about the age difference but Kyran soon manages to alleviate her concerns and the two start to fall in love. But Anna’s ex-fiance, Kyran’s psycho ex-girlfriend, and what seems like a myriad of reporters are out to see that the couple is broken up and they will do whatever they have to to see it them split for good.
This is a fun older woman/younger man story. While I thought that there would be more angst because of the age difference, Kyran really nipped that in the bud early on and convinced Anna that they were good together and that their ages didn’t matter to him, so why should they matter to Anna. I liked seeing Kyran so strong in his belief that it would work. For such a young man he really had his head on straight. That, of course, didn’t stop him from being an animal in bed and he showed Ann, quite few times, what there was between the two of them sexually. Ms. Stockton has a vivid sexual imagination and it made for some steamy sex scenes.
Kyran wasn’t always the level-headed guy he was in curerntly though and his past caught up with him. The story had quite an interesting and pretty complicated side story going on during the romance. Explicit photos being taken o f Kyran and then Anna, heated phone calls to Anna’s Superintendent of Education had the possibility of ruining their relationship but the two kept firm in their trust in one another. That was one major aspect of the story that I really liked. While all the trash was being thrown around them the couple stayed strong. Not something you see every day – or in every book. Others trying to create doubt usually makes for trust issues but Anna and Kyran make it through.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5
This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place
I actually liked this story a lot — thought it was sort of a “biography of a relationship” and chronicled Kyran’s “growing up” into someone who wasn’t defined by his professional sports. You know that in our household we are into the sports mind and attitude a lot and I saw him as a man struggling to find out who he was in the post-pro-sports world and how Anna fit into that scenario. Liked your review alot.