Series: New York Blades

Retro Review: Fair Play by Deirdre Martin.

Posted July 19, 2017 by Rowena in Reviews | 8 Comments

Retro Review: Fair Play by Deirdre Martin.Reviewer: Rowena
Fair Play by Deirdre Martin
Series: New York Blades #2
Also in this series: Body Check
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: February 3rd 2004
Pages: 368
Add It: Goodreads
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three-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

A little competition never hurt anybody...

Theresa Falconetti has it all: brains, beauty, a quick wit, and her own PR business. To the Deep disappointment of her large family, she never dates Italians, men from her old Brooklyn neighborhood, or professional athletes. Especially not athletes...

Michael Dante, popular hometown hero and winger for the Stanley Cup champion New York Blades is all three—and he is head over heels for her.

For Michael, Theresa's NO HOCKEY PLAYERS rule is a check to the heart. Nothing he does seems to melt her resolve. His stubborn refusal to give up on this wisecracking brunette, who—he knows—is hiding from her roots, is driving them both nuts. And whe he hires her to publicize his family's restaurant, more than the kitchen heats up. Then Theresa finds herself an Upper East Side kind of guy and Micheal is forced to take his game to the next level.

IT'S FACE OFF TIME...

*****As part of our 10 year anniversary celebration, we’ll be re-posting old reviews that make us cringe, laugh or sigh all over again.

Holly: I remember when Body Check, the first book in this series, was released. Everyone raved about it, but I didn’t care for it at all. I felt so vindicated after Rowena wrote this review because the heroine drove her crazy. Good times.

This review was originally published November 18, 2007

The book following Body Check follows Janna McNeil’s best friend, Theresa Falconetti’s journey to true love with Michael Dante’. We met Michael Dante’ in Body Check when he was trying to get at Theresa but failed to impress her because he’s everything she doesn’t want in a man…mainly he’s Italian and from Brooklyn and a hockey player so she’s not trying to have anything to do with him. She’s very snooty and she’s very stubborn and I found that I just couldn’t like her. No matter what DM wrote about Theresa, it set my teeth on edge. I understand that things happened in the first book that made her into the person that she is in this book but she had two guys in her life…one that was absolutely perfect and everything she SHOULD have wanted in a man but didn’t and then another one who was just totally slimey and wrong for her and who does she want?

Contestant # SCUMBAG!

It got on my hot damn nerves and I wanted to frickin’ shake some hot dang sense into her. Goodness each and every time she pushed Mikey away, I wanted to take a bat and beat her with it. He was so good to her and she just kept kicking him in the teeth and when he finally lost it and yelled at her I got mad at him for apologizing about that because he had every right to yell at her the way he did because he didn’t deserve everything that she put him through, he went out of his way to make sure she was comfortable AT ALL TIMES and what did he get for his trouble? A swift kick to the knee caps and every time she got pissed off because her family invited him to dinner at THEIR house?

Yeah, I wanted to smack the crap out of her. It was just more and more of all things annoying where Theresa was concerned, she was so annoying that even Janna was annoyed with her.

The whole Reese thing made me want to hurt someone because for her to want THAT when she could have someone like Mike totally went right over my head…I didn’t get it, AT ALL and the more she fell in “love” with Reese, the more I wanted to choke her the heck out.

This book was easy to read but it was easy to piss me off too…the more I read about Theresa, the more I wanted to backhand that tramp and the more Mike tried to win her over, the more I wanted to run him over with a motorcycle to get him to open up his dang eyes because he deserved so much more than Theresa gave to him and for him to pine away for her when he could have had any number of girls bothered me because it kind of made him look like a wimp to me…but my dumb ass still liked Mike. I loved watching him and Anthony fight and threatened and throw things at each other, I loved watching him with Gemma and the moonstone, she gave him was totally cute, the candles she gave him made me smile too. He was such a superstitious cutie patootie that I wanted so much more for him and I totally think that his reasons for not going to Theresa (the lie thingy with Anthony) at the end to tell her the truth was totally lame but whatev, I got over it.

The book could have been better but it was okay, I guess…It’s a total C read, not the best but it’ll do.

three-stars

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Review: Body Check by Deirdre Martin

Posted November 18, 2007 by Rowena in Reviews | 9 Comments

Review: Body Check by Deirdre MartinReviewer: Rowena
Body Check by Deirdre Martin
Series: New York Blades #1
Also in this series: Fair Play
Publisher: Jove
Publication Date: February 25th 2003
Pages: 336
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-half-stars
Series Rating: three-stars


This game's going into overtime.

Janna MacNeil is a publicist on a mission to change the image of the bad boys of hockey: the Stanley Cup Champion New York Blades.

Ty Gallagher is a captain on a mission— to get his team to win the Cup again... at any cost. His determination is legendary, as well as his unwillingness to toe the corporate line.

When the persistent publicist and the stubborn captain butt heads, it's hard enough to crack the ice. But they may end up melting it instead...

I needed some cheese. I didn’t want to read anything that was too deep, too emotional, too EVERYTHING as our romance novels tend to be. I wanted to read something that was completely light, completely fun and completely sexy. I think I accomplished with this book. This book starts off with our heroine, Janna McNeil starting a new job of being the Publicist of the hot and crazy NHL Hockey team, the New York Blades. She’s got a big job ahead of her because she’s got to turn this wildcat Blades and turn them into a PR friendly bunch to soften their image. Turn them into some choirboys or something close to that. You see, the year before the team won the coveted Stanley Cup and when they celebrated? They took the trophy to the strip club and got roaring drunk and did some pretty crazy stuff that landed the whole lot of them in the tabloids and crazy, drunk athletes.

Not a good image, if you ask me.

Reading about Janna’s growing crush on Ty and his growing “thing” for her was cute and fluffy with enough cheese to keep this island girl entertained. It had the right amount of everything to keep my eyes in their correct sockets and not rolling down the street. I enjoyed the wild romp that was a romance blossoming in the middle of an NHL team trying to make the play offs, all the while trying to keep it a secret.

Ty was a great hero, even though there were times that I wanted to karate chop him in the neck for being such a hard a word (I’m trying to stop cursing, it’s a horrible habit that I have so bear with my plug in words and ..stuff.) I did enjoy him as a hero. I loved his whole macho I’m the man attitude but I got annoyed quite a bit with how obstinate he was about doing PR work for Janna. …but I always forgot how annoyed I was with him when he’d do sweet things like, spend time with Janna’s little brother who adored and idolized him, when he took tickets to a poor old lady who couldn’t afford to go to the games but was their biggest fan, when he did things like that I turned all soft inside and it was just so hot dang cute.

He was a good hero to Janna and I enjoyed Janna as well. She was smart, she got the job done and she was just a fun heroine to read about. I loved how Ty helped her realize just how strong she actually was and I loved how she stood up for herself to that stupid bastard a word, Jack Cowley.

I loved her relationship with her brother, Wills. I loved that she cared that much about him and was just so good with him. I loved Lou and his heart attack having, junk food eating self because he was good at what he did and he was a cute fatty man.

There were times when I rolled my eyes, like every time I read Ty and Kevin have a conversation..the dialogue killed me but not enough to make me absolutely hate them and the book, just enough to make me sigh and laugh to myself. This book is not the best thing out there to read but it isn’t the worst either, it had the right amount of everything to keep me reading and I enjoyed it for what it was, fluff.

Would I recommend it? Hmmm, maybe…if you want something absolutely fluffy you’ll like this. It’s cute. I’m about to read Theresa’s book right now and reading about her ordeal with Lex in this book has me groaning at just how hard a word she’s going to be in her book since she’s given up on Pro Athletes and since her hero is Mike Dante, it’ll be an interesting that’s for sure.

three-half-stars

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