Series: Santa Fe Bobcats

Review: One Night with a Quarterback by Jeanette Murray

Posted July 14, 2014 by Holly in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: One Night with a Quarterback by Jeanette MurrayReviewer: Holly
One Night with a Quarterback by Jeanette Murray
Publisher: Intermix, Penguin
Publication Date: June 17th 2014
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 306
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-stars

FIRST IN THE SANTA FE BOBCATS SERIES!A one-night stand shouldn’t go into overtime…

She’s daddy’s little girl…or she would have been, had he known she existed. Cassie Wainwright thought her father—head coach of the Santa Fe Bobcats—ignored her purposefully. Come to find out, he had no clue she’d ever been born.Now Cassie is determined to meet the man who’s always been missing from her life. Her mother warns her, being the long-lost daughter of a well-known NFL coach won’t be easy, but Cassie’s determined to stick it out. And before her life turns upside down, she wants one more night of fun.

Starting quarterback for the Santa Fe Bobcats, Trey Owens is tired of being in the limelight. Lucky for him, the beautiful brunette he meets at the club isn’t a local. She has no idea who he is…and she’s down to party.Tomorrow, Cassie will think about her father. Tomorrow, she’ll think about her future. But tonight is for herself and the hottie she found on the dance floor. It’s a match made in heaven—if only for a night…

Cassie’s mom hooked up with her dad some years ago and didn’t bother to tell him when she got pregnant. After a brush with cancer, she finally fessed up and told Cassie the truth – her father is the head coach for the Santa Fe Bobcats.  Cassie gets in touch with him and they decide she”ll go to Santa Fe to meet him and his family – a wife and two girls. Cassie is nervous and decides to go out with her friend (who traveled with her for moral support) the night before the big meeting. She doesn’t intend to do more than blow off some steam on the dance floor, but when a sexy stranger comes on to her she decides not to say no. After a scorching night together, she fully intends on walking away and never seeing him again. Fate – and Trey – have other plans.  They keep running into each other and after she meets her father, Cassie can’t deny she needs a friend.

Trey sort of accidentally on purpose didn’t tell Cassie who he was. He’s so caught up in her liking him for him, he doesn’t tell her he’s really a star quarterback in the NFL. Since Cassie doesn’t follow football she has no idea. The longer he goes without telling her, the harder it is.  Plus, she’s going through a hard time with her father and he doesn’t wan to add to her stress.

Neither of them realize the father in question is Trey’s boss. Since her dad decides to install her in his pool house and treat her like a dirty little secret – blowing off meetings, ignoring her in public and allowing his jealous, dictatorial wife control every aspect of her life – she doesn’t really bring up who he is. Since Trey is hiding what he does, it doesn’t come up on his part, either.  Add in the fact that her father has forbidden her from seeing men while she’s staying with him (something she agrees to because she’s in town temporarily and has no plans to start a relationship) and she’s very careful with Trey anyway.

Of course, the stronger their friendship, the more Trey wants to pursue the relationship. Cassie wants that, too, but she’s committed to forging a relationship with her father and sisters and doesn’t want anything to get in the way of that.

Trey and Cassie were really wonderful together. There was a definite spark between them, plus real friendship. They turned to each other in their times of need, supported one another and really opened up to each other.  Trey’s teammates were a wonderful addition to the story. Cassie fell right in with them and formed friendships with them, too, which was refreshing. Trey didn’t try to keep her out of his life, but instead folded her up in it.

Cassie’s decision to do what it took to forge a relationship with her father was admirable. It wasn’t hard to understand her motives or why she continued to push even when he was avoiding her and she was dealing with her evil step-mother. I did wonder at what point she’d say, “enough” and cut her losses, though. Her desire to have a relationship with her sisters was the only reason she let things go as long as she did, which I understood.  After weeks of being blown off, made to feel inferior, banned from her sisters and even shunned in public, she really needed to stand up for herself.

Her step-mother was a real piece of work. I kept getting all rage-y (HULK SMASH) every time she came on page, which definitely detracted from my overall enjoyment. Plus, Trey acted like an idiot at the end (though, thankfully, it didn’t last long). 

The team and Trey’s friendship with Cassie is what saved the story for me.  The romance was sweet and the emotional entanglements compelling, if not always easy to stomach.

3 out of 5

This book is available from InterMix. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

three-stars

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Guest Review: One Night with a Quarterback by Jeanette Murray

Posted July 8, 2014 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Guest Review: One Night with a Quarterback by Jeanette MurrayReviewer: Tracy
One Night with a Quarterback by Jeanette Murray
Series: Santa Fe Bobcats #1
Also in this series: One Night with a Quarterback
Publisher: Intermix
Publication Date: June 17, 2014
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

She’s daddy’s little girl…or she would have been, had he known she existed. Cassie Wainwright thought her father—head coach of the Santa Fe Bobcats—ignored her purposefully. Come to find out, he had no clue she’d ever been born.

Now Cassie is determined to meet the man who’s always been missing from her life. Her mother warns her, being the long-lost daughter of a well-known NFL coach won’t be easy, but Cassie’s determined to stick it out. And before her life turns upside down, she wants one more night of fun.

Starting quarterback for the Santa Fe Bobcats, Trey Owens is tired of being in the limelight. Lucky for him, the beautiful brunette he meets at the club isn’t a local. She has no idea who he is…and she’s down to party.

Tomorrow, Cassie will think about her father. Tomorrow, she’ll think about her future. But tonight is for herself and the hottie she found on dance floor. It’s a matchup made in heaven—if only for a night…

The night before Cassie is to meet her father she goes out with her friend (who was travelling with her) and meets Trey. They hit it off immediately and end up in bed together. Trey is smitten from almost word one but Cassie is a bit of a hard sell. She doesn’t want anything to get in the way of meeting her father.

When Cassie does meet her father, Ken, who is a coach for the Santa Fe Bobcats – an NFL team – things are…awkward. He invites her to stay in his pool house, which is like a 2 bedroom house, but he imposes rules on her like she’s a teenager. As he’s well known and has an image to protect he tells her no men. Cassie agrees because there are no men in her life but then she runs into Trey again. He’s wants nothing more than to be with Cassie constantly. He’s a Bobcat player but doesn’t tell Cassie as he loves being and average Joe for a change and as Cassie doesn’t share who her father is they have no idea that they have so much in common.

While meeting her father is a wonderful thing for Cassie he doesn’t seem too excited. He keeps blowing off their scheduled lunches and she hardly sees at his house. She does see his teen daughters who she really loves and his judgmental wife, Tabitha, who she doesn’t really love, at all. She’s not sure that she’s welcome but loves Trey and wants to stay. When shit hits the fan however, things might not turn out how Cassie expects.

When I read the blurb for ONWaQ it sounded like a fun, light read. While parts of it were very fun, other parts were definitely more emotional and heart-wrenching than I expected.

Starting with Trey – he was awesome. Though I didn’t like the fact that he was hiding who he was from Cassie (because after he got to know her he should have known that she wouldn’t care), I liked almost everything else about him. He was kind, generous, a great friend, loving, and an all around good guy. He did have a moment near the end when I wanted to smack him upside the head a time or two but he quickly recovered and made up for it in a great way.

Cassie was an independent woman but she was also a people pleaser. I wasn’t sure I liked that part of her. With Trey she was fun and funny while being a straightforward talker. With Ken and with Tabitha she didn’t stand up for herself (especially with his wife!) and that annoyed me as it just didn’t seem like her. She finally grew some cajones and did stand her ground and I appreciated finally seeing that.

Tabitha was a bitch. I kept trying to see things from her perspective – as in, this adult daughter of her husband comes out of the woodwork and her husband didn’t know she existed so how could Tabitha? Tabitha is protective of her children, I get that, but she’s the epitome of a stuck up, high on her own status, rich snob. I hated the way she directed her girls lives as if they had no brains in their heads at all. They couldn’t do what they wanted or wear what they wanted and because of that they ended up going to extremes and breaking out of the mold when if they had been given leeway that probably wouldn’t have happened. She treated Cassie like she was a dirty piece of gum stuck on the bottom of her shoe and that irritated me to no end.

Despite the fact that I wasn’t a fan of Ken’s or Tabitha’s (Ken redeems himself), I really liked the story and the romance in this book. I loved Trey and Cassie together and that made the book that much better. Trey’s friends were wonderful as well and I’m hoping they get their own books in the future.

Rating: 4 out of 5

four-stars

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