Taking A Shot (Play By Play#3) by Jaci Burton
Contemporary Romance
March 6, 2012
Berkley Trade
Reviewed by Tori
Favorite Quote: “Ugh. When had she become that woman?”
Taking A Shot is the third book in Jaci Burton’s hot and oh so steamy Play By Play series that revolves around the Riley family. Before I start this review, let’s take a minute to genuflect at the cover shall we? *happy sigh* Seriously, have you ever seen anything so beautifully lickable in your life? .
Jenna Riley has grown up in a family dominated by sports. She has lived, breathed, and now works in the field, since a child. Since her father’s heart attack, she has taken over the reins to the family sport’s bar, Riley’s, giving up on her own dreams and ambitions. This has resulted in her one and only non breakable rule. She doesn’t date sports figures. Ever. This attitude both intrigues and challenges Tyler (Ty) Anderson. A star pro-hockey player, he has been attracted to Jenna since the first time they met. Unsure as to why she dislikes him so much, Ty keeps coming to the bar and trying to temptJenna into taking a chance with him.
Taking A Shot has all the trademarks of being a Jaci Burton book. Hot male lead, sassy intelligent female, a plausible plot, and some heavy, heavy smexying everywhere in between. I enjoyed the way this story reveals itself to you. It starts out slow as Ty bids his time trying to find away to break through Jenna’s shell. Ty spends plenty of time on the seduction of Jenna. The sexual heat and playfulness in this book make it a fun read.. Ms. Burton has a way of writing intense scenes that are both sensual and raw.
I loved seeing the other Riley’s. Their gregarious nature is offset by the love they feel for one another. They have no boundaries and will be up in your business in a heartbeat, offering advice, encouragement, and the proverbial slap up side the head when needed. Ty fits in so well with the family which only serves to scare Jenna more. She feels pushed and that is a sticking point for Jenna.
As their relationship progresses, Jenna starts to see Ty is more than the stereotypical sports figure and finds herself at odds with the feelings he invokes in her. She tries hard to keep their relationship strictly sexual but Ty has a way of getting under her skin and soon she finds herself wanting more but unable to admit that to herself. We get to know more about Ty and Jenna and the reasons for their attitudes and actions.
Here is where I have problems. Jenna’s attitude bothered me throughout the entire book. She treats Ty like crap and plays games, though unwittingly, with him. When he’s around, she wants him to leave but then gets all sad when he’s not there. I found her reasons for not wanting to date with a sports figure weak and it didn’t reflect well on her. The same for her reasons for not having the courage to go after her dreams. She blames everyone else for her fear of success. Ty comes off more grounded and I enjoyed his easy laid back attitude. He’s a planner and it shows. At times he pushed when maybe he shouldn’t have but you learn quickly that Jenna needs the coercion in order to justify what she feels in giving in. I had to laugh at some of the things he did to make himself look better in her eyes.
Her and Ty’s relationship has its ups and downs and a tension heats up as the story’s main conflict comes into play. With any relationship, we all have the ability to hurt the ones we love the most and Ms. Burton doesn’t sugar coast or pull any punches in here. As we head towards the end, we wait on pins and needles with the rest of the Riley’s to see if the home team will win or lose this most important game. I liked that Jenna FINALLY shows some gumption and and realizes that she can achieve her dreams if she is willing to take the chance but it was too little to late for me.
Though I felt Taking A Shot was the weaker of the three plot and development wise, it is has plenty of romance, sexy men, hot steamy loving, and humor. Unfortunately, Jenna’s attitude brought this book down. I look forward to the fourth in the series, Playing To Win, which features the very sexy Cole Riley. Playing To Win is set to release September 4th, 2012.
Overall Rating: C
Recent Reviews:
Under the Covers – 4.5/5
Delighted Reader – A
Love to Read for Fun – C-
Buried by Books – B
Goodreads
I agree with your review. Jenna was not what I expected. She totally brought the book down for me. I was really annoyed with her. I felt it was the weakest book of the series. I hope it picks back up with Cole’s book.
I was disappointed with Jenna. But loved TY and can’t wait for Cole. nom nom
What I said on another review:
The first one was a great read. The second one was a mess with too much sex (yes, I did just say that about an erotic romance!). I was worried about this one.
I didn’t like the last book especially because the heroine was a megabitch in book one and we never got an explanation that made me like her. If this heroine is no good either, then maybe I won’t enjoy book three!
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Please excuse that garbled response – it’s after 2am here!
LOL That’s ok. It’s 10 am here-I have no excuse.
Jenna was ok I just thought she was whiny.
I really ended up liking Jenna. I guess I sympathized because she lived in her brother’s shadows her whole life and lacked confidence. Ty was just what she needed to give her a little nudge in the right direction.
I LOVED Ty. This was my first book in this series. I’ll be reading more!
Ty was great. You really should read the first two. Loved them lots.
*grimace* Bummer about the heroine bringing down your enjoyment of the book. I’ve found that I either really sympathize with heroines like that or really hate them. It’s a crap shoot for me.
I’m becoming the same way. I guess it was hard for me because I couldn’t relate to heroine that well, so I found her whole attitude confusing and annoying.
I loved Jaci Burton’s Wild Riders series, but admit I have not been able to bring myself to purchase/read these even with those awe inspiring and delectable covers. I don’t know about this series for me…
Nice review – I wasn’t a huge fan of the first book in this series and haven’t gone back. Maybe I’ll wait for the next one.
I did think this author’s xmas short in the carina anthology was just fabulous.
I am currently reading number one in the series and love it, too bad this one only got a C. But I will still end up checking it out, sexy hot athletes!
Yep, a cloud provider is like a data center. If you really care about availability, you need more than one.
Thanks for the post Jason. It’s a good read. I own an ix-2 for my home lab. It’s great for what I need it for which is testing out vSphere Configs and learning. I wonder what the benefits would be of replacing the default ix-2 drives with a couple 2 TB WD Caviar Black Drives.
Hello Chris, I agree with you, mozy is good, and much better than other backup products in the market like carbonite, we all do remember carbonite lost their customers data in 2009!! and they blamed it on hardware, but I still prefer a real online backup using pure cloud, like Amazon, it’s much better and I know my data secured and replicated (Risk is there but lesser than proprietary storage), I don’t like the idea of storing my data with a proprietary online backup like mozy, I wanted to backup my office, mozy is good, but not real business solution, it’s very expensive when it comes to business ($0.50 per GB), and the cloud management is fine, but still lacks some stuff, the other solutions (like Carbonite, Durva, crashplan) are big joke for a real business solution, no real cloud console, they are not business solutions at all, I found a good cloud solution it’s called Timeline Cloud, still testing it, but seems business oriented, complete cloud Disaster recovery which is cool and complete mobile access, I think it’s worth reviewing
I concur with Brian. I have attempted to cancel five times in this past week. They keep on assuring me that it has been canceled but then I was just charged again yesterday! Their instructions on how to cancel are intentionally confusing and misleading and their customer service is clearly inept.