Playing the Field Blog Tour: Review & Guest Post!

 

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Playing the Field

Diamonds and Dugouts #2

By: Jennifer Seasons

Blurb

Single mother Sonny Miller has spent years avoiding love. A rotten childhood and an even rottener ex-boyfriend left her determined to protect her son—and herself—against the risks of romance. That is, until hotshot ballplayer JP Trudeau swaggers into her carefully constructed life, all sin-with-me eyes and irresistible grin. Sonny can't help but feel drawn to the sexy, confident man, even as every fiber of her being tells her to keep running the bases . . .

JP is known for being fast on his feet, not fast with his heart. But meeting Sonny and her boy sparks something in him—something he's never felt before, not from all the cleat-chasers in the major leagues. Sonny may be hell-bent on keeping him at arm's length no matter what, but this rookie has a plan. To get the girl, he must step up to the plate and convince her to take another chance on love . . . before this game gets rained out.

Buy Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes

Author Info

Jennifer Seasons is a Colorado transplant. She lives with her husband and four children along the Front Range, where she enjoys breathtaking views of the mighty Rocky Mountains every day. A dog and two cats keep them company. When she's not writing, she loves spending time with her family outdoors, exploring her beautiful adopted home state.

Author Links : Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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MY REVIEW

I haven't kept my love of sports romances a secret, so it should come as no surprise that when I read the blurb for Playing the Field...I knew that I absolutely had to read it! :D I really enjoyed it, and I think I've definitely found another new sports romance author to keep my eye on...and I'll be going back to read the first book in this series as soon as I can! 

All in all, I thought that Playing the Field was great. JP though, he was AMAZING....boy was he ever. JP and fantastic, sexy, male leads just like him are the reason that I enjoy this sub-genre of romance so very much. He was a cocky guy, so sexy and he knew it (haha)...yes, but he definitely had a good head on his shoulders, and he was so thoughtful. I pretty much fell for him right from the start...I don't know how Sonny held out for so long. :P haha I liked Sonny, but she did frustrate me and her reluctance to hear JP out kind of held me back at times during this book, but in the end she made me proud. :) I absolutely adored the two of them together, and once you added in Sonny's son Charlie, they made an awesome trio. I also enjoyed JP's budding relationship with Charlie, and all of the friendships in this book, I especially loved getting to see JP and his teammates interact. I thought Jennifer Seasons did a great job writing friendships and with the way that she developed relationships, too. I definitely got attached to the characters and their lives very quickly!

Overall, I thought that Playing the Field was a fantastic sports romance, and I absolutely loved JP. For the most part, I loved Sonny, too, but I did feel like she overreacted a bit and kind of just expected JP to be the one to fix everything...or she was just gonna let it all fall apart, ignore it, and go back to the way things were pre-JP...thankfully, he didn't let that happen. :P Even with Sonny being silly at times, I was still rooting for her and JP to work everything out, for the two of them, but also for Charlie's sake. I loved how he was getting closer to JP, and I thought it was amazing to see the three of them open up to each other. I'd recommend this one to other sports romance fans out there, and to any fans of romance who like seeing two great people find love...especially if you like hunky, wonderful male leads. ;)

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Jennifer Seasons' Guest Post:
"HOW I KEEP MY WRITING DIFFERENT"

I always wanted to be a writer.  Well, not always.  There were those early years when I wanted desperately to be Dolly Parton or Reba McEntire.  My mom’s hairbrush got a lot of air time back then. 

But sometime in middle school I discovered my mom’s romances and devoured them like they were chocolate truffles.  I couldn’t get enough and spent years growing a pretty impressive book collection.  The romance genre became my best friend and I immersed myself in all those wildly romantic stories.  

I learned how to write them, how to play within the formula.  I even tried my hand at writing a Regency set historical.  Let’s just say there’s a reason I write contemporaries.  So much better.   

Then I got divorced.  

My life went haywire as I struggled to adjust to life as a single mother.  Life took over and years passed while I found myself and pursued my education.  Instead of reading about life, I was out there struggling to live it and learning some really hard, very valuable lessons in the process.  

And then a few years after that I met my own real life romance hero and married him.  We set up shop and had a baby together.  While I was home with her taking online college classes I decided to dust off an old partial manuscript of mine that had been shoved into the recesses of my hard drive and finish it.  That book became STEALING HOME.  

What I think makes my writing different is that I hadn’t read a romance novel in over seven years.  A lot can change in the market in that amount of time as we all know.  But I knew the formula.  So when I sat down and finished that novel I wrote from a perspective outside the genre.  I wrote from life.

There was nothing I compared my writing to, nothing to use as a blueprint.  It was just me and my experiences, along with my romance reading history.  All of it combined to create a story that is something a little different.

Today I read romances and oh, how I’ve missed them.  But I read outside the subgenre that I write.  Historicals are my favorite.  Especially Scottish ones.  I have a serious thing for men in kilts. Yowza.  And Russian peasants, but that’s a whole other story.

By living life and having all those experiences, then going back to writing I’ve been able to create stories that are unique and refreshing to read.  And hopefully you all agree.

Follow the rest of the Tour: http://tastybooktours.blogspot.com/2013/06/now-booking-tasty-virtual-book-tour-for_17.html

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What do you think?
Did you enjoy Jennifer's guest post and do you think Playing the Field is a book you'd like to read?