The Winning Season

The Winning Season is the newest release from author Alison Packard. The publisher is Carina Press and the release date is set for July 15, 2013. From the Carina Press website.~

Kelly Maxwell has finally landed her dream job as publicist for the San Francisco Blaze. But the team's newest member, handsome bad boy catcher Matt Scanlon, is refusing every interview. She's got to get him to open up before the season ends, or she may not be back next year. And after everything she overcame to achieve her dream, Kelly's not about to let that happen.

Matt Scanlon just wants to be left alone to rebuild his life and his career. After a year of masking the pain of a recent loss with hard partying and fast women, he finally hit rock bottom and was traded to a team he's loathed his entire life - a team with little to no chance at the post-season.

Butting heads is getting Kelly and Matt nowhere but annoyed, and with the team's schedule on the road, they can't avoid close quarters - or their surprising attraction to each other. As the season winds down, Matt finds his growing feelings for Kelly have brought his numbed emotions back to life. But when betrayal shatters their fragile trust, winning it all seems more impossible than ever.

The Winning Season is the 2nd book from Allison Packard I've read. I was lucky enough to be approved for a review copy from NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

Let's just say that even with Matt's bad boy ways, I totally fell for him in Love in the Afternoon. Knowing why he was acting out made it much easier to get him. He did tick me off when he was so ugly to Kelly when they first met, but I could already see the chemistry between them would be incredible.

Kelly is such a strong and wonderful character. She isn't perfect, cusses like a sailor on leave and I loved her even more for her flaws. Even though she isn't happy that Matt in now a member of the San Francisco Blaze organization, she tries to work with him. Of course the fact that her job is to get him to do interviews and he wants to avoid the media completely after his past year of bad media, makes it tough for them to work together. Kelly also hasn't forgiven Matt for all the horrible things he said to her when they first met.

When Matt eventually both apologizes for what he said to Kelly and makes a deal to give interviews again, I could see it wouldn't take long for Kelly and Matt to become a real couple. The chemistry was there all along and they just worked for me even when they had huge misunderstandings between them. Kelly and Matt both find the courage to open up about painful situations from their past and I felt like it just brought them closer. However, when the truth of Matt's past year is finally revealed, he believes Kelly shared the details and their relationship hits a huge obstacle. My heart broke for Kelly as she defended herself to Matt, yet could see he couldn't see the truth through his pain. I knew who had really sold Matt out and was so glad when Matt finally put 2 + 2 together.

While the ending was a little abrupt, the feelings between Matt and Kelly felt right to me and it totally worked for me. I really hope we will get future books about the San Francisco Blaze players from Ms. Packard. I really love her voice and can't wait to read her next book.