True Love And Other Disasters [Mass Market Paperback]

Okay, first to let you know where I stand. I love Rachel Gibson's work and I have learned that I love romances that feature athletes. I devoured her earlier books involving the Seattle Chinooks (See Jane Score is fantastic) and similarly I've enjoyed Deirdre Martin's NY Blades series and Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars series. Carly Phillips' Hot Zone trilogy also touches athletes' lives. SO if any of you have read these books get ready for "Deja Vu".
Maybe I have read too many romance novels (gasp! Did I actually type this?!) but I began to feel pretty early on that I had been here before. The plot (I won't elaborate on it--I'll let the experts do that)takes themes especially from SEP-sexpot female surprisingly inherits sports team from elderly man-here husband not father. She is built, sexy hot, considered to be dumb, is despised by the man who thought he would get the team and is resented by members of the organization especially the captain of said sports team. The captain reluctantly is attracted to her and in the end, "the girl gets the team and the guy".
Forgive me, Rachel, but I kept thinking "I am reading 'It Had to Be You'-the Hockey Edition." Now that said, I think Rachel does an awesome job describing the game of hockey (better than DM) and the sexual chemistry and banter is fabulous. I also can respect the difficulty in finding new unique plot lines--I am amazed at Rachel's creativity and I am always excited to see something from her coming out. The book is good and I lucked out finding a copy before the release date here so it feels strange writing one of the first reviews. I just don't know if it will go into my Keep pile. Perhaps I'll hang on to it and read it again before her 2010 release since that story picks up a key character from this book. I'll be curious to see what fellow reviewers have to say.

Faith Duffy is a former stripper and Playmate who married an elderly multimillionaire for security. Upon his death, she inherits his hockey team, much to the chagrin of pretty much everyone considering she knows absolutely nothing about the sport. Team captain Ty Savage (that's Sah-vahge, not savage as in beast) is none too thrilled about having Faith as the new owner partially because of her lack of knowledge and experience, but mostly because he's very much physically attracted to her and he can't afford any distractions on the road to winning the Stanley Cup. Neither one of these characters is at all relatable. First of all, Faith is a second generation stripper who was literally discovered when Hugh Hefner just strolls into the lounge she was dancing at and caught her act. That earned her Playmate status which is how she met her husband who happens to be 51 years older than her and loaded. We all have a friend like this, right? I can get over the whole stripping and Playboy thing, but what really bothered me about Faith is how quickly after her husband's death she's off having an affair with Ty. The book open's with Virgil's funeral. Sure, she and her husband never had sex and she does experience some guilt, but it's almost as if she doesn't mourn Virgil's death at all (even though she claims he was her best friend and that she loved him). Most people would be at least a tiny bit sad or depressed their best friend had died right before their eyes, but not Faith. She goes shopping for new designer clothes and makes out with players on her team.

Besides Faith, there were a few other plot line points I took issue with. Ty was a little inconsistent. One moment he's hellbent on resisting Faith and then the next, he's groping her in a public restaurant. Huh? Did I miss something? He also went from surly and belligerent to sweet and adorable almost instantaneously, which seemed unrealistic, but his sweet and adorable side was very enjoyable to read about. There are a few other inconsistencies with him I'll get to later since they are a little spoilerish. But aside from Ty, a lot of the plot seems a little too familiar. As other reviewers have noted, the basic plot is a lot like It Had To Be You by SEP. Just change the sport from hockey to football and change the hero's position from captain to head coach and it's extremely similar, down to the greedy relatives who want to take the team away from the heroines because they thought it rightfully belonged to them instead. But aside from the basic structure having been done before, even little plot points seemed recycled. There's another tattoo on a hockey player and when Ty asks Faith what she wants she replied that she wants to lick his tattoo. That's ripped almost verbatim from See Jane Score.

As for Ty's other inconsistencies, (SPOILER) he goes from lust to love rather suddenly. When he got her the muffin (after she'd been stressing out about it on the plane), my heart melted until I thought back to the Ty in the first half of the book. He'd NEVER get Faith that muffin. And when he got upset because Faith didn't want to go out on a date with him, I was pretty surprised considering he only fantasized about her body without feeling anything for her right up until they first hooked up. Clearly Rachel was trying to hint that Ty was already falling in love, but I just didn't buy it. I also thought it was weird they'd have sex while she was still wearing her late husband's ring. Granted, Ty eventually took exception with this and asked her to take it off but Faith claimed it made her feel less guilty somehow. And she only takes it off once she realizes she is in love with Ty, because then she feels it's time to let go of the past and be free of her late husband. Mind you, this only occurs two months after his death. As you can probably tell I hated this book's characters very much. Pretty much the only thing it had going for it is that the hero and heroine didn't have some stupid fight or misunderstanding breaking them up for no logical reason towards the end.

But I only liked it. The hero is great, the heroine is a lot more complex than I thought she would be at first--but I took exception to problems with the hockey aspects of the story. Frankly, it is just little details, but there were enough little details that added up to where I found myself distracted when I read, instead of enjoying the story. Teams play in the playoffs (plural) but a goal scored in the playoffs is a playoff (singular) goal, not a playoffs goal. Players can be traded mid-season, but they don't sign a contract with a new team in mid-season when they've already been playing with one team. The ins and outs of trades and free agency and contracts were handled all wrong, throughout. Also, I found it hilarious that supposedly, a single line of teammates had scored a rather high amount of points only about a week into the playoffs--so high that I'm not sure any line of players have ever scored that many points within a single playoff season in history. I don't remember the exact number, but I believe it was somewhere in the range of 80+. Still, even with the flaws involving the hockey facts, this was a good read. If you're not a diehard hockey fan, you probably won't notice any problems, and can therefore focus more of your effort on the story.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 60 reviews  3.4 out of 5 stars