The Man for Me [Paperback]

Gemma Bruce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2008

The bragging, The pin-ups. The sweaty socks, please oh please, set me free! Female sportswriter J.T. Green wants out of the locker room - until star pitcher Tommy Bainbridge walks in. Tommy defines the word hot: He's tall, a terrific kisser, and a total catch. J.T. wants everything he has to give. But Gilbeytown, PA, needs their hometown boy back where he belongs and if his plans to help get leaked to the press, there's going to be hell to pay. Distracting a woman as determined and downright sexy as J.T. isn't going to be easy. Unless he can show her how heavenly it feels to be held in his powerful arms and...well, hey. She seems to like it. A lot. And so does Tommy.It's clear as a freshly chalked baseline that Tommy and J.T. are crazy in love. To hell with reality. They don't care if they never come back...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Writer J.T. Green desperately wants to be taken seriously at national weekly Sports Today, both for her and her father (the Coach), but a locker-room mishap lands her a losing assignment covering a dead-end local baseball club, the Gilbeytown, Pa., Beavers. Unbeknownst to her and her editor, famous pitcher Tommy Bainbridge is in town, and he's determined to help the Beavers kick their losing streak. Tommy and J.T. fall for each other, but their careers and trust issues make it impossible for them to commit; soon, however, J.T. uncovers a conspiracy threatening the Beavers that could drag her and Tommy down with it. Bruce (Who Wants to Be a Sex Goddess?) is in good form with this sports romance, keeping the baseball in the forefront without getting technical. Tommy is an almost absurdly good guy—humble, honorable, an old school sportsman—and J.T. is a strong foil—independent, indomitable and sexily vulnerable. Though readers may wonder at some of the loose ends, the novel's smalltown setting, vibrant supporting characters and modest aspirations make this a charming exploration of love and baseball. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

After a picture of her, seemingly naked, with a couple of athletes appears in a tabloid, sports reporter J. T. Green is sent by her boss to the hinterlands of Pennsylvania to cover the Beavers, an independent baseball team at the bottom of its league. Tommy Bainbridge is taking a few days off in his hometown. His pitching days for the majors are about to become a memory. Given his injuries and age, he has decided to retire and move back home. While waiting for his replacement to be announced, he is laying low and keeping mum. J. T. shows up, and Tommy hits on her. The next day, he finds out she is a reporter and is immediately suspicious. This could be the scoop that would make her career if only J. T. knew what Tommy was up to. Tommy and J. T. start off on the wrong foot but soon find common ground in Bruce’s heartwarming account of a team and a town struggling to survive. --Maria Hatton

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Brava (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758216238
• ISBN-13: 978-0758216236
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,017,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Baseball, Sweet Romance - but Price a little high..., May 17, 2009

By 

cb (Minot, ND) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Man for Me (Paperback)

Jessica Green (aka J.T.) is a sports writer who has a famous baseball father and Sports Today only hired her because of her father. Now a scandal over photoshop picture has sent her to cover the Beavers. Tommy is a famous baseball pitcher who is from Gilbeytown, Pa. home of the Beavers. Once J.T. & Tommy ,hit it off in the first few pages. This was a nice baseball romance with a mystery sub-plot. My only issue with this book was the price -

Some of the Sports Romance novels on my summer reading listSliding Home, Power Play (Berkley Sensation), True Love and Other Disasters.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well done mystery with interesting plot and bad guys, but a little lacking on the romance side and weak at the end., February 14, 2009

By 

Jane (Chicago, IL, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Man for Me (Paperback)

STORY BRIEF:
JT is a female sportswriter just starting out, working for a sports magazine. A tabloid prints a fake picture of her being naked with two baseball players. While waiting for the negative publicity to die down, her boss sends her to Gilbeytown for three weeks to do a story on the Beavers, a struggling independent baseball team. Gilbeytown went belly-up after the collapse of the steel industry in the 1950s. The local mayor wants to get rid of the Beavers, tear down their crumbling stadium, build a new stadium, and coax a higher ranking team to move to town. Several accidents have happened to the Beavers' players and property. The coach thinks they are jinxed. Tommy is a major league baseball pitcher for the Portland Galaxies. He happens to be visiting Gilbeytown, his hometown, while JT is there. He's keeping secrets from JT about why he is there and his career plans.

REVIEWER'S OPINION:
This felt more like a mystery than a romance, but there was a romance occurring. For some reason I wasn't pulled into the relationship as much as I would have liked. I'm wondering if it was because the two characters were interacting with the plot and the events surrounding the mystery more than they interacted with each other. They meet, are physically drawn to each other, don't talk much, and then they separate. Later, circumstances bring them together, but again there is almost no talking. He's trying to keep everything secret from her because she is a reporter. She asks questions, but doesn't get any answers. I love entertaining dialogue in stories, but there isn't much chance for this since the two main characters don't communicate much. However I did love Tommy's character, his dreams, his actions and his caring for local kids.

DATA:
Story length: 329 pages. Swearing language: strong. Sexual language: strong. Number of sex scenes: 6. Total number of sex scene pages: 16. Setting: current day primarily Gilbeytown, Pennsylvania. Copyright: 2008. Genre: contemporary sports romance.


CAUTION SPOILERS (without names):
The mystery was good, but I was disappointed in the ending. There were three bad guys. One bad guy goes to jail. A second bad guy is fingered, but he denies doing anything wrong, and I didn't know what would happen to him. I also didn't know his motivations or what he was getting out of it before he was caught. He made a phone call to a third bad guy. The police planned to look up the phone number he called, but the author doesn't tell us who it was. The author later hints at who the third guy was, but doesn't tell what proof is found or what happens to him. I also never learned who the author of a certain newspaper article was. The ending was not finished.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Read, December 29, 2008

By 

Pearl Wolf "An avid reader" (Southampton, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man for Me (Paperback)

THE MAN FOR ME is an excellent read. Gemma Bruce, also known as Shelley Freydont, has written a tour de force about a minor league baseball team in a Pennsylvania steel mill town that has seen better days. Gilbeytown, PA is in itself a character in this novel. To me it represents Everytown USA whose industry has abandoned its people.

J.T Green must redeem herself by covering the Gilbeytown Beavers minor league baseball team for the magazine, "Sports Today" or face the loss of her job and banishment from the only profession she cares about--sports journalism. Being a female in an all male world can be tough enough, but she is forced to confront mysterious forces bent on destroying not only her reputation, but also the only baseball team Gilbeytown residents have had since the 1920's.

When she meets major league star pitcher of the Galaxies, Tommy Bainbridge, sparks fly for both of them, yet they skirt around one another warily. He's afraid of getting burned again by yet another baseball groupie, while she is looking for the reason he's not with his team. Officially, Tommy Bainbridge, who had grown up in Gilbeytown, was visiting his family. Why wasn't he with his team where he belonged? It's a hot scoop of a baseball story, one that would redeem her damaged reputation. The answer will surprise you in this page turner that will take you for a roller coaster ride up to the last page.