Customer Reviews

The Man For Me

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Sports Today is a popular national weekly magazine. Writer J.T. Green writes for the magazine with hopes that players, managers and fans will take her work as honest serious reporting. However, an embarrassing locker room incident leaves her in exile in Pennsylvania covering the news no one but a local would be interested in.

She is covering the Gilbeytown Beavers, a team with a losing streak. In town is renowned superstar pitcher Tommy Bainbridge, who plans to help the Beavers win. When the pitcher and the reporter meet, they are attracted to one another, but between their jobs implying an intimate relationship taboo and their distrust of the other's vocation, this couple has no chance but to strike out especially when JT uncovers a conspiracy for the team to lose.

This fun sports romance with a nod to the movie Major League is a home run as baseball pulls the nine inning plot. J.T. is a feisty independent reporter doing her job while Tommy is the perfect throwback athletic hero (some will insist caricature). The venue is terrifically described and the investigation filled with suspense. Additionally baseball fans will enjoy their romance as he strikes out with her but keeps swinging the bat in an effort to hit a game winning home run.

Harriet Klausner