Customer Reviews

Nothing But Trouble

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This funny, sexy and light-hearted book was a joy to read and it's definitely one of my favourites by Rachel Gibson.

Unsuccessful actress Chelsea Ross desperately needs money, so she agrees to work as a personal assistent for hockey superstar Mark Bressler. He was seriously hurt in a car accident months ago and had to give up playing hockey. Ever since he is in a black mood and does his best to act like a jerk. Mark doesn't want anyone to help him and especially not funky and witty Chelsea. But he can't get rid of her like he did with his other assistents because Chelsea just won't leave.
Soon Chelsea and Mark find some common ground and he even begins to like their discussions and her attempts to cheer him up. When the attraction between them grows, their relationship changes and they become lovers. What starts as something casual soon feels like so much more and Mark and Chelsea have to decide how they want to go on.

I loved reading "Nothing but trouble" and think that it's one of the best books by Rachel Gibson so far.
Chelsea is a great heroine and I liked her from the first moment. She is a funny, honest and caring person and pursues her dreams even though her family disagrees. I especially enjoyed reading about her bright personality and clothing style.
Mark is an awesome hero. At first I was a bit sceptical about him but that changed within a few pages. He may be brooding and arrogant but he is also funny and kind. You can feel his pain and just hope that his life will get better.
Mark and Chelsea are a great, sexy and lovely pair and I especially enjoyed that Mark understood one of her biggest wishes and was willing to change his life for her.
I loved to meet Kate and Rob from "The trouble with Valentine's day" again and laughed about the fly-fishing insider joke. I also enjoyed reading more about the other Chinook players and hope that many of them will get their own books.

So all in all I can absolutely recommend this funny, sexy and light-hearted book and can't wait to read more of the Seattle Chinooks. Sam's book (excerpt is in the back of "Nothing but trouble") sounds very promising and will be published spring 2011.

I marked the publication date on my calendar and, happily, it coincided with dental surgery. Reading this delightful book helped the pain go away and I recommend it to any Gibson fans out there.

Rachel has come up with another unlikely heroine, and she's dealing with a crabby former hockey player. Both leads are fully drawn people, with quirks, humor and intelligence. The plot is good, and enhanced by the themes of the "different" twins and the hero's concerns about life without hockey. As a reader of all RG's other hockey-player books, I enjoyed the scene [a Stanley Cup dinner, naturally] where husbands and wives from other books show up to interact with the hero (Mark Bressler) and even do some trash talking. [For those who are curious to learn more about Rob Sutter, try THE TROUBLE WITH VALENTINE'S DAY] The steamy scenes are, well, steamy and a pure delight.

Highly recommended for a delicious afternoon's reading.

Alot of the so called "professional reviewers" really panned this book but I really liked it. Alot of the complaints stemmed from the fact that the female lead Chelsea strayed from her long term goal of returning to Hollywood and resuming her acting career to give it all up for the dude. In fact I think Ms. Gibson did a good job of drawing parallels between the real world the Chelsea inhabited (broke, crashing at her sister's apartment, taking an assistant job to a head case, injured hockey star) and the world that a younger (ok maybe sillier) Chelsea inhabited as a D flick scream queen. But seriously, haven't most of us had those same experiences where we had those halcyon jobs that we felt we'd "make our mark in" and now find ourselves settled down as Accountants, Electricians, Moms and we long for the day when we were paid to dance at club openings...(Ahem, I won't continue down my memory lane path).

Mark Bressler is the Captain of the Chinooks Hockey team and as a result of a car accident was severely injured and unable to complete his trek to Lord Stanley's Trophy. As a result of his horrific injuries his team was forced to move on without him and do the unthinkable. Win it all - without their Captain. Mark is bitter, mean, healing slowing and shut off until the breeze that is Chelsea Ross saunters in to his life in a mish-mash of colors, prints and a rack that won't quit. At first Mark insists (to himself that he can run her off like he has the rest of the therapists his hockey team has sent over) but Chelsea takes a different tack due to her desperate circumstances. She comes through as his assistant and meets him head to head. The first two chapters and the "Pucci" to "Pus-y" translation are hilarious and just like that Ms. Gibson has me hooked.

Now for me, Ms. Gibson stumbled a little in some of her recent books but in Nothing but Trouble I find that she is back to writing about what she does best in a humorous way that suits her style. And while the end was a bit rushed and I sorta wished she had epilogued us on how certain threads tied themselves off (Jules deserved his OWN BOOK). I feel safe in saying that other readers and fans of Ms. Gibson will enjoy this book very much.

I very much enjoyed this book up until the end, which seemed rushed. I felt the main character, Chelsea, lost a lot of her strength in the end. Throughout the story, Chelsea never backed down from Mark. However, in the last few chapters, she seemed to crumble. There was also an disagreement between Chelsea and her twin sister that went unresolved.

Rachel Gibson is one of my two favorite authors in this genre. She's like a breath of fresh air amid all the crap out there on the romance book shelves. She's absolutely hilarious and all of her book have great laughable parts! They also have heart.... and substance. Nothing But Trouble did not disappoint.

One thing I love and hate about Rachel is that she's not turning out books just for the sake of making money. It feels like forever since she released a new book- but oh she makes it worth it. I never roll my eyes or try to breeze through any stupid sections like with other authors.

I fist got sucked into the fictional Chinooks hockey team with See Jane Score. It's still my all time RG favorite. And I'm so glad she's decided to write more books about the team and give us tiny peeks into how other couples are doing in these new releases.

Although- I'm sure you read from other reviews what the book is about- I'll quickly say- Hockey player Mark Bressler has been in a horrid car accident that cuts his hockey career shorter than he planed, and left him a very bitter man. Wanna-be actress Chelsea Ross is sent in to help take care of him. He fights off the help, but she's desperate for the work so she stays no matter what... and a love story is in the making.

I absolutely loved it!

I have read all of Rachel Gibson's books to date and thought this was a pretty good one. I don't feel that she developed the characters as much as some of the other stories (for instance, the nagging issue for the lead female character didn't seem like a big deal and was kind of fake). However, I had some laugh out loud moments and really enjoyed the female character's type of chatty never ending nonsense and the lead male characters reaction as exasperation.

I also agree with other reviewers that the ending seemed a bit abrupt - there is usually longer time between the "big fight" and the reunions.

Overall, it was a good light read for a Saturday afternoon and I really liked the characters.

Mark Bressler is recovering from a terrible auto accident and lucky to be alive. He was the captain of a Seattle hockey team before his accident, and his team even went on to win the Stanley Cup without him. Chelsea is a struggling scream-queen horror movie actress and a Hollywood personal assistant who comes to Seattle to see her sister (the PR agent for the hockey team) and takes a 3-month job helping Mark recover. If she can manage 3-months, she will get a $10K bonus check and a chance to change her life for the better.

The premise of this story was shaky to start, but I was willing to buy Chelsea being hired by the team as a personal assistant (when he needed a nurse assistant but he ran all of the ones in Seattle off with his a-hole personality), if only the humor and romance made up for it. Most of the story takes place at Mark's house or showing the two of them running errands and her doing his personal secretarial work. Boring. I did not find much of this interesting or humorous, as Mark was just a jerk trying to get rid of her. We mostly see his bad side, and therefore must believe Chelsea falls for that kind of guy. There are some scenes with him coaching a young kid, but Chelsea is not around for many of those so she really does not get to see the brief glimpses of his good side.

Chelsea was a likable and different heroine, and she was great at letting his many insults roll off of her. However, I would have liked to see her spit back a few insults at times as he really had it coming. She was too passive at times and wishy-washy. They liked each other's physical look and had some sexual dream fantasies about each other, but I never got the feeling of a budding romance. The need to scratch an itch? Yes. A romance? No. The sexual tension was mostly missing, so when they finally do come together it seemed a bit sudden. His declaration that he is only good at hockey and sex was his odd way of wooing her. In his mind his reasoning is since he can't play hockey, let's have sex and see if that part of him still works after the accident. Ugh. Not romantic.

As with all romances, there is the conflict and resolution. Without spoiling it, let's just say I didn't buy it at all. The conflict was a minor issue that is blown out of proportion. The resolution was too quick, too easy, and too who-gives-a-hoot.

In the end, I never cared for Mark, Chelsea was OK, and the relationship just did not feel like one that would work past six months. There was a secondary storyline with her sister, but it was glossed over. It was not a strong secondary romance story. There were a few cameos from past players and their wives, but we see very little of them.

Overall, I thought it lacked all the normal Rachel Gibson magic. It had little humor, boring characters, no honest sexual tension, a boring storyline, and a lackluster romance that didn't convince me at all. I long for her more layered, heart-felt, sizzling romantic stories from her earlier writing days, but that may just be a thing of the past.

I love all of Rachel Gibsons books, but this one was just wonderful!! I loved every minute of it and wish it was twice as long. I love Chelseas character, she's real, flawed, and lovely. Mark is hilariously cranky and just mean. He's hot, too. :) I love the turmoil and the friction. I just loved the whole thing all together. It was also very real. The pain Mark was feeling, and his growth, and also the problems Chelsea was having. Ahh LOVED it all. I read it twice in one week. Another wonderful Gibson book!

I absolutely love Rachel Gibson novels and this one was just as wonderful as all the others I have read. It has great characters, a great plot, light hearted and keeps your attention. If you like Rachel Gibson or want a fun, fast, contemporary romance than this is the book for you!

You can't go wrong with Rachel Gibson. While this may not be my #1 favorite Rachel Gibson book like "See Jane Score", this one stays pretty high on my list. And actually, I think this book is better than the last couple she's come out with. Once I got started, I couldn't put the book down. I loved the two characters and their quirky banter and steamy romance. They were very well matched. I'm glad Rachel is staying with the hockey theme cause I can't get enough. My only complaint is that she isn't writing fast enough! Can't wait for the next one!