18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Playing with Heart, October 15, 2006
This review is from: Romancing the Zone (Paperback)
There are lots of novels in this genre, dozens and dozens. Some are very good; some are poorly written and edited, poorly presented, barely readable. Made for TV movies are sometimes good, sometimes sappy and romantic, sometimes very bad. Yet every once in a while, there's just nothing else on the tube, and we find ourselves sitting through the type of movie we normally wouldn't select: it's just not our type of story, it's a weepy romance. It's been done before.
Take sports movies for example. If you've seen one, you've pretty much seen enough. There's Hoosiers and Rudy and Field of Dreams. Do you want to sit through another one, where it comes down to impossible odds, the last few seconds, and the most improbable comeback in the hands of the most unlikely player in history? But we do. Admit it. I'll be channel surfing, and the last few minutes of Hoosiers is playing, and I'll stop to watch when Gene Hackman tells his guys to measure the court in the big arena. I like that scene.
Romancing the Zone is a basketball novel. No, it's a lesbian romance. You know, it's like those movies we'd never admit we watch. This newest effort by Kenna White is in fact a little of both, and better than most in both genres.
It has a little bit of everything. How about an over-the-hill college player who never got to finish her last year of eligibility, coming back to play on a team that won six games last season? Throw in a daughter who's on the same team, out for the year with an injury, urging her mom on to rekindle that love of sport that never really goes away? How about a coach who grudgingly falls in with the plan, and a small school is suddenly united behind this thirty-nine-year-old hero?
Mix in a growing attraction between coach and point guard.
It could work. Come on, admit that you tear up when Rudy gets to play.
Confess. We all love it when the improbable happens, when secret fantasies become real, when for once, the good guys actually win. No matter how hardened your heart, it is touching when true love conquers old fears and prior committments.
I'll make you a deal. If you could put this plot in the hands of a good writer, one who doesn't over do it, who controls and defines her characters, who gently helps us suspend our disbelief and our cynicism, then I bet even the crustiest of us would smile and sniffle and even laugh.
Kenna White has done just that, taken a time-worn story line and with great skill and deft handling refreshed and energized it. Of course it's infused with a few twists and turns, but the heart-warming scenes are just that, touching, not overblown and sappy and ridiculous as those cliched movie moments can be.
With subtlety and skill, we are pulled into the story. There's no last second buzzer-beater; this author's taken the kind of story that became cliched for a reason and revived it, reminding us all of why we once enjoyed them in the first place.
Relax and read along. You won't be bored or disappointed, you'll be smiling and occasionally, if figuratively, on the edge of your seat. Just like in a stuffy, hot, high school gym, sometimes the drama comes alive again, and we are back there, collectively holding our breath until the ball swishes through, until the girl gets the girl. It's nice when you can pull for something like that without feeling embarrassed or suckered into it.
Clear, crisp writing, well-shaped characters, and a gentle homage to those sappy love stories and sports movies we so often scoff at and denigrate. Well worth the price of popcorn and hankies.
Come on, people, it's World Series time, college football is in full swing, and it really mattered when we played Little League, remember? All those Friday nights in the stands, didn't you get a lump in you throat at times?
This book is like that.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ah...Not So Great, September 4, 2007
This review is from: Romancing the Zone (Paperback)
I enjoyed the story in Romancing the Zone, the relationship between Liz and Sheridan is wonderful and romantic. Their influence on the team is one most can relate to and enjoy reading about.
However, and this may have been just my book, I found the grammar and spelling mistakes took away from the story. My book had many spelling errors or entire words left out, to where I'd read a sentence and have to read it again to fill in the word so I knew what it was saying. Also, there were many places where somebody would be upset or in pain, and their facial expressions given to us through the terms were incorrect. I was like what?? Why would somebody smirk when given bad news? That is frequently what happens, or instead of glaring at the other in anger, the author would put the word leer, nothing related to a look of anger. I thought these did not help us learn the characters because it gives you the wrong impression of what was going on.
The story is a great concept and read, I simply thought that many errors took away from the story and it's development of the characters.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Enjoyable Romance, December 2, 2006
This review is from: Romancing the Zone (Paperback)
Basketball is really just the back story in this unique and sensitive romance involving mature women. Both protagonists have spent years building comfortable and secure lives---one as a businesswoman and single mom, the other as a college basketball coach. While both are aware almost from the moment they meet of the magnetism between them, neither is prepared for the emotional maelstrom that follows.
Years ago, Liz Elliott left college before her senior year when she found herself pregnant. Subsequently she gave birth to her daughter Becca, now nineteen, and established a successful restaurant. While Becca has no problem with her mother's lesbianism, Liz has remained uninvolved, but presumably has indulged in a few flings over the years.
Women's basketball coach Sheridan Ross has dedicated her life to her career. Moving up the ladder in her profession requires frequent relocation from city to city and in Sheridan's mind precludes anything even close to a serious relationship. As a result, she has studiously avoided emotional entanglement. Yet she finds herself attracted to Liz in a way that is both unfamiliar and disturbing to her.
The tenuous bond between Liz and Sheridan is complicated by the reappearance of a very scary person from Liz's past. The resulting conflict is a cliff-hanger, and the resolution is not at all predictable.
The author does a masterful job of showing the evolution of the situation. I was captivated by the women's progression from casual interest to almost constant preoccupation with one another, and finally to the acknowledgment of love. I think I fell in love with both of them along the way.
Since the nature of both women's lives is complex, their story cannot end with them simply holding hands and walking together into the sunset. There are real-life obstacles to overcome. While fiction is supposed to let us escape into the land of warm fuzzy feelings, it is the tough issues, dealt with realistically, that bring this story to life.
Kenna White seems to improve with every book. "Beneath the Willow" was good. "Romancing the Zone" is even better. "Skin Deep" is her next one, and I can hardly wait.
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