Author: ⟫ E.M. Lindsey
Rating: ⟫ 3.5/5
Blurb: ⟫ If self-destruction is an art-form, then Hervé is a master artist.
After all, he’s perfected self-sabotage since he was young and full of promise.
He’s spent his life
running from his past and pushing away anyone who might break down
his walls, but it wasn’t until his body betrayed him that he
realized just how lonely his present had become. Now he’s in the
countryside, trying to figure out if anything is worth salvaging, and
wondering if he’s the sort of man who will ever be worth a second
chance.
Even when Orion Coulter—one of the star pitchers
on the Denver Vikings—shows up in his little village like some sort
of predestined knight on a white horse, Hervé doesn’t trust him.
How can he when Orion is close to all the men Hervé hurt?
But
Orion’s situation is more complicated than Hervé realized, full of
pain and grief, looking for some kind of escape. And while Hervé
knows that he hasn’t quite earned meeting the man of his dreams,
Orion’s quiet voice, tender hands, and impossible promises has him
wondering if maybe—just maybe—the universe is willing to give him
the chance he doesn’t deserve.
Double Play is the final book of the Hit and Run MM baseball romance series. It features countryside kisses, grief, redemption, long walks, careful handling, and a painfully tender happily ever after.
Review: ⟫ I haven’t read any of the previous Hit and Run series and that may have influenced my experience with this book.
Well written, and extremely well researched, this book was an interesting read. I didn’t know about cataplexy although I knew a little about narcolepsy, and I found it quite educational. It features characters from the previous Hit and Run books (I assume so anyway), and there is obviously a lot of history playing a role in things.
Unfortunately,I think that may be what I struggled with. I haven’t read the previous books, knew none of the characters and therefore had no frame of reference and no ‘side’ in things. There were a lot of references to something Hervé did in previous books (and I know some people figured it out just from this book) but I couldn’t quite grasp what he had done that was so wrong, and I wasn’t sure I really cared.
That sounds really callous, but neither Hervé or Orion appealed to me at all – I felt their relationship moved at light speed when both of them were going through something completely life-changing and perhaps should have been more cautious. The struggles Hervé had with his health were handled sensitively and incorporated into the story – this wasn’t a case of saying a character is suffering from something and then never mentioning it again. But, again, I felt like he should be concentrating on stabilising his life and not on falling in love with someone based in a completely different country. I also thought recovering addicts were advised not to get into a relationship in the first year?
Basically, for me, this story didn’t connect and I think that is in large part because I didn’t have the history with the characters. As such, I personally don’t think that it can be read as a stand-alone novel. The sports was minimal, so I probably wouldn’t class it as a sports romance either.
The last two chapters were absolutely romantic, blistering and everything I could have hoped for. I just didn’t gel with the rest of the book. I received an ARC from GRR.
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