Book Review: "All's Fair in Love and Pizza" by Lane Hayes

Y’all, this book had me at PIZZA BAGELS. I enjoyed a lot about the story—the chemistry between the characters, the competition, the banter—but it was all about the pizza bagels for me.

Mateo has been working at his family’s pizzeria for as long as he can remember. Since his father and his uncle died, Mateo and his cousin run Boardwalk Pizza. It’s an institution in the college town of Haverton.

When Mateo and his crew learn that the empty space next door is going to be taken over by a bagel shop, they’re somewhat excited. The shop will be run by Rob Vilmer, Mateo’s football teammate in college who had a great pro career.

Rob remembers having a huge crush on Mateo back in college, but since Rob was closeted nothing ever happened. He’s excited to see Mateo again—until the two of them butt heads when Rob reveals his plan to make pizza bagels. How can this guy just come into town and start selling pizza bagels next to a pizzeria?

Mateo gets angrier and Rob loves egging him on. Rob’s business partner suggests the two stores have a bake-off that will last through football season. And when the heat of competition bubbles over to the bedroom, both have to decide whether to trust their heart to their rival.

This was fun, steamy, romantic, and hunger-inducing. It’s been a while since I read a rom-com by Lane Hayes, and I’ll be back for more!!

Book Review: "Life, and Death, and Giants" by Ron Rindo

“The last night they’d spoken, she told him everyone takes two journeys alone, the one that brings us to Earth and the one that takes us to heaven, and it is the path we have trod in between that gives the measure of a life. It is the good we leave behind us, she said, that makes a life worth living.”

If I could give this book 10 stars, I would. This was an emotional and thought-provoking read with some of the most memorable characters, and I was all choked up at the end.

Gabriel Fisher’s mother died while giving birth to him. It’s no wonder: he weighed 18 pounds and measured 27 inches long at birth. But despite his tragic beginning, Gabriel was an absolutely wonderful child—friendly, affectionate, and good with animals (they loved him, too). And he never really stopped growing: he was the size of a full-grown adult by the time he was 11 or 12.

When his older brother dies, Gabriel is taken in by his Amish grandparents, who were forced to shun his mother when she became pregnant the first time. When Gabriel starts becoming popular because of his athletic prowess, his grandfather isn’t too pleased, but they do their best to raise Gabriel to understand their customs and rules.

When the town’s high school football coach gets a glimpse of Gabriel when he is playing in a field with other children, he convinces Gabriel—and his grandparents—that the boy will be a football star. This discovery sets Gabriel and those who love him on a life-changing path.

The book is narrated by Gabriel’s grandmother, the doctor who delivered Gabriel and became both mentor and surrogate father, the football coach, and a local bar owner. I liked how the book portrayed the Amish characters as so much more than stereotypes. This will definitely be one of my favorite books of the year.

Book Review: "Tender Tackles" by B.T. Wolfe

Bryan was overwhelmed with grief after his brother’s death. He decided he needed a fresh start, so he took a job as a head football coach at a small town high school.

When one of his star players gets hurt during practice, Bryan meets his father and gets quite a surprise. It turns out that they’ve met before: Emerson, who is the town doctor, was the man with whom Bryan had an intense one-night-stand in NYC two years ago.

While the chemistry between the two men is still intense, Emerson doesn’t want to give into temptation again. He wants to focus on his relationship with his two sons and his busy practice, and he doesn’t want to complicate things. But every time he and Bryan are together, they can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves.

The two decide to pursue a relationship but keep it secret for a while given Bryan’s coaching job. For the first time since his brother’s death, Bryan feels freer and happier, and he looks forward to building a future with Emerson.

But when news of their secret relationship leaks out, it threatens Bryan’s job and Emerson’s relationship with his sons. Can their love withstand the stress of possible scandal?

I haven’t read many M/M age-gap romances, but I enjoyed this. I wanted a bit more intensity in their relationship but I liked the way the author kept things from getting too melodramatic.

Book Review: "The Champions" by Kara Thomas

Hadley is new to Sunnybrook, as her mother took a job as the superintendent of schools there. She is biding her time, hoping her senior year will result in her being named editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and getting accepted to Columbia so she can study journalism.

She’s not particularly thrilled that her first assignment is to write an article about the Tigers, Sunnybrook’s football team. They’ve won two consecutive state championships and are hoping to make history by winning a third. Everything in school—and in the town—revolves around the Tigers.

She receives an anonymous email warning her to stay away from the football team, and another telling her not to go to a party being thrown by one of the star players. But Hadley goes to the party, and one of the players that she interviewed collapses and falls into a coma. The players wouldn't let Hadley call an ambulance, and everyone was acting strangely. It turns out he was poisoned.

Eleven years ago, five of Sunnybrook’s cheerleaders were murdered. When another football player winds up dead after causing trouble at a game, Hadley is determined to figure out what’s behind the tragedies. Her investigative methods make her an outcast, but she’s able to track down some people who remember what happened 11 years ago.

What secrets are being hidden? Who is responsible for what is happening? Could Hadley be a target? And most importantly, can the truth be uncovered before someone else dies?

This was a great story, full of drama and twists and turns. It’s a follow-up to Kara Thomas’ book The Cheerleaders, but this can be read as a standalone. Reading this made me glad I didn’t go to high school when social media existed!

Book Review: "Sidelined" by Kara Bietz

Sidelined is a sweet YA book about rekindling old friendships, football, and life in a small town.

Sometimes a legacy is a tough thing to live up to—or live down. Julian Jackson has lived his whole life in the small town of Meridien, Texas. Now it’s his senior year of high school and he’s captain of the football team.

He feels a lot of pressure—he has to get a scholarship in order to leave town, attend a good college, and pursue his dreams, but he’s also expected to come up with a series of colossal pranks against his team's biggest rival. It’s a tradition the town lives for. But he’s worried the pranks could go awry and his whole future could be destroyed.

The last thing he expects is for Elijah Vance to return to town. Elijah was his best friend and teammate, and there was a brief minute where it looked like they could be more than friends. But then Elijah and his family left town suddenly and he didn’t say goodbye to Julian. It’s been three years since then.

Elijah is nervous about returning to Meridien after all this time, and he’s even more nervous about seeing Julian. Can they recapture their friendship—and is something more possible?

But first, both must confront the legacies their fathers left behind. Julian’s dad was the football hero, destined for great things, while Elijah’s was a pariah. But legacies aren’t always accurate.

I enjoyed this sweet story a lot. I loved that this was a small, working-class town in Texas, and no one cared that the captain of the football team was gay. There was A LOT of focus on the whole prank thing (a little too much, IMHO), but it was actually the catalyst of an interesting thread in the story.

Another example of why I love YA books so much!

Book Review: "Home Sweet Mess" by Allison Ashley

You know I love my fun, steamy, emotional rom-coms, and Allison Ashley's newest book, Home Sweet Mess is a good addition to the list!!

When Logan and Jeni first meet, he’s immediately smitten; she takes a fairly instant dislike to him because she believes him to be a womanizer. But with Logan being her brother’s best friend, it appears she won’t be able to escape seeing him.

When Andrew, Jeni’s twin brother, is diagnosed with cancer, he needs the support of both of them. Little by little, Logan and Jeni grow closer, but she’s not interested in a relationship since her marriage failed. But Logan wants more than friends with benefits; he wants it all, and he wants it with Jeni. Can he convince her to try again?

I loved the banter between these characters and their great chemistry. The smack talk about each other’s football teams totally cracked me up, but there was also tenderness and humor between them, too. Rom-coms that combine chemistry with emotion are always my favorite.

Sure, at times I wanted to shake Jeni and make her realize that Logan wasn’t her ex, but I want to shake lots of people, real and fictional. (It's funny because it's true.)

Home Sweet Mess is Ashley’s second book featuring some of the same characters; I’ll definitely want to go back and read her first book, Perfect Distraction.

Thanks to Kate Rock Book Tours and Allison Ashley for allowing me to be part of the tour, and providing a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review!!

Book Review: "The Bright Lands" by John Fram

Wow, what a ride this book took me on!

If Stephen King and John Boyne were to have a literary baby, it might resemble John Fram’s debut novel, The Bright Lands. But to try and compare it to something else does it an injustice—this is part mystery, part allegory, part social commentary, and part horror novel, with emotional heft to boot.

Joel Whitley couldn’t wait to flee his tiny Texas town after he was publicly outed during high school. But texts from his younger brother Dylan, the charismatic quarterback of the high school football team, bring him back home. And when Dylan goes missing shortly after Joel’s return, the town—which worships its team and many of the players—is on edge.

But this is a town full of secrets, and for Joel, many of those secrets circle back to incidents and people from his past. Meanwhile, police detective Starsha Clark is determined to get to the bottom of Dylan’s disappearance, despite the similarities to her own football-playing brother’s disappearance years earlier, and despite some resistance from her colleagues.

As the town circles its wagons to protect its own, Joel, Clark, and others continue their dogged search for the truth. But in doing so, they’ll be forced to confront horrors both imaginary and real, which demonstrate the depths some will go to keep their secrets.

This book...it blew me away in many respects. Shifting perspectives from past to present and multiple narrations add to the haunting feeling that hung over me while reading. There are definitely disturbing things that happen in this book, and the bullying took me back to my own teenage years, in which I experienced far more than I ever divulged.

At times, however, I felt like the book wasn’t 100 percent sure what it wanted to be. There are definitely pieces of the plot I could’ve done without, and things that left me with questions, but on the whole, this was a book that moved and troubled me, and left me thinking. It's honestly unforgettable.

A pretty terrific debut for John Fram! Can't wait to see what his career holds.

Book Review: "When We Were Worthy" by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Probably die in a small town
Oh, those small communities
All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
—"Small Town," John Cougar Mellencamp

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen once again shows off her knack for getting inside the scandals and secrets of small-town America in her new novel, When We Were Worthy, and she does so in great soapy fashion.

"In Worthy, truth lived right next door to perception, but they weren't exactly friendly neighbors."

Worthy, Georgia is a small town ruled by football, as many small Southern towns are. "Once football season started, we were more the team than the town." Two beautiful cheerleaders, Brynne and Mary Claire ("MC"), rule the school, making or breaking lives by the amount of attention they pay to others. When they bestow their friendship on two sophomore cheerleaders, Keary and Leah, and encourage them to join the varsity squad, it elevates their social standing, but it also makes the two girls beholden to the seniors and their friends.

One night, after a successful game, the victory spirit of Worthy is cut short, when an accident claims the lives of MC, Brynne, and Keary. The boy who appears to have caused the accident is also from town, and survives, which, in the eyes of many in town, is unfortunate. The town and its residents are thrown for a complete loop—the cheerleaders become the stuff of legend, angels chosen to descend to heaven, and Worthy's citizens are mired in grief, anger, and suspicion.

When We Were Worthy follows four women in the midst of the tragedy—Leah, who should have been in that car with her friends that night, but the reason why she wasn't may be worse than the accident; Marglyn, a grieving mother trying to make sense of it all; Darcy, once one of the town's cheerleaders, but now the mother of the boy responsible for the accident; and Ava, a substitute teacher who moved to Worthy with her husband, who grew up there, and has a secret that, if exposed, could cause many ripples through the town. From many of these women, you get a slightly fully sense of those who died, their good points and their foibles, and their real effect on others in Worthy.

The tension simmers in the town, and you know a powder keg will explode somewhere. Will it be those who threaten to hurt the boy allegedly responsible for the girls' deaths? Will it be the marriage that is barely holding together, or the one which has recently come apart? Will the secrets that have been hidden get exposed, and will the truths come to light? Whalen knows how to keep your attention, giving you just enough to keep reading, and keep wondering what will happen.

This is the second book of Whalen's I've read, and I am again impressed at her ability to create drama without it veering into melodrama, soap opera tension without devolving into camp, and characters that aren't always sympathetic but you can't stop reading about them. Many have compared her to Liane Moriarty (as if more than one author can't seem to occupy this space), and while there is some similarity, Whalen has a style and a talent all her own.

When We Were Worthy isn't a book that makes you think, except perhaps what you might do if faced with the situations some of the characters were. But it is a tremendously entertaining book, one that cements Whalen's storytelling talent. If you like small-town drama, you'll like this one.

Book Review: "The Throwback Special" by Chris Bachelder

Full disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Many thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company for making it available!

One weekend every November, a group of 22 guys get together at a hotel. They aren't friends during the year, but there is rarely a question that they'll miss this weekend.

The purpose? They gather to reenact (although they hate that word, since for them it connotes people dressed in war uniforms holding guns) what is known in football history as "the most shocking play in NFL history": on November 18, 1985, Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann had his leg horribly broken on live television by New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor. The injury ended Theismann's career, and was replayed several times that night on television, although commentator Frank Gifford warned those "with strong stomachs."

The weekend isn't just a casual game of touch football. Every year one of the men becomes the commissioner, and each man gets to choose which player (of those Redskins and Giants players who were on the field for that play) they will play that year. They watch the film of that play, room together by position, and even dress in authentic uniforms, down to wristbands or taped body parts. Some of the men take the weekend and their roles very seriously, while others would rather be anywhere else but know they're obligated.

If your eyes have already glazed over because you're not a football fan, rest assured that Chris Bachelder's The Throwback Special is less about football and more about life. The men have been playing for a number of years now, and most are approaching or are solidly entrenched in middle age, experiencing all of the stresses and problems which come with it, from physical ailments, difficulties and/or concerns with their children, financial challenges, marital woes, etc. These are men who bear the weight of life on their shoulders, and while this weekend should serve as a release for them, they can't seem to shake everything that's going on in their "real lives."

This is a really interesting and sensitive meditation on the burden of manhood and growing older, as well as the dissatisfaction and the disappointment that comes with it. Bachelder has a great ear for dialogue, which imbues this book with a great deal of sensitivity and humor. The challenge is, there are so many characters that it's hard to keep all of them straight—there's Fat Michael (who isn't fat in the least) and Bald Michael (who is bald), Adam and Andy, and many others—and while some of the characters are more vivid, it takes a little time to remember which one you're reading about.

I'm a huge football fan and we even have Redskins season tickets, so this book definitely appealed to me, but you don't need to know the first thing about football to enjoy The Throwback Special. If you're a guy dealing with growing older and the challenges of life, or you know someone like that, this book may interest you. It's very different than I expected it to be, but it definitely captivated me.