Review from Sadie: Balk by Joy Eileen (Sports Romance)

McKenna Raine may be softball's awkward girl extraordinaire, but when she heard  baseball's devilish star pitcher, Trip Butler, declare he would never marry, she responded, "You haven't met me yet."

In a seven year stretch, she still hasn't made it out of the bullpen to meet him, but the game's still on.

Just before McKenna hands in her softballs for good, Trip slides into the locker room as her new coach, making him completely out of reach, according to the playbook.

Then Trip shatters her game plan by being an insufferable ass, showing her he isn't her home run.

Or is he? 

This may be the game she can't win.

I may have mentioned in reviews how much I am not a fan of first person reads, so if the author wants me to finish it, I need to love the characters that are talking to me. Thankfully, Joy Eileen  knocks it out of the park with her book Balk.

Now I also am not a sporty girl and could less about baseball/softball. Guess what her topic is about? An awkward girl who plays softball that is in love with a baseball legend. Yup. I enjoy this author and her other work  Transparent ( I think Belle wrote a review on it) So I opted to give this a try. I enjoyed it y’all! 

At 266 pages it was a fun quick read. Mckenna is an awkward, know it all who has been in love with baseball star Trip Butler since she was in Junior High. When he walks into her life as the new pitching coach for her college team it spins her world around and when he becomes one of her physical thereapy patients it spins out even faster. The two decide to be best friends but can that really happen? Along for the ride is Mckeena’s best friend Reene, who lives with her and they are raising Reene’s daughter. This little “squishy face” is adorable. There is drama, intrigue and even some hot sexiness.

This is your summer, lay out in the sunshine, and get lost for an hour or two. Make sure to have an ice-cold cocktail or mocktail in hand to help you cool down and I don’t mean because of the sun.

Joy Eileen is a born bibliophile who becomes deeply engaged with her characters, and has devoured more books than she would like to admit. She becomes obsessed with happily-ever-afters, and will read any genre that fulfills that requirement. Evading the library is something she has been known to do, because after befriending the characters returning them would be a heartbreaking event. Books are held hostage on her bookshelf, and any author that makes her ugly cry becomes her sworn enemy. Nicholas Sparks is one of the many on the list of villains.

As a massage therapist, most of Joy's stories come to her while working. With the sound of classical music, and snoring from a half covered hostage, characters are created. The victim (massage patient) has no idea that while their body is being manipulated, Joy has traveled into distant lands creating landscapes and inhabitants as she goes. Her patients should be wary as sometimes they are pulled into her stories and turned into characters. Hero or Foe? Well, that depends on how they tip.