First Season by R. J. Scott and V. L. Locey

First Season by R. J. Scott and V. L. Locey

🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸

Buy Links: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo

Blurb:

Layton wants success, Adler wants family, how can love make both these things possible?

Layton Foxx works hard for what he has. The condo, the career, the chance to make his mark, is all down to the sacrifices he has made. With tragedy in his past, he doesn’t want or need love. Then he meets Adler Lockhart, the extroverted, sexy winger for the Harrisburg Railers and abruptly he can’t avoid love even if he wanted to.

Adler Lockhart has had everything handed to him his whole life. Cars, villas, cash, college tuition at the finest Ivy League schools. The only things he doesn’t have are parents who care or the love of a good man. Then Layton walks into his privileged life and shows him what real love can be like.

Review:

I’ve been on this murder-and-hockey kick since my daughter’s season ended. (They came in second in their league. Which isn’t bad considering their start.)  Maybe I should describe it more like a murder-or-hockey kick, but I’ve found it difficult to be satisfied by a book that didn’t contain one or the other. I think it’s going to be a long off season.

Anyway, First Season made me nervous at first. Adler was emphatically not my favorite character in Changing Lines, and having a book where he was one of the main characters was going to be a challenge. Scott and Locey took this character who I was pretty much predisposed to hate and turned him into someone I love, some I want to sit down at my kitchen table and feed.

Both Layton and Adler are damaged individuals, although their trauma is different and they handle it in different ways. I’m reluctant to get too detailed about Layton’s because it’s a major plot point. Suffice it to say that it takes a lot of determination and a spine of solid steel to do the kind of work he does under the circumstances.

As for Adler, while the “poor little rich kid” stereotype is kind of stale, in his case it’s absolutely heartbreaking. He also tends to babble when he’s uncomfortable, which reminds me a lot of myself. He’s incredibly awkward, and he can be incredibly clueless in social interactions. Again, kind of like me. Did I mention I kind of wanted to “mom” him until he cried uncle?  At the beginning of the story, I wanted them kept apart as far as I could. By the end, I was cheering for their happy ending.

And finally, there’s Stan. He was probably my favorite part of Changing Lines, and he’s still there capturing the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere. Or maybe it’s just me. I know this is a series, and the series has moved on, and he will eventually find love and learn English and all that. I almost don’t want him to. I love his attempts at communicating. At the same time, I want only good things for Stan, who makes me smile every time I see him on the page.

In terms of this book’s place within the series, it does stand alone. There is some lingering drama from the first book, but it’s not the main point of the book. It circles Layton and Adler, but it’s not their focus and someone new to the series would have no problem figuring out what’s going on if they picked the book up here.

So, tl;dr?  Buy the book. Read it. Pretend it’s still hockey season and love is real.