There was no denying the chemistry between the hero and heroine despite their volatile relationship, the entertaining secondary characters including a teenage boy who both broke and stole my heart, and two people finally learning to let go of their past so they can move forward into a future together all made Crashing The Net an interesting story. ~ Slick, Guilty Pleasures
Description:
Hockey star Cooper Black and professional party crasher Izzy Maxwell return in this sequel to Crashing the Boards.
Jealous boyfriends and glitzy parties can be a recipe for disaster. When the gorgeous yet controlling Cooper interrupts a party Izzy was paid to crash and almost ruins her career as a professional party crasher, Izzy kicks him to the curb. She learned early in life not to count on anyone, and she will not relinquish her independence, not even to a sexy-as-sin pro athlete who can melt her heart with one wink.
As the Sockeyes hockey team opens their inaugural season in Seattle, Cooper finds himself minus a girlfriend and plus a surly teenaged nephew. Cooper doesn’t want to be a surrogate dad, he doesn’t want to play in Seattle, and he doesn’t want to be alone. He misses Izzy, but seeing her with other men at parties turns him every shade of green. Regardless, he wants her back, and he’s willing to change, if only she’ll give him a second chance. Aware of her precarious finances, Cooper makes an offer she can’t refuse by hiring her to be responsible for his nephew when he’s traveling with the team.
Fearing Cooper isn’t capable of changing his control-freak ways, Izzy resists his efforts to turn their financial arrangement into a personal relationship. He needs a sweet, docile girlfriend, and Izzy cannot be that woman. Yet, when tragedy strikes, Izzy is there when Cooper needs her the most, and love has a way of getting what it wants, no matter the circumstances.
Review copy provided for an honest review
I have a love/hate relationship with Crashing the Net by Jami Davenport; on one hand I appreciate the intricate plot and the ending was pretty damn wonderful. On the other hand I honestly disliked the hero for the majority of the story and wanted to slap the heroine upside the head for her stubbornness that went beyond her need for independence and for how easily she let the hero manipulate her on more than one occasion. That being said there was no denying the chemistry between the hero and heroine despite their volatile relationship, the entertaining secondary characters including a teenage boy who both broke and stole my heart, and two people finally learning to let go of their past so they can move forward into a future together all made Crashing The Net an interesting story.
Sometimes a hero is hard to connect with and that’s the case with Cooper Black; I found him to be obstinate, self centered, and selfish and with very few redeeming qualities. I get that events in his childhood scarred him and left him unable to trust easily and made it hard for him to give and accept affection and love but he had means to get help for his issues and instead of doing that he just became a prick. Yes there were brief moments where he was likeable but throughout most of the story and until a life threatening event turned his world upside down he just didn’t have a clue on how to relate to people in his life and thus it was really hard to care about what happened to him.
From the first scene I really liked Izzy Maxwell and while she is not without her faults including her being way too stubborn for her own good, her overbearing nature, and letting her hormones rule her where Cooper was concerned even when she should have stayed away it was obvious she tried hard to be everything to everyone in her life. I admire her for stepping up and figuring out a way to keep her sisters safe and a way for them to earn a living and stay together. Just the fact that she did everything in her power to help Cooper when his nephew appeared on his doorstep showed how deeply she felt about family.
This couple spent so much time at odds and or telling each other they weren’t going to be a long term thing that it was hard to really feel the connection between them emotionally. Physically it was there and it was very good, but emotionally they were both somewhat stunted. In addition they never really talked about things that were important always giving in and having sex instead of talking which to be honest worries me about their ability to sustain a long term relationship.
There were many subplots in this book and at times they overshadowed the romance and made it hard to focus on the ones that were important including the situation with Riley, Cooper’s nephew, Cooper’s inability to trust and form connections due to his past, and Izzy’s problems with her sisters. I get that this is a series based on a hockey player and his life, and the team should be included in the book when you add in all of what was going on with the team in addition to everything else it really just seemed like too much in this one book. While I had some issues with this book there was enough I did enjoy that I will be checking out the next book in this series as I am curious to see what happens to the other Sockeye players.
Thanks Slick