PLAYING FAST

When Finn Castro, baseball’s sexy bad boy, gets sent down to the Saint’s minor league team to straighten out, he meets team administrator Eva Harlowe, who never, ever dates baseball players and isn’t going to start with a troublemaker—no matter how tempting he is.

Eva has a secret. The administrative manager of the Saratoga Springs Preachers, the Triple-A minor league team for the New York Saints, has a major crush on Finn Castro, a player who’d been sent to the farm team for a professional timeout. In nearly 14 years with the team, she has never dated a ball player, and she has every intention of keeping it that way. Not only has Finn derailed his promising career through his bad behavior, but the man is movie-star handsome and way out of her league. Except that he seems really interested in her. And he also comes across as sweet, genuine, and thoughtful—the complete opposite of his reputation. Eva has played it safe since her parents died in a car accident and she took over raising her three younger sisters. Now they’re all grown up, and it’s time to pursue her own dreams, and maybe a fling with her dream player is a step in the right direction. After all, Finn isn’t a forever kind of guy, which is OK, because Eva is making some big plans that include total professional reinvention and a move across the country. Except maybe Finn is a forever kind of guy for the right girl, while Eva is too willing to let fear get in the way of her own happiness. Author Scott continues her New York Saints series with another hit and the same compelling romance we’ve come to expect. Finn and Eva practically scorch the pages with sexual tension, and the well-drawn main and secondary characters flesh out an interesting minor league baseball community, though Eva’s stubborn adherence to a path that no longer makes sense gets slightly tedious.

Dynamic, sexy, and intense, especially perfect for baseball romance fans.