Home Run by Heidi McLaughlin

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Title: Home Run
Author: Heidi McLaughlin
Series: The Boys of Summer #2
Published by: Forever
Release Date: January 17, 2017
Format: eARC
Pages: 336
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Sports Romance
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's 2019 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge
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My rating:

Blurb:

The second novel in New York Times bestselling author Heidi McLaughlin's Boys of Summer baseball series.

Cooper Bailey finally has a shot at being a major league ballplayer, but it will take all his focus and energy during spring training to make it happen. Complicating things is his instantaneous connection with Ainsley Burke. He can't get enough of her, and before he knows it, they're spending every night together. But as happy as he is off the field, his focus on it is suffering, and he isn't willing to risk his lifelong dream over a girl.

But without Ainsley, Cooper's miserable, and his game is still off. No matter what he tries, he can't get her out of his head, and he's starting to realize that maybe he doesn't want to. Baseball is just a game, but Ainsley might be the real thing. Now he just has to convince her of that.

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

3 stars — This book started off pretty good, even with the insta-attraction and fast moving feelings.  But unfortunately the characters didn’t behave consistently, and I got a little bit cranky with them.

At the start of this book Cooper comes across really earnest, hard-working, and sweet!  I mean, there were some moments during training that his personality seemed two-sided, and I couldn’t figure out if he was a jerk or not, but in general I really liked him.  I loved that with his concentration on baseball and his career, he seemed to have a very romantic side.  He didn’t have much in his romantic past, and his crush on Ainsley was kind of endearing.  And then those moments where he was a jerk became more frequent, and his personality really became dichotomous…these two halves of him just didn’t make sense in one person.

Ainsley kind of suffered from a similar schizophrenic personality problem, but at least I kind of got why she was so torn (what with the stress she was dealing with).  Honestly, I can’t really tell you too much about Ainsley as a person, b/c so much of what we learn of her is wrapped up in caring for her Mother in her battle with cancer.  So she’s stressed, confused, depressed.  We know she’s involved with the giraffe’s with the zoo, but that really doesn’t come into play one way or another in the rest of the book.  And in the end she ran very hot and cold with Cooper, all-in one moment, pushing him away the next, then wanting him back a few hours later.  It was enough to give me whiplash.  Having one character behave in this way is one thing, but both of them was frustrating.

As for the two of them together?  Well, they started off sweet, then got deliciously steamy, and then the feelings came UBER quickly, and then they turned toxic.  And from there I couldn’t keep track of how they felt about one another, and I just didn’t buy in.

There were definitely high points in this book…even towards the end, when Cooper stood up for Ainsley with his Dad, or the bits with the pregnancy.  But it wasn’t enough to save it in my opinion.

Also, there was a lot of extra “stuff” in this book.  There was a LOT of baseball stuff…which is fine, but I felt like the descriptions of the games got really detailed a few times and it didn’t seem necessary to the plot.  Also, there were a LOT of secondary characters taking up time in the story.  And while I knew Ethan & Daisy were from the first book, their cameos took up a lot of space (almost like the author liked their relationship more and didn’t want to let them go).  I haven’t read a lot of Ms. McLaughlin, but I could totally guess that Ryan and Hadley were cameos from another book too (and I verified it), because they served no purpose in Cooper & Ainsley’s story, but they were constantly mentioned.

So yeah.  I’m a bit bummed, mostly b/c I was impressed with parts at the beginning, and then it just didn’t play out to my tastes.  I really can’t stand inconsistent characters, or characters who have extreme reactions…I guess I’m more into subtlety.  I’m starting to think this author just isn’t for me…