 Gage Daniels has made a pretty good life for himself. A nice house. A career he loves. As a professional football player, he’s used to getting almost everything he’d ever want with just the snap of his fingers. This includes women. A well-timed smile is usually all it takes to attract the opposite sex, especially in Nashville. When a stalker threatens Gage, the team owner calls an old friend, Rebecca’s ex-partner Travis Hansen, to help protect his star quarterback and find the person responsible. Hansen offers Rebecca the job, and she jumps at the chance. It’s work, and it will get her out of her apartment. How bad can it be? Posing as Gage’s girlfriend, however, isn’t as easy as it seems. The man is relentless. Rebecca must work to protect Gage while staving off his advances. She’s there to do a job, nothing more. The last thing she wants is to be another notch on a hotshot athlete’s belt. As the stalker continues to up the ante, Rebecca finds it harder and harder to keep her distance from Nashville’s star quarterback. He isn’t what she expected in one of the city’s most notorious playboys. Now all she has to do is keep him safe until they can find his stalker, and hope she doesn’t lose her heart in the process. |
Gage Daniels is a pro football player who loves his social life and hanging out with his friends. He starts getting anonymous letters and pictures in the mail and his team owner wants him protected. Gage doesn’t take the pictures seriously, but what he doesn’t know is explosives were found on his car and his owner doesn’t want to take any chances. He calls his friend for help, who in turns asks his ex-partner Rebecca, who is currently on leave from her job at the FBI, to watch out for Gage. She takes the job but doesn’t anticipate what being around Gage is going to entail. Her cover is his girlfriend and her life is flipped upside down.
I was already into this story with the sports theme alone. I love the combination of sports and romance and I was pleased that there are actual sports scenes included for Gage, it’s not always the case! We get to see Gage in his quarterback role at practice, in a game and being around his teammates and friends. It was easy to like Gage right from the start. He’s a nice guy, he loves his career and he absolutely doesn’t want Rebecca around. Instead, he decides to have some fun with the buttoned up woman, and starts to make her over into his girlfriend. She resists, hard, at first but Gage is too sexy to deny for long and of course she starts falling for the handsome quarterback. It’s especially easy for her to do once she gets to know him and sees him interact with his family and friends.
That was the other aspect to Gage I really enjoyed, seeing him around his brothers and parents and the sibling-like relationship he develops with Rebecca’s sister Megan, who comes to stay at Gage’s house since Rebecca is there and she needs her sister after having her heart broken, yet again. Gage was everything I enjoy reading about with a hero: sexy athlete, sweet with his family and young niece, protective of Rebecca even though she’s the one that’s doing the protecting. He’s a nice guy and carried the story for me.
Red Zone was all about the romance, it’s what was strong and it overpowered the suspense storyline which ended up feeling a bit weak. The bad guy, who is revealed at the end, was almost a let-down. I guess I hard time with the reasons for this person to be stalking Gage. The stalker storyline didn’t take away from the overall book, as I thoroughly enjoyed Rebecca, Gage and their story together, but it wasn’t something that had me on the edge of my seat.
Gage didn’t try to explain it to his brother. He couldn’t explain it to himself. Even though this was supposed to be a ruse, for him it was quickly becoming anything but. Rebecca was unlike any woman he’d ever met. She was beautiful, sexy and completely and utterly unaffected by his pseudocelebrity status. No matter what he threw at her, she gave it back to him, even when he was messing with her. The woman knocked his legs out from under him without even trying.
Also questionable was the ending. It ends very, very abruptly. Another chapter or an epilogue is really needed to finish out Gage and Rebecca’s story. We’re left with Rebecca and Gage in love, but they both love their jobs and live in different cities. One other surprise element is brought into their relationship at the very end, but I need to know how they’re going to make it work. There will have to be sacrifices made and I want to know what they are and how they’re making their relationship work going forward.
I had a lot of fun reading Red Zone and was pleased to see that the series is about all the Daniels brothers. This book reads well as a stand alone, but I’ll be picking up book 1 so I can get to know the entire family and all these sexy brothers. The combination of the romance, football and Gage all worked, and it’s a story I’d recommend.
Rating: B
Release Date: February 7, 2013
Sherri Hayes: Webpage | Facebook | Twitter
*eARC provided by publisher for review*
oh the ending isn't complete? arf still i want to discover this book!! and since it's a series you will perhaps get your answer in the story of brother number 3^^
ReplyDeletethank you a lot for this review
A reader on Goodreads said that she heard there was going to be an epilogue added in the final version - so hopefully that happens, because it's needed!
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