Love of the Game by Lori Wilde

I’ve obviously missed a trick with this author, I haven’t read any of her books before and so I had nothing to compare this too and in a way I think that was a good thing. Because it is not always easy to give a story a fair crack when you have a reading relationship with previous works by the author.

So here we go.

This is part of a series but I think it is fairly easy to read as a standalone book, it has reference and reaction that obviously pay reference to the previous works but having not read the others, I don’t think my enjoyment suffered at all.

Kasha is a trained physical therapist and her later assignment is to help rehabilitate Axel, a baseball player who has recently undergone a surgical procedure for a shoulder injury.

His career hangs in the balance and in a way so does Kasha’s.  Now life in pro sport is far from easy and when a potentially career ending event comes into the picture it isn’t only the physical aspect or recuperation that needs to considered and for Axel I got the feeling that he could address the physical, yes it frustrated him not being able to do what he could before but it was the stuff inside that “guys” like him were reluctant to discuss that was always going to cause him more trouble.

He might have been one sexy SOB but he hid his heartache well. More than anything I hoped that Kasha would give him reason to see that being honest with himself and letting go of the demons that plagued him might actually help him physically as much as it would mentally. But could she live by the same rule. Her life was a carefully guarded secret, she shielded her heart totally the absolute poster girl for the do what I say and not what I do hypothesis.

I found her reluctance to embrace her own advice frustrating at times, and that made her character a little on the touchy side for me, I wanted to like her more than I did initially. But with her relationship with her sister Emma, I saw a glimmer of hope that he could be what I was hoping for.

The relationship between Axel and Kasha set the page a light when it took off, they may have tried to fight it off but there wasn’t a hope that they were either big enough or strong enough to defeat a love that between them knew no bounds. There was chemistry there that was never going to just lay down and die, it was in for the long haul and they were along for the ride.

Well written it has elements that were very engaging but I read with a shake of my head more often that I would have liked. But would I recommend it…yes, without a doubt.