ROMANCING THE RUNNING BACK (Santa Fe Bobcats #4) by Jeanette Murray-a review

Romancing The Running Back

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date January 19, 2016

They’re not on the same page in the playbook…

When Anya Fisher is asked to be the maid of honor in her best friend’s wedding, she jumps at the chance to go to Santa Fe. There’s nothing left for her in Atlanta—except a bitter and controlling almost-ex husband. Starting over as an online personal shopper is challenging, but not as much as having to plan wedding festivities with uptight groomsman Josiah Walker…

As a Santa Fe Bobcats running back, Josiah wants to make his mark on the field, not on the earth. A serious conservationist, he’s all about saving energy. So why is he wasting so much on the flighty fashionista in his best friend’s wedding? One kiss leads to another—and more. But when Josiah discovers that Anya has just as much substance as style, their harmless little fling may go into overtime.

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REVIEW: ROMANCING THE RUNNING BACK is the fourth installment in Jeanette Murray’s contemporary, adult SANTA FE BOBCATS football romance series focusing on the members of the Santa Fe Bobcats professional football team. This is Bobcat’s running back Josiah Walker, and personal shopper Anya Fisher’s story line. ROMANCING THE RUNNING BACK can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty.

Told from dual third person perspectives (Anya and Josiah) ROMANCING THE RUNNING BACK follows the building relationship between Anya And Josiah, a forbidden relationship when the truth about Anya’s almost ex-husband comes to light. Anya is a professional shopper and a very busy lady who moves to Santa Fe to help organize and plan Cassie and Trey’s (One Night with the Quarterback) wedding / bachelor & bachelorette parties but a move that takes everybody by surprise. Anya has a secret back home, and distance is the only way she is able to handle her almost ex who refuses to sign on the dotted line. Enter Josiah Walker, Trey Owens’ s team mate and the man who brings out all of the worst in our story line heroine.

The relationship between Anya and Josiah begins acrimoniously. Our couple is thrown together by Trey and Cassie in the hopes of making a love match but what ensues is the push and pull between two people whose lives and personalities are polar opposites. Josiah doesn’t understand the need for a professional shopper or a fashionista of any sort; and Anya believes Josiah’s need to be ecologically friendly goes beyond what is actually necessary. There is plenty of sexual tension and anxiety as Anya and Josiah play off one another’s personality quirks. The $ex scenes are intimate without the use of erotic graphic text or language.

All of the previous story line couples play secondary and supporting roles throughout the story line as Trey and Cassie prepare for their upcoming nuptials. Cassie’s half sisters continue to add a little bit of family confrontation. While the Santa Fe Bobcats make a run for the Superbowl playoffs, Anya pushes herself in one too many directions. Time on the playing field is limited although the players do spend plenty of time watching replays and reruns of their games. Anya’s not quite ex-husband makes for a scandal that could affect her future with the Bobcat’s running back.

ROMANCING THE RUNNING BACK is a fun read with the push and pull between two people whose introduction to one another did not go according to plan. The premise is entertaining with a little bit of humor and fun (e.g. Koala fart towels); the characters are colorful, charismatic and frustratingly real; the romance was a bit of a slow build to a happily ever after. There are moments of friendship and love; moving forward and letting go of the past; resignation and realization that sometimes love does conquer all.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley.

Reviewed by Sandy