Defending Hearts by Shannon Stacey – Review & Giveaway

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Description:
They were the golden boys of fall: Stewart Mills High School’s legendary championship football team. Fourteen years later, they’re back to relive their glory, save the team—and find themselves again…

Globetrotting photographer Alex Murphy returns to Stewart Mills for a football fundraiser, but stays to document the football team and the town’s changes. Since his project includes photos of the Walker farm, he rents a room there.

Needing money to save the family farm, Gretchen Walker doesn’t have time to deal with the sexy photographer in her house. After all, Alex is a man with no sense of home, and to her, home is everything. But when she finds herself falling for him, she’ll be forced to decide where her dreams really lie…

Review:

Defending Hearts by Shannon Stacey is the 2^nd book in her Boys of Fall series. The first book in this series was about finding ways to make enough money to keep the town high school football team playing, Chase and Kelly falling in love.

Defending Hearts picks up a short time later, when Alex Murphy, one of the football players that had returned as a favor to help with the fundraiser, decides to return to Stewart Mills. Alex is a photographer, and after being in Stewart Mills, he feels something is missing and comes back to do a special on how the team, the town and it’s legendary coach are doing.

Gretchen Walker lives on the family farm with her grandmother, and because she needs money to keep the farm going, she agrees to let Alex rent a room in her house.   Gretchen is best friends with Kelly, and Jen, and now we know it’s her story to find her love.

Only Gretchen knows Alex is only here temporary, gathering his material before he leaves again. She does not want to trust her heart to someone who will never stay. With her grandmother’s constant scheming to push Alex and Gretchen together, their best laid plans to keep their distance falls apart. Both Alex and Gretchen decide that in the time he stays, they will enjoy the benefits.

What follows is a sweet romance that takes place mostly on the farm, where Gretchen is a hard worker, keeping the farm afloat. Alex finds himself content on the farm, helping Gretchen when she lets him, and the wonderful food that the grandmother makes. It was fun watching them fall in love, as well as seeing them sneak up on the hayloft to get some private time.   Another cute thing about this story is Coca, the lab, who loves to high five everyone. I really enjoyed how he expressed his love for Gretchen, Grandma and Alex. Cute.

This was a wonderful light romantic read that was also fun. Shannon Stacey does a great job continuing this story of three friends in a small town, who start a fundraiser to save the school football team, and end up falling in love. I can’t wait for the next book, when it will be Jen’s turn. I suggest you read this series, and start with Under the Lights.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher



Shannon’s publisher is offering a paper copy of DEFENDING HEARTS to ONE (1) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe

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9. Giveaway runs from October 27 – 31, 2015