Hello everyone!
This. This is what happens when I run out of time.
I resort to reading novellas because my full-length books are sitting there and staring at me accusingly because I have all of them sort-of-read, but not really.
Honest to goodness, I have novels in the works, people.
I swear!
But ... life happens. And it doesn't usually ask if I'd like it to play nice or anything.
Not that it was anything alarming, just things piling up on things and in the end I had to sacrifice something to keep a sane head on my shoulders, which basically means that this week's book blog post has gotten the short stick.
And I apologise.
However, it's not THAT bad. The book was actually entertaining enough to read!
I just never thought I'd find myself reading anything like Catching Hell.
Mindy Klasky has a full series of novella-ish type stories about a baseball team and the women who fall in love with the players, and what initially drew me to this (besides the fact that the first three books were offered for free for a while) was the sense of another team sport.
I've had massive success reading about hockey players (Catherine Gayle, I'm looking at you) and limited success reading about football players (Susan Elizabeth Phillips ... I need to get back at it), and lately I've found myself working around books describing soccer players, so sports and team sports in particular is something I connect well with.
So baseball seemed like a natural course for me to take. I've seen Major League - who hasn't? And I enjoyed the movie even though, as a European, I have about 0 clue about baseball.
Sadly, I have to say I did not in fact learn much about the sport from this book. Some, but not much.
Then again, I also have to admit I cackled when I saw the cover for the electronic book, or at least one version of the cover - the other one was just too much! This is the kind of book if, judging by cover alone, I wouldn't be caught dead reading. Still, I was intrigued by Perfect Pitch enough to carry on into Catching Hell, and the premise was honestly promising.
A May-December romance (with the woman younger and the man older) is something that, when done right, can be a joy to read. And Ms Klasky has certainly captured that with Anna and Zach!
The couple wasn't the problem.
The story begins with a rather gruesome injury that happens to one of the younger players of the Rockets, the baseball team Zach catches for, and now the team has to figure out a solution: they need someone as fast and as reliable as the kid who's out, and their only prospect seems to be a player from Texas.
Problem: Texas wants a big, BIG trade for this kid.
And part of this trade is Zach.
Problem: Zach has a no-trade clause in his contract, and he's not about to waive it because he swore that he'd start his Major league career with the Rockets, as well as finish it here, in red and blue.
So you can imagine the stalemate: management office, with Anna at the helm as the granddaughter of the Rockets' owner (and heiress apparent to this baseball empire), vs a reliable, if not all-star catcher Zach who's done a lot for the team during his fifteen seasons with them.
Now what?
Well, according to the book, now it's time for war.
The management turns on the heat for Zach, trying to make his life as unbearable as possible with the team so that he'd BEG to be sent to Texas just so the torture would stop (I'm talking having to pay for his own doctors, amenities, laundry, getting evicted out of his apartment, being thrown to the sharks with the post-game interviews, that sort of thing).
But they haven't counted on the fact that Zach's a tough cookie. And a stubborn one.
What doesn't help matters is that after a charity gala where sparks fly between Anna and Zach, the two end the night at her apartment, with some other kind of sparks flying. And surprisingly enough, throughout the book, I was very pleased to find that their private relationship didn't really suffer as the result of what was happening in their professional lives. It was a very mature outlook on things, and I high five that.
The only problem continues in Zach refusing to budge even when the management turns the heat on the entire team so he wouldn't feel welcome anymore (or some other stupid logic). Anna's grandfather is likewise starting to get agitated, despite the fact Anna benches Zach in the end, preventing him to help the team when they desperately need it (he kind of fought back by sitting out a suspension just to show them they needed him, prior to this), but even that doesn't help.
Finally, the stress becomes too much and Anna's grandfather suffers a stroke, prompting things to realign. He does wake up again, and Zach hires private nurses to make sure Anna can get some sleep, but the problem still isn't solved.
Until Zach solves it by quitting, asking Anna to marry him, and Anna hires him as Special Advisor.
FIN!
Ugh the other side of this book.
First and foremost, I loved the couple and they totally worked; Anna'd had a crush on Zach since forever and he finally saw her as a woman not a little girl, but he had his own demons with an old scar he didn't want her to see (from baseball), which was a refreshing change since it's usually the girl who asks that lights go off in the bedroom. But they were reasonable and mostly worked things out like adults, which I could totally get behind.
But the second part ...
I swear, if I were a Rocket baseball player, I'd be demanding to move to a different club.
How could management expect their players to stay loyal to them after the stunts they pulled? That wasn't hazing or razzing one another, that was downright bullying and being evil towards the most loyal player the team had. Not only that, but instead of COMMENDING him for the job he'd done for them, they actually TRIED TO FORCE HIM OUT. Like, I get it, sport is brutal, but considering the final solution, something that someone ought to have figured out way before Zach solved it for them (figuring out a different trade with Texas even with him quitting) that didn't require him to give up the game he loved ... that's just incompetence.
And there was absolutely no team spirit.
Dollars to doghnuts if I'd read something of the sort in a different series, the team would have pulled behind Zach and made sure they stood together as one against management. You know how quickly things would have been solved then?
Actually, I did read something similar. In the Thunderbirds hockey series, there's an issue with the owner's wife, but you don't see everyone going on her side to single one of their own out. No matter their personal feelings about her, they're rock solid BEHIND THE OTHER PLAYER. Because that's what team spirit is all about!
So yeah. That second bit disappointed me so much.
But my favourite scene remains where Zach is tossed to the journalists and goes for it head-on; the management thinks he'll sink, but he comes up so triumphant that he FORCES the coach to come rushing out to try and do damage control when it's already too late and Zach has it all well in hand.
Like, seriously, if this is the way things actually happen in the background of the sports world ... I'm appalled.
Not one of the best books I've picked, but not the worst either. Fifty-fifty!
xx
*image not mine
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