The Hot Shot by Kristen Callihan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
First we were friends. Then we were roommates. Now I want more…
The Hot Shot
What can I say about Chess Copper? The woman is capable of bringing me to my knees. I know this about five minutes after getting naked for her.
No one is more surprised than me. The prickly photographer my team hired to shoot our annual charity calendar isn’t my usual type. She’s defense to my offense, a challenge at every turn. But when I’m with her, all the regrets and darkness goes away. She makes life fun.
I want to know Chess, be close to her. Which is a bad idea.
Chess is looking for a relationship. I’ve never given a woman more than one night. But when fate leaves Chess without a home, I step up and offer her mine. We’re roommates now. Friends without benefits. But it’s getting harder to keep our hands off each other. And the longer we live together the more I realize she’s becoming my everything.
Trick is… Now that I’ve made her believe I’m a bad bet, how do I convince her to give this player a true shot at forever?
Chester Copperpot!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: ☹️🙃☺️😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration
The heroine: Chess Copper – she is a successful photographer whose next job is to take pictures for a New Orleans NFL nude calendar. She feels she has been apathetic to the other sex lately based on years of dating crappy men. She was a design major who started doing fashion photography for her college roommate who was a fashion major and her career took off from there, but took the NFL job because it was high profile and they asked for her specifically.
The Hero: Finn Mannus – He is an NFL Quarterback for New Orleans and a player in every sense of the word with a big fear of commitment. He is surprised to find out the photo shoot he and his team are sent to is for a nude calendar, so he makes his feelings known to the photographer, who immediately thinks he is a jerk. Though is surprised to find out how attracted he is to Chess, despite the fact she is not his usual type.
The Story: The relationship between Mannus and Chess is acrimonious from the start. They are attracted to each other from the start. Though Chess is disturbed by the fact that she is attracted to the annoying guy and she soon has to take naked pictures of him. Yet she is determined not to be distracted by a mouthy quarterback.
I liked that Finn showed some vulnerability early on which broke his tough, mouthy exterior for both Chess and the reader. It made him more real and approachable. Though Chess still feels that in a world full of men that are bad bets, he would come in at the top. When Chess and Finn coincidently meet up in the next few days, they decide to try a date.
I love sports romance and this had a good storyline. Though it did have some of my pet peeves. Like the fact that Mannus’s first thought about Chess is that she wasn’t beautiful. I hate that, since he was attracted to her from the start. I think attraction can make anyone beautiful to the eye of the beholder so outright saying she wasn’t beautiful wasn’t necessary to the story.
Though I have to say I love how protective Finn gets at one point in the story and how he takes charge and takes care of Chess. I am all for an independent woman, I am one myself, though I am a total sucker for a man who will step in and take care of a woman in need, without any ulterior motives. It is nice to see and I wish I could find a man like that.
The story is told in dual points of view via dual narration and was narrated by Teddy Hamilton and Grace Grant. I love Teddy Hamilton’s voice and style and will listen to just about anything he narrates. I wasn’t as fond of Grace Grant’s voice, it is loud and clear, and just a tiny bit annoying to me. Though overall she does a good job.
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