Triple Play by Cassie Cole

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Batter up.

As the assistant baseball coach, I’m supposed to keep my hands off the players.
But Rafael Rivera, the ace pitcher for the Rangers, makes that awfully tough.
Half Puerto Rican and half Italian, his smile reminds me of orange groves and sweet red wine.
And when he shows up outside my hotel room one night?
Let’s just say our workout can’t be found in any baseball program.

But Rafael has two teammates who want to share me during the season.
There’s Darryl Bryant, the tattooed bad-boy who leads the team in home runs. He has an air of strength that makes me quiver with excitement, and I wonder if his rough exterior translates to roughness in the bedroom…
Then there’s Joel Rogers, the blond-haired, blue-eyed relief pitcher. A goofy boy-next-door with a smile that melts my heart. After I fix his pitching motion he insists on rewarding me with an extra special workout–one which makes my toes curl.

We’re racing toward the playoffs while practicing our positions.
Getting sweaty together on–and off–the field.
Is this just a regular season fling with three scorching-hot professional athletes?
Or will our love affair continue into extra innings?

Triple Play

Excellent!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🩵🖤❤️💜💚
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: ☺️😆😉😍🥰

The heroine: Natalie – One month into major league baseball’s spring training and she was hired as the assistant pitching coach. She had played baseball all her life and spent the last ten years as the pitching coach of a high school team and two of her pitchers had been drafted to the major leagues. She has the goods to be a great pitching coach, though coming in to a team in the majors, she is at once seen as just a girl who was hired for her looks.

The Heroes: Rafael, Joel and Darryl – Three players on the Texas Rangers major league baseball team.
Rafael – He was rookie of the year last year and is the star pitcher. He is half latino and half Italian in line to win the Cy young award this year, if he can get control of his pitches.
Joel – a blond, blue-eyed, muscular god of a man. During spring training, he is doing his best to get the last relief pitching spot on the roster.
Darryl – the star first baseman, who led the league in home runs last season. He is a wealthy tattooed bad boy.

The Story: Not only does Natalie have to overcome a bunch of prejudices against women and baseball, but many on the team think she got the job because of her looks or the assumption that she maybe slept with someone to get there, or that her Dad, a former scout, got her the job. Rafael, Joel and Darryl are all longtime good friends and from the time Natalie arrives on the scene. They have already decided to find a woman they can share for the season, like they had done in the past when they played together in the minor leagues.

I have read quite a few of Cassie Cole’s reverse harem romances in the past and the one thing you can really tell about her books is that she puts in the time and does her research on whatever subject she is writing on. She has the lingo down and in this case the baseball knowledge that is not just general knowledge but extremely specific to pitching. I love that the specifics like that aren’t just glossed over. It draws the reader into the story so much better. This is what a sports romance is supposed to be. I don’t even really like baseball, but the games were exciting.

I ended up liking this one much more than I thought I would when I first picked it up. The guys all had perfect personalities that really fit each one of them. Rafa was the hot latin lover and ace pitcher, Joel was the happy-go-lucky closer and Darryl was the broody bad boy and power hitter of the team. Natalie was feminine yet she made a great coach and was serious about her job. She knows so much about baseball, though she wasn’t a tomboy or too manly.

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