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Jami Davenport’s Seattle Lumberjacks Series and Cover Reveal for Backfield in Motion – Reviews/Giveaway

 

Prize Information:

 

Borough’s Publishing is giving away one grand prize,  a five-book subscription to their Lunchbox Romances including one story by Jami Davenport, Love at First Snow to one winner from all the different tour stops. Winner will be selected by Rafflecopter.  No individual tour stop prizes.  Rafflecopter Link is at the bottom of the post and good luck!

 

 

COMING SOON!  I CAN.NOT.WAIT!

 

 

 

 

Blurbs

Fourth and Goal (Seattle Lumberjacks #1) 

In a game played on and off the field, only one of them will emerge the winner.

Armed with an uncanny ability for evaluating football talent, a dogged determination to succeed in a man’s world, and an empty bank account, Rachel McCormick agrees to help struggling wide receiver Derek Ramsey get his game back. Rachel believes Derek, her former best friend and lover, knows the truth behind the points-shaving scandal which ruined her father. She vows to expose the secret even if it destroys Derek in the process.

When Derek’s coach suggests sex as an excellent tension reliever the night before a game, Rachel takes one for the team. The next day, Derek has the best performance of his not-so illustrious pro football career. As Derek and Rachel rack up nights in bed and other places, the team racks up wins on the field. Rachel is torn between her loyalty to her father and her growing affection for Derek.

Now it’s fourth and goal, one second left on the clock. Their hearts are on the line. Do they trust each other enough to go for the long bomb or do they get dropped for a loss?

Review:

Let me start off by saying that I live in Texas where football reigns supreme.  I used to love the Dallas Cowboys until Jerry Jones bought them.  Haven’t cheered for them since and never will again.  I love my college football on Saturday.  Boomer Sooner and Gig’m Aggies.  No teasippers (UT-Longhorns) allowed at our house.  And bring on Friday Night Lights.

This book is the perfect start to a great series.  I will warn you of a couple of things so hang in there.

1.  It’s a long book and Ms. Davenport needs the time to establish the Lumberjacks, players, coaches and the setting.

2.  While most people would consider this book erotic, I didn’t.  Ultra spicy and hot.  The park bench scene alone will scorch your fingers.  And bring a fan.

3.  There a lot of football references and sayings in the book.  Ms. Davenport knows her football but she also doesn’t dumb it down for the reader.  She talks about football in plain English so that even the non-football fan can understand.

4.  The points shaving conflict is great and very relevant in today’s society.  Unfortunately, fortunes and careers are lost because of it.  Again, she handles it with care.

Okay, now that I have that out-of-the-way on with the review.  Derek and Rachel share a back history that saddened me when I read about it.  I know all about sleeping with a friend and then losing the friend in the end.  How they go about seeing each other and ultimately being with each other after all the hurt is well worth it in the end.  They need each other more than they care to admit and the journey to the HEA is rocky, sexy and heartbreaking.  Don’t expect a lot of humor in the book but it does have its moments.  The ice queen comes to mind.

The secondary characters in the book are excellent, too.  I will admit that I can.not.stand Tyler and Cass.  More about them in my review of Tyler’s book.  🙂  That said, the secondary characters are well drawn and bring tissues for a character named Ryan.  That’s all I’m saying…

Plus, all the action on the football field?  I had to get my fix on my Texans app with practice updates.  LOL!  Each chapter is a football reference and I loved that.  It made figure out how the reference referred to the chapter.  And yes, I did finally figure them out.  While I didn’t like Tyler in the book, he is a great sounding board for Derek.  You feel the love and affection that they two cousins have for each other.  At times, I felt like Tyler was going to take over Derek and Rachel’s story.

Overall, I recommend this ultra sexy look at how two friends can go from friends to lovers to lovers to friends and found their HEA.  It’s a hard-fought battle but its worth it in the end.

 

(only because of Tyler and Cass)

 

 

 

Forward Passes (Seattle Lumberjacks #2) 

Quarterback Tyler Harris is about to find the woman who can get past his defensive line and reach his heart.

With two championships in as many years, superstar Tyler Harris is the best quarterback in the league. Gorgeous and rich, he’s at the top of his game. But everyone’s looking to take him down. There’s a building media frenzy around an unfortunate accident, and the only safe place seems a rundown mansion deep in the San Juans and owned by his late great-uncle. There, Tyler gets sacked by the sassy redhead next door. It’s more alive than he’s felt in years.

Lavender Mead has a good reason to dislike jocks, namely an absentee father who deserted the family to coach college football. Maybe that explains her penchant for bad boys who play ball for a living and break hearts for a hobby. Her new neighbor seems just the type. Yet, something is different about Tyler, and sometimes love requires a Hail Mary. You draw back your arm, pray…and give it all up to fate. And sometimes you win your ring.

Review:

Okay, now to Tyler’s story.  As I said in my review of Fourth and Goal, I hated Tyler and Cass.  They were a distraction and for me, Tyler had no redeeming qualities at all except for his relationship with Derek.  Yes, they were cousins and grew up together but overall, I thought Tyler was going to take over Derek’s story.

Forward Passes completely changed my mind about Tyler.  Tyler is one messed up character.  He is almost beyond redemption for me but one act after winning the Super Bowl, he comes to realize how empty and superficial his life has become.  If there was ever a hero that needed to be redeemed, its Tyler.  Superficial on every level of his being and being with a woman since college, just because the make up sex is great, yep, its Tyler.  What we are treated to is a character that has so many layers to him that I don’t think that Ms. Davenport has only scratched the surface with him.  Once you get past the blunder, bullshit and posing, Tyler is one hell of marshmallow.

I got Lavender from the start.  I don’t think she could hold out for Tyler for as long as she did but…she too had her baggage and I’m not sure that without Tyler in her life that she would have overcome it.  Dealing with Parental Alienation Syndrome (which I had never heard of you before) and Doris, her grandmother (who I absolutely hated and wanted to slap more time than not but she is necessary to Lavendar’s growth) and then the twist with her dad and Tyler.  Damn, she had a lot to go through too.

Ms. Davenport handles the social issues like forgetting about the older generation in our lives and abandonment as a child with great care.  Yes, she can write a sports romance and hot sex scenes but she also weaves in real, relatable issues that her characters have to face to find their HEA.  What she writes about socially make me think and normally I don’t like to think in romance books but I do with hers.

If I had one tiny problem with the sex scenes, which are way hotter here, is the Domme scene.  Seemed out-of-place to me but that’s just me.

I have never rooted more for two characters to come together and stay together in a book.  Both have intimacy issues, abandonment issues and Tyler, just needs to grow up.  Their dialogue, the setting and OMG, Cougar the cat were a hoot!  BTW, the break up with Cass was perfect.  She mailed it in like a wuss.  Only showed how little she meant to him in the end.

I can highly recommend Tyler’s story.  I haven’t read a story about a hero that needed so much redemption for me to even remotely like him and understand him but Forward Passes did that for me.  You will see more of him in Down by Contact and of course, since I read that book BEFORE Forward Passes, Tyler comes off as an ass but just wait…he is all kinds of awesomeness in Zach’s story.  🙂

 

 (HIGHLY recommend all three books.  They can be read stand alone but to really understand Tyler, please read them in order)

 Down by Contact (Seattle Lumberjacks #3) 

 

It’s showtime.

After twelve years in the league, all Zach Murphy wants is a Super Bowl ring. He’s been about hard hits not smooth manners, about breaking quarterbacks not making small talk at cocktail parties. But now he’s shattered something else. After dumping a tray of drinks on the team owner’s snooty daughter and accidentally feeling up the Governor’s wife, his tenure with his team looks perilously short. And things are getting worse.

Life is looking up for Kelsie Carrington-Richmond. A onetime beauty pageant star and mean girl, she only recently stopped living out of her car. But those times have passed. Her finishing school for real men has a real shot, and the Seattle Lumberjacks have hired her to polish their roughest player.

Except…it’s Zach. Long ago she broke his heart. He’s just the beast she remembers—gruff, protective—but she’s nothing like the beauty from his past. Yet, getting knocked down happens, and getting back up makes a contender. And they both have the hearts of champions.

Harlie’s Review of Down by Contact

Buy Links:
Amazon (codes for first 3 books)

Barnes & Noble (code for Jami’s B&N page)

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5 thoughts on “Jami Davenport’s Seattle Lumberjacks Series and Cover Reveal for Backfield in Motion – Reviews/Giveaway

  1. Thanks for the spotlight on these books and for the cover reveal for Backfield in Motion….wowza love the cover!

  2. Harlie, Thank you for the feature and the reviews. I’m so glad you “got” Tyler. I find that readers either love him or hate him. He’ll be back in Book 6 because Lavender lays it on the line for him because he won’t marry her.

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