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A Winning Season
Wickham Falls Wedding #10
BY Rochelle Alers

Harlequin
August 25, 2020/ ISBN 9781335894793
Sports Romance

Reviewed by Elise Cooper

A Winning Season by Rochelle Alers is very relevant today. Just a little more than a month ago, Major League baseball resumed after being delayed due to the Corona 19 virus. With this story, baseball fans get some of their favorite sport while also being able to see how family, friendship, and second chances plays an important role.

“I am a baseball fanatic! I put the Atlanta Braves in the story, but I am a New York Mets fan. After the Dodgers left Brooklyn we became Mets fans. To this day every time I go to a game they lose. The Braves are actually our rivals. I go way back to being a Brooklyn Dodger fan. My aunt would come up during the summer and take us to Ebbets Field. An interesting story. My other aunt was a school teacher and invited Jackie Robinson to meet the class. He actually came and took pictures.”

“Baseball is the backdrop. It helped to form the heroes’ personality as a superstar. He is a hometown hero. Because he had such popularity and grew up without a dad he became a role model for other boys who are at risk. He used his celebrity status and money to make the world a little better. I modeled him on Keith Hernandez, the first baseman for the Mets in the 1980s.”

The plot has eighteen-year-old Zoey Allen sacrificing her dreams to become a surrogate mother to her two step-brothers after their parents died. Now ten years later, the oldest, Kyle, has enlisted in the army, and his sixteen-year-old brother, Harper, is finishing high school. But he is a handful, pushing the boundaries and getting into trouble.

Their new neighbor is Sutton Reed, a retired Major League baseball superstar. After Harper attempts to take his car for a joy ride, he realizes that the teen needs a mentor. When Zoey confesses how bad things have gotten, Sutton decides to guide him since he has a soft spot for mentoring troubled teens. Being in close contact with Zoey he starts to realize that there is chemistry between the two of them. She has vowed never to have any romance, while still raising the boys. But her feelings get the better of her and she realizes that Harper is grown enough to understand that she also needs a life. As the attraction and relationship grows between Sutton and Zoey, Harper also steps up to the plate to become a responsible young man.

This is a story that will tug on the readers’ heartstrings with very sympathetic characters. Each one has sacrificed and is selfless whether it is Zoey foregoing her dreams, Sutton using his status and time to become a mentor, and Harper who realizes that he is the protector of his sister.

Reviewed 2020
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