His Golden Heart

by Marcia King-Gamble

Beaumont Hill, the only African American skier on the US Olympic team, is heavily favored to win gold - until he takes a devastating fall and loses it all. His back broken, Beau has lost the will to live. But former gymnast Shayna DaCosta is determined to help do more than see him plod through life. She's been there, taken the bull by the proverbial horns and made a productive life for herself. As attracted as she is to Beau, he's still the patient, and she can't get romantically involved. Complicating matters further, Beau's father is hellbent on prosecuting her little brother. Can true love survive these hard times?

Genres: Romance

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 16, 2014

About the author

Marcia King-Gamble originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the same mesmerizing shade of blue.

She is a former travel industry executive and a self proclaimed globetrotter. Marcia is particularly fond of Hong Kong, Venice, and New Zealand, not only for the scenery, but because of the mouthwatering food.

A National Bestselling author, Marcia has penned almost 40 novels. Her free time is spent at the gym, traveling, and with her animal family.

She loves hearing from you. E mail her at mkinggambl@aol.com or like her on Facebook http://on.fb.me/1GF28CG

Reviews

[Rita · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 28%

Quando me saiu no sorteio o país São Vicente e Granadinas, optei por ir à procura de um livro que fosse bestseller no país. Saiu-me este. Olhei para a capa, para a sinopse e pensei: humm! Clichés e Mel! 🍯, não preciso disto, mas vamos lá tentar e até está gratuito, por isso que se lixe 🤷‍♂️

Consegui aguentar-me até aos 28%, o que considero épico tendo em conta a história.📖💪

Como é sabido, no reino dos romances, os clichés brotam como ervas daninhas num jardim abandonado. Um rapaz atlético sofre uma lesão, fica numa cadeira de rodas 👨🏿‍🦽, e a fisioterapeuta 🧍🏿‍♀️, que também teve uma grave lesão no passado, tenta recuperá-lo.
Quando se conhecem não se dão bem 👬🤬, mas há algo que desperta aquela química e as faíscas da paixão 💖 estão lá todas. 🤢🤮
Estes protagonistas, que mais parecem modelos de um catálogo de emoções, trocam olhares 👀💫 que poderiam ser vendidos como adereços numa loja de fantasias sentimentais🌈💖
Os diálogos 💭 são um desfile de frases feitas. As situações em que se encontram são tão planeadas que desafiam toda a lógica ou bom senso.

Mesmo que só tenha aguentado 28% do livro, a verdadeira epopeia foi resistir a este mar de previsibilidades. Agora, ao escrever isto, tenho-me divertido mais a colocar emojis no texto do que aquilo que era esperado 😂


72/198 - São Vicente e Granadinas

[Bree Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars
May TBR - Audiobook - Audible+

♡ Olympian hero and heroine
♡ physical therapist/patient
♡ grumpy/sunshine

I love the premise of this book and the romance was pretty good, but the storytelling felt a little disjointed and the pacing seemed off.

I wasn't able to find any own voices reviews (disability rep) for this book as I was reading this, but proceed with caution and check out my trigger warnings. The hero is an Olympian who has recently been severely injured and needs to use a wheelchair and he is dealing with a lot of anger and resentment in the beginning because of it.

Rep: Black author, Black characters, Disabled character

Triggers: Use of the words “lame” and “cripple”, ableism, racism

[Kameel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent story of a Olympic skier hurt during the trials.....Beau had to learn to walk all over again....and it was a former Olympic gymnast turned physical therapist to the rescue....Cute story...terrible narration....I guess that I'm spoiled when it comes to narration....HOWEVER, it will make or break a story for me....this guy basically read the book to me...which was boring AF.....

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of the heart!

This was a great story of finding true love when you're in recovery from heart ache. Beau had a big heart and suffered a lot of pain. Shayna suffered pain as well but overcame and was able to love again. Good book!

[Virginia Boylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The main characters were likeable and believable, though I thought Shayna should have withdrawn sooner as his physical therapist. Their experiences as Black Americans was well portrayed without bitterness or over-dramatization but also without pulling punches. Though it would have slowed the story and wasn’t integral to the romance, I would have enjoyed a bit more about Beau’s recovery. I got the impression the audiobook narrator didn’t know much about skiing, and wondered why we got so much stress on the road conditions when they had no impact on the story. The twists with Shayna’s brother and Beau’s accident were excellent additions, but again I would have liked more details as the respective situations reached their conclusions.

[Natalie Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Predictable, but a good story.

[Cherryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

They both faced obstacles in life

This was an enjoyable read about people's obstacles in life. Beaumont Hill had an uphill battle after he broke his back under suspicious circumstances. Shayna DaCosta as a physical therapist, related to her patients for personal reasons. She too had to battle back from the brink of an injury. When Beau became her patient, she could relate to him, and they both became attracted to each other which complicated things in more ways than just ethical as Shayna was not openly communicative about things in her personal life and also things in relationship with her brother.

I only had one problem with this story and that was the names of the female leads. Their names were just too close in sound and were a little confusing in trying to relate to who was who. Even though the names of Shayna and Shonda are different, they are enough alike to make the reader blink a couple of times to figure out whom the author was writing about.

NOTE: This book was listened to using Audible.com.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome love story