Beach Reads: [Pursue It] No Time to Explain by Kate Angell - 3 stars

[Theresa]

This book starts with very mixed messaging, and in fact the first 5 or 6 pages nearly made me toss it. However, it has all 4 items needed for a challenge, so I kept reading. Glad I did because it was worth it, although still some problems.

What was so offensive? Chapter one opens on a beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and Joe "Zoo" Zooker is strolling the boardwalk with a buddy. Initially it's all from Joe's POV. 4th sentence: It was a sea of sexy, sweet, and everything in between. It just gets worse from there. Joe is a star baseball player, all ego, testosterone, lust and borderline criminally offensive. In fact, later in the book he's described: He stood alone. Tall, built, and dangerous. The man not only has a loose (manwhore comes to mind) reputation, he has a party posse made up of 12 stunning and free living women! As I'm reading those first pages, my skin starting to crawl at the thought of this guy being the hero and can I stomach 220 or so pages of this, Joe stops to admire the legs of a beautiful young woman trying on a bridal garter at one of the booths along the boardwalk. Did I mention this is a bridal show held outdoors along the boardwalk and Joe and his baseball team buddies are there prowling for hook-ups? Oh yeah - trigger gag reflex.

And here is where the author managed to save it just enough for me to keep reading and ultimately be charmed. You see, the young woman trying on the garter is wimp. She not only rejects him, but she calls him out on his sexist bs, and in a very funny way. And so Joe, who is allergic to marriage, is of course intrigued and basically pursues Stevie (her father wanted a boy so named her Steven) as she wanders the bridal event, getting under her skin. For her part, Stevie is attracted though somewhat uncomfortable about it.

As the story unfolds, dogs enter the picture to add a serious cuteness factor and show us a softer better side to Joe. A couple of side character romances add sweetness, one involving long unrequited love, the other an older couple. There's also a very weak bit of drama involving a baseball league rival that is there only to create a reason for secrets to be kept and once revealed nearly destroy the relationship. Surprisingly, there are only 2 steamy scenes near the very end, after Joe and Stevie have been circling and teasing each other for a while. Ultimately, I really enjoyed it and even bumped up my rating because it really did a nice job of incorporating both baseball (especially an exhibition game) and a game of beach checkers (using humans on a giant board) into the plot.

[NancyJ]

Yeah, no. Thanks for the warning. I dated a bad boy like Joe. They do not change. I do like stories in which a bad guy is reformed, but it would be hard to root for him in the story. After dating bad boys, I learned to pay more attention to the good guys. I married mine 40 years ago Monday.

[Theresa]

NancyJ wrote: "Yeah, no. Thanks for the warning. I dated a bad boy like Joe. They do not change. I do like stories in which a bad guy is reformed, but it would be hard to root for him in the story. After dating b..."

Happy Anniversary, Nancy!