Travis Horton could see for himself that the girl was sexy, vivacious, and very tall. But was she the kind of girl he could look up to?
Size: 341 KB (64,135 words)
Genre: Romantic
Sex Contents: Some Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Romantic, Heterosexual
Review by Quasirandom [other reviews by Quasirandom]
Reviewed:
Standard Obligatory Disclaimer: I don’t like baseball, but I do enjoy Tony Stevens’ baseball stories. (Mitsuru Adachi is the only other comparable author I’ve met.) His ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ series is Great Stuff, being sweet and sexy romances with young adults where it just so happens at least one partner is involved with the game.
This story is installment #12, but that number means little — the series has a shadow of an overall arc, but each story stands alone and can be read in any order. You can also read it knowing little (like I do) to nothing about baseball — the sport is important in the story only because it’s important to the characters, and the emotional significance of sportsball events is always made clear.
Travis is a recently traded backup outfielder and Juniper is the very tall step-daughter of one of his new coaches. They spark pretty quickly, though, despite their workplace connection and height differences. (Confession: I’ve never really understood the problem of tall women and personally like a woman to be tall, though admittedly I’m the same height as Juniper so have a lot of privilege.) More of an issue than either of those are their insecurities in other directions — and hers are a larger hill than merely her height.
I liked this, but honestly it feels the story needs a little more space in the final quarter to give the character arcs space to develop. Significantly, it’s missing a story code, specifically Rape, and its aftereffects are, mmm, not exactly glossed over, but they are gotten through too easily. Taking more time, digging deeper into Juniper and Travis’s emotions, would have turned a pretty good story into a great one.
Which is not a disrecommendation — far from it. Definitely rec’d if you’re in the mood for a sweet and spicy romance.
Oh, and one final note: this story is Premium, which makes it one more reason to support this site by getting a Premier membership.
Review by The Black Knight [other reviews by The Black Knight]
Reviewed:
For the record, I am a fan of the series. Obviously, it would be better if the Sox won the Series and the Yankees finished behind Tampa in every story, but asking for perfection is a bit much.
Seriously, though, I started reading this story fully expecting to enjoy it as much as the other stories in the series that I've read. And on the technical merits of the writing, as well as the plot and characterization, it was certainly as good as any of them.
Personally, though, I couldn't enjoy the story. It's quite possibly only my own issues; others who've enjoyed the series may find this one just as good. Readers who are overly sensitive to certain content which doesn't quite rise to the needed level of detail in this story to require being coded may want to pass on it, though.
