Title: Coast to Coast
Authors: RJ Scott & VL Locey
Series: Arizona Raptors #1
Genre: M/M Romance, Hockey Romance
Release Blitz: September 29, 2019
Cover Design: Meredith Russell
When opposites attract, it’s not just the team that’s in for a shake-up.
When a stipulation in his father’s will throws Mark back into a family that disowned him, he has only two things on his mind; buying his way out of contractual obligations and running in the opposite direction as fast as he can. When neither option pans out, he finds he is now a one third owner of the struggling Arizona Raptors hockey team, and that is just about the worst thing he could have happened to him. Not only does he hate hockey, but the Raptors are a bottom-of-the-league team, rife with jealousies and anger in a locker room that only knows self-pity. How is he supposed to help turn things around when the only way to start fixing things is to form an alliance with the estranged siblings he’d run from fifteen years earlier?
Then there’s Rowen Carmichael, a stubborn, opinionated, irritating man with superiority issues and questionable taste in music. Butting heads with Rowen, who he’d never even wanted to hire in the first place, is one thing, but there is no way in hell that he will allow the growing attraction to the new coach become anything more. Until with everything on the line, he has to make decisions that will change his life forever.
After years of collegiate coaching, Rowen is given an offer that he simply can’t refuse, although perhaps he should. When he’s presented with the chance to take one of the worst teams in the league and mold them into a future cup contender, the challenge is just too alluring to pass up. He leaves his beloved Ontario behind and moves west to the arid city of Tucson where he is faced with a broken team, shoddy management, and players overflowing with resentment and bigotry.
Never in his twenty years of hockey has he ever seen such a raging dumpster fire of an organization. Yet there’s something about this team and this city that compels him to roll up his sleeves and start dismantling. He has his eye on a new associate coach that’s bound to makes waves, and several key players who should be sent packing. Now all he has to do is convince the new owners of the team that his choices are for the best. If only Mark Westman-Reid, one of three siblings who now own the Raptors, wasn’t so damned rock-headed, so damned snooty, and so damned appealing his job might be a bit easier.
When I heard the Raptors were going to be the next hockey series from RJ Scott & VL Locey I was more than a little apprehensive. I mean sure, it's Scott & Locey at the helm but it was one of the Raptors' star players that took down Railers' star Tennant Rowe so how could a team that has that kind of player on the roster be a pleasant read? Right? Well I needn't have worried because Coast to Coast is just . . . WOW! Okay they may not be the Railers but they are still pretty darn great and chock full of potential.
I'm not going to lie, Mark Westman-Reid really got my goat up in the beginning, but as we quickly learn he has reasons, and very valid reasons, to not want to be there. Even after learning said reasons, I'll fill you in on a little secret: I still wanted to whack him upside the head a few times but eventually he begins to "mellow out" and realizes that sometimes you have to go back to grow and move forward.
As for Rowen Carmichael, well he has his work cut out for him both in his team and the head office, namely Mark Westman-Reid. Even though I'm not a hockey fan I am a sports fan(mostly baseball, football, & college basketball) and though none of my favorite teams have ever had a true rebuilding year, I can safely say that fans don't always appreciate a rebuild because basically it's the head office throwing in the towel for that season while trying to better the team for the future. We get it, we understand it, but that doesn't mean we like the concept of "throwing in the towel" at any point so Rowen has a hard task in front of him but it becomes clear that though he may be new to the big show he has a plan and a stubborn attitude to fight for it and see it through, that is if a certain suit will let him.
Watching Mark and Rowen navigate their new roles in the Raptors organization as well as their attraction to each other is actually quite fun, despite wanting to rap my knuckles to the back of a certain suit's head. They really balance the bantering, bickering, and flirting quite expertly. Will either of them let the other in completely or is it just sex? Will their eventual tentative friendship lead to more? You know what's coming: you have to read Coast to Coast for yourself for those answers.
If you've been reading the Harrisburg Railers and Owatonna U series then you know that Ryker Madsen was drafted to the Arizona Raptors and were left wondering as I was: How could Ryker play for the team who still had the man on the roster that nearly ruined his at-the-time-soon-to-be-but-now-is stepdad, Tennant Rowe? I can't imagine what Ryker was thinking the first time he came face to face with the guy but his upbringing and love for the game shows him to be the better man(I don't think I could've been as good as Ryker but 👍 that he could). Will he be the Tennant Rowe of the Raptors? Maybe but he certainly seems to be the levelheaded peacekeeper and considering where the team is and the mountains they have to climb, he will have his hands full.
Will I love Arizona Raptors as much as Railers? Probably not but I have a feeling that with Scott & Locey behind the scenes that it will come down to Railers coming first because there is so much goodness and awesome feels already for the Raptors that I can't wait to see where the authors take the team and the players next. Now as for needing to read Railers and Owatonna before Raptors? Well for me I can't imagine having not read the others prior and as a series fan I love reading in order even when it comes to spin-offs, sequels, and connecting stories but I don't know that it is a must. Sure there are things mentioned especially regarding Ryker Madsen and his stepfather Tennant Rowe but the authors' do a wonderful job bringing newbies up to speed. However you read it, Coast to Coast is definitely another win-win in my book.
RATING:
Saturday's Series Spotlight: Harrisburg Railers
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott writes stories with a heart of romance, a troubled road to reach happiness, and most importantly, a happily ever after.
RJ Scott is the author of over one hundred romance books, writing emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, millionaire, princes, and the men who get mixed up in their lives. RJ is known for writing books that always end with a happy ever after. She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing.
The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.
She’s always thrilled to hear from readers, bloggers and other writers. Please contact via the links below.
USA Today Bestselling Author V.L. Locey – Penning LGBT hockey romance that skates into sinful pleasures.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, Torchwood and Dr. Who, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a pair of geese, far too many chickens, and two steers.
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in one hand and a steamy romance novel in the other.
RJ Scott
BOOKBUB / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
VL Locey
Coast to Coast #1
