Photo Credits: ArtTower - Pixabay
Edited by Vaishali
Title: Beauty and the Blitz #1
Author: Sosie Frost Series: Touchdowns and Tiaras Genre/Themes: Contemporary Sports Romance, Adult Fiction, Publisher: Self Published Year of Publication: 2016 Version: E-book kindle app R E V I E W...
‘His home was one briar patch short of a fairy tale villain’s lair. No Happily Ever Afters here. If anything, his fortress was the castle the princess escaped at the beginning of her Once Upon A Time. And I was the village fool, pounding on the door to get inside.’ ‘Instead, he lurked inside the shadows of a mansion more cursed than enchanted.’
How can a beauty fight for a beast when he doesn’t fight for himself?
To be or not to be? To love or not to love? To wait for a prince or yield to a beast? Who says fairytales are partial to fantasy…
Piper Madison’s livelihood shifted once her daughter was born. She didn’t visualise her life with a toddler on her hip, giving up her academic dreams and working for her hard-nosed, unsupportive and uncharitable father. Now with an ultimatum on her hands that has her face-to-face and door-to-door with the Atwood Monarchs’ linebacker Cole ‘The Beast’ Hawthorne who is just as withdrawn as the mirthless mansion he lives in, Piper is tasked with trading this prickly, elusive beast, his place, position and hostile reputation no longer protected by his team.
Hot-blooded, uncompromising, always primed to resist, always ready for combat, Cole has worn out the league’s welcome. A beast on the field, one who basks in the name of the game and glories in the pure thrill of the sport. But he’s earned himself an inflammatory reputation in the industry. A threat to his teammates, an aggressor and a danger to the sport. It’s a task for the mighty to get this unreasonable linebacker to deal in the currency of reason…But behind every barbed beast is perhaps a lonely man who believes the worst of himself.
Try as he might to best his nature, this big unfriendly giant comes primed with sharp teeth and an urge to conquer. Such is what you can expect from a brutish man with a frigid heart.
Rage at his core, raging at the world, he’s a man carved from solitude, honed by wrath, a man with no love to harbour. Beauty and her baby might be the only ones to smooth over the spindly hackles of a beast motivated by his aptness for destruction.
I really liked the style of ‘Beauty and the Blitz’. A character-driven story, it’s interesting and it kept me leafing through the electronic pages. I’ve not read many fairytale retellings, at least not in the contemporary romance genre, so this? It was a very nice surprise. It’s told with a kind of succinct, nimble sentence structure which, to begin with, Is quite effective. Further into the story though? I wasn’t too sure…
I don’t mind a lot dialogue (which does make up a good portion of the story), but, for me, the story wasn’t open to enough narrative exploration. We get bits and pieces of Piper’s past but only narrowed down to explanations of how Rose changed the direction of her life and Piper’s dad’s place in it. We’re handed even less with Cole’s past…like he’s emotionally untouchable. I felt that I wasn’t allowed to know him. It makes sense and it’s in keeping with his character’s temperament, but I wanted to learn more about Cole Hawthorne the man.
As always I’m something of a taskmaster for details, details I think this story could use more of. Why is Cole the way he is, specifically? Has he always been like this? What changed? What provoked his lifestyle? Cole grew up emotionally detached because of his apparently abusive upbringing but there aren't any deeper conversations about this. He’s not a man prone to talking about emotions or to deal in affirmations of love but for connections to form we need emotional vulnerability to act as a vestigial glue, and for that, open conversations are a great way to get there…or perhaps I’m just a nosy parker with an unstoppable need to fit rather snugly in the hearts of all characters :D
Aside from this, fleshing out is also an issue. I really do like my stories with fleshed out ins and outs, expressive consideration for the different areas of a story, specifics, particulars and at times this story doesn’t flesh out the specifics and physicality of a scene. In this sense I think the technical parts of a scene could use some brushing up..
There’s not a lot of background for this story to sit on, but still, it does set an engaging pace, presenting a fresh, crisp and firm story. I did actually like this kind of fast-paced sentence structure, but I also didn’t like it because I felt that the story was fast-tracking through, to fly without thought to reach the end. Skipping and skimming what would otherwise have given this story more thickness, more orbit, more breadth. There are some stories that aren’t refined enough, but I think this story was perhaps refined too much? Perhaps this is more about personal preference because I like my reads to be more rounded.
But let’s talk about Piper too. Her dreams vanished when Rose was born, and then her baby became her biggest one. She loved literature and was never happy being an agent. It was a profession of necessity, but in the epilogue she’s still an agent with no makings of pursuing academic success. What about her dreams of academia? This is one example where the story doesn't really go into or open up explanations. It also doesn’t explore Cole’s base rage and how he continues to handle it.
Usually it bothers me when one character, typically the female protagonist, does the chasing…throughout the whole book. It bothers me because a two-way force of action is what stacks the relationship blocks; the back and forth of denial, understanding, acceptance, and THE light bulb moment when everything falls into place. Inciting motivations from both characters to move forward together, especially from that one archetypal character so influenced by fear that they deny a potential life with love in it…and then for that character to find their ‘boombox’ moment, realising what matters. Such is the structure of many romance reads!
I was conflicted that It was Piper who took the final call for action because I really thought for the ending to work, Cole needed to chase her. I was a bit let down. But then I thought, sometimes it’s not about that. Despite the blessings that enter lives and sit at the feet of the unassuming, it's not easy to overcome that first-nature fear or those ingrained perceptions of suffering...Sometimes someone needs to be fought for, needs to feel that they’re worth fighting for. And I’m glad Cole started to see that at the end.
Beauty and the Blitz is an interracial sports romance that brings a stand-off between an intellectual beauty and her bestial beast. All the best laid plans call for revision when the unexpected comes to play. A time to reconsider a new play for the playbook in this enemies-to-lovers sports romance. A beast who’ll lose himself to his beauty or his bane. Cole, our beast, Piper, our beauty, and Rosie our adorable baby are the focus of this character-driven story. I loved the bouncing repartee between Cole and Piper, it was intelligent, sharp-witted and lively. Piper is just great - a competent, affectionate mother, a hard-worker, just a lovely, sensible woman all-around. I can’t blame Cole for acquiescing to little baby Rose, I was on the best side of ensnared by her too.
A modern day beauty and the beast retelling. A retelling of a beauty who ensnares a beast and a baby who lulls him with her own lovable magic.
I gave this book 2.5/3 stars -
Trigger Warning: A few sex scenes, profanity and mentions of drug addictions.
I love interacting with fellow readers, reviewers and hearing about reader opinion, so get in touch and comment below!
--------------------------------------- M Y R A T I N G S Y S T E M: ★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read --------------------------------------- A few odds and ends to clear up… (May contain spoilers!) ★ As far as technical mistakes, there were some editing issues; added and misplaced words, missing words and missing letters from words. As well as this, sometimes the sentences were a bit hard to deduce because they were vague which twisted the narrative meaning. ★ I’m also certain that Piper and Cole consistently have unprotected sex. This was really confusing because it didn’t make sense. There’s no mention of protection, only that Piper keeps the contraceptive pill in her purse. But still, during the actual sex scenes there’s no mention of a condom being used or a pill being taken after which I found really odd seeing as it was quite thoughtless if we’re taking Piper’s current motherhood status into account. Piper already has a baby and it changed the course of her life completely. There are no conversations about having children or commitment so it would beg the case that being safe was a necessity. Well…Apparently not with these two. There are no conversations about safe sex or using protection either. They both just get down to it, bare and ready. Aside from that, the sex scenes are a bit underwhelming. There was something amiss, perhaps due to the style of writing?
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