Narrated by CJ Bloom
I discovered Naima Simone’s books last year – it’s always great to find a new author to love and when they have a deep backlist it’s an extra bonus. Scoring Off the Field is a relatively new release on audio however.
Tennyson Clark is the personal assistant to Washington Warriors quarterback Dominic Anderson but there’s far more to their relationship than that. After Dominic’s parents were killed in a car crash when he was a teenager, he was in the foster system in Ohio for a few years until he was eventually adopted by his high school football coach. He met Tennyson when she was placed in foster care after being taken from her mother who had Munchausen by Proxy. 14-year-old Dominic instantly bonded with 11-year-old Tennyson and they made their own little family, staying in close touch throughout various foster care placements and his adoption.
He stayed in Ohio longer than necessary, potentially doing some damage to his football career because he didn’t want to leave Tennyson behind. When she aged out of foster care, he brought Tenny with him to Washington and paid for her college education, giving her a role as his personal assistant.
Tennyson has been in love with Dom forever. But one drunken night in college when she confessed her feelings to him, he made it clear that they were friends only and there could never be anything between them. Dom wants to focus on football and he’s not a “relationship guy”. He has a series of one-night stands with slim catwalk-ready women. Tennyson is short and curvy and believes he’s not attracted to her but it’s clear to the listener that Dom just doesn’t let himself think that way about her. Tennyson is too important to him to put that relationship at risk at all. Within their friendship group there are two living, breathing examples of how terribly wrong mixing sex with friendship can go.
At the start of the book, Tennyson has decided she needs to quit her job and stand on her own. She loves Dom but knows there can never be anything between them than what they already have. If she stays, she will never have a life of her own and she has come to the realisation that she deserves better. Dom is understandably upset that she wants to leave him and fears that if she moves onto another job, they will eventually lose their closeness.
In the way romance novel friends do, Dom’s buddies on the team suggest to him that Tennyson needs to move out of Dom’s sphere because no-one will date her while the big quarterback is staring daggers at them. This makes Dom open his eyes and see Tennyson in a different way – a way he hadn’t previously allowed himself to see. And then, things happen. Hot sexy sweaty things.
While the basic setup of the story is not rare, the conflict is so well done I was seriously wondering exactly how everything was going to work out. Because Tennyson needed to stand on her own and get the guy for the HEA to be truly satisfying.
Perhaps in the end the answers came a little too quickly but I believed it and I don’t really enjoy long periods of separation for love interests so it worked for me well enough.
The narration was very good. CJ Bloom delivers a believable hero voice and differentiates well between the various characters, male and female. The story, while canvassing some heavy themes, has plenty of light-hearted moments and also lots of heat – both of these things are right up Ms. Bloom’s alley.
In CJ Bloom’s voice, I heard the tension Dom felt as he grappled with his realisation of just what Tennyson means to him and the deep connection Dom and Tennyson have even when they’re fighting. She’s an engaging narrator, not overplaying the emotion and not underplaying it either.
There were a few small vocal errors but nothing major to detract from the listen and the pacing and tension of her performance were both well done.
Scoring Off the Field is a hot, sexy contemporary with very good narration and perfect for those who enjoy sports romance and/or the friends-to-lovers trope.
Kaetrin
Buy Scoring Off the Field by Naima Simone on Amazon
