Bodychecking

BOOK REVIEW: Body Checking
BOOK SERIES: Seattle Sockeyes Hockey – Game On in Seattle Book 7
AUTHOR: Jami Davenport
GENRE: Contemporary Sports Romance, Adult 18+
PUBLICATION DATE: April 30, 2016
CLIFF HANGER: No
REVIEWED BY: Beth - Mom's Cooking the Books

CONTENT WARNING: Contains graphic and potentially disturbing descriptions of an assault. This book also contains sexually explicit scenes, adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers.

4 Stars

SYNOPSIS:
As the wild child of the family, Bellani Maxwell isn’t interested in settling down. Between a fledgling party crashing business, teaching self-defense at a martial arts studio, and hitting the bar every night, she has her hands full. She doesn’t need the added responsibility or commitment of a relationship.

Hockey star Cedric Pederson has all the puck bunnies he could ever want, but a chance encounter eighteen months ago leaves him with eyes only for the gorgeous, free-spirited Bella. Too bad she isn’t interested in what Cedric has to offer beyond frequent hookups, and he’s grown tired of their on-again, off-again non-relationship. He wants to be all-in or all-out.

When a brutal attack leaves Bella in need of comfort, protection, and healing, the only person she wants is Cedric. But once she’s living in his condo, Bella is confronted with a decision she’s been avoiding—can she finally commit to Cedric, or will she let him go one last time?

MY THOUGHTS:
This is the first book I have read in this series and even though I didn’t know the back story from the previous books, I was able to follow along just fine.

Bella really had a struggle to come through not only with the physical aspect of her assault, but a psychological struggle that she felt was beyond what mental strength she had. She was ashamed of herself for thinking that her martial arts skills were superior and looked down on her students that she taught self-defense to. She was embarrassed that she couldn’t protect herself and felt even worse that she put herself in danger. Even though a therapist was recommended on more than one occasion, Bella was too stubborn to talk to anyone, not even her family. Bella wanted to come through this on her own. She felt she put herself in danger and needed to learn to heal herself. She was also learning how important Cedric was to her.

Cedric was amazing. He stood by Bella even when he felt she should reach out to her family. Due to his worry for leaving Bella when he was on road trips, his game suffered. He finally confided in his best friend and fellow teammate about Bella’s attack. The catch with that is, he was married to Bella’s oldest sister. Bella’s secret would be out, but that is a consequence he could deal with because he felt she needed the extra support. He had fallen in love with Bella and couldn’t get her to commit to an exclusive relationship. He had been trying to get her to commit for months, but she wasn’t interested, but felt she was worth waiting for. Cedric was patient, kind, responsible and much more nurturing then Bella could have ever imagined. She thought Cedric was like her, a pretty party boy that had no interest in settling down. How wrong she was.

Cedric and Bella worked at making their relationship work for them even though their parents weren’t good role models. Bella’s parents raised 4 daughters and mostly left them to their own devices because they were too busy with their music career. Cedric came from a cold but very rich family that showed no love toward Cedric. His father constantly made him feel like a failure even though he had made it into the NHL. His mother cowed to his father. They did have role models in Bella’s sisters and Cedric’s teammates for relationship advice and they wanted what those couples had.
This book is about growing up, finding yourself, learning to believe in yourself and your goals, coming out of self-doubt. Learning to love yourself and others when you think yourself unlovable. Bella and Cedric were able to have an HEA, and Bella was wiser and stronger with the love of her sisters and her biggest supporter, Cedric.

ARC kindly provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

What an amazing story of love and tragedy with an awesome ending. Two people who love the free life, have commitment phobias as well as personal issues. To see them come together when tragedy strikes one and find that with each other they can over come anything. Having read the other books in the series I have followed Cedric and Bella's history and I am so happy for their story to have come out. Women sometimes replace sex as a comfort tool, this describes Bella. Cedric finds comfort in the "party". They both know deep down that's not really who they are. I love Jami Davenports writings. I have all of her sports romance books. This can be a stand alone book however I recommend her other writings. They don't have to be read in order but I recommend it.

I just can’t get behind the two protagonists. I found it just okay.