Title: Tigers and Devils, 2nd edition
Series: Tigers and Devils, #1
Author: Sean Kennedy
Narrator: Paul Morey
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 15 hours and 50 minutes
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (03-07-13)
Heat Level: Mild
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥ 3 Hearts
Reviewer: Tams
Blurb: The most important things in Simon Murray’s life are football, friends, and film—in that order. His friends despair of him ever meeting someone, but despite his loneliness, Simon is cautious about looking for more. Then his best friends drag him to a party, where he barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honour of star forward Declan Tyler—unaware that the athlete is present. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other’s lives forever.
Like his entire family, Simon revels in living in Melbourne, the home of Australian Rules football and Mecca for serious fans. There, players are treated like gods—until they do something to fall out of public favour. This year, the public is taking Declan to task for suffering injuries outside his control, so Simon’s support is a bright spot.
But as Simon and Declan fumble toward a relationship, keeping Declan’s homosexuality a secret from well-meaning friends and an increasingly suspicious media becomes difficult. Nothing can stay hidden forever. Soon Declan will have to choose between the career he loves and the man he wants, and Simon has never been known to make things easy—for himself or for others.
First Edition published by Dreamspinner Press (March 2009)
Purchase Link: http://www.audible.com/search?advsearchKeywords=Tigers+and+Devils
Review: Simon and Roger have been best friends since they were twelve years old. A shared love of football has kept them thicker than thieves ever since, even though they pull for opposing teams. Simon came out to Roger when they were teenagers and he has lived an open life with his friends, family and co-workers since then. It’s never been exactly easy, but it’s who he is and how he feels he has to live his life, regardless. So when he secretly begins dating the hottest footballer on the planet, his best friend is less than thrilled.
From the first time, Declan saw Simon at a house party and Simon was defending his current stretch of bad luck on the field, Declan was smitten. He stole a kiss under the stars and the cover of trees that very night. But the thought of coming out makes Declan sick, he doesn’t know how the media, his adoring fans or his teammates would take to a gay footballer in their midst. But as time grows, Simon grows on him as well, and when a glory hound reporter gets his hands on photos of Simon and Declan kissing, all bets are off! Will Declan take the deal his team owner offers him? To brush it off and say Simon made a pass at him that he rebuffed. Or will he put his career he has worked his life for on the line to come out and be true not only to himself, but to the man he loves as well?
There were a lot of ups and down in this book, and the majority of the time, it seemed down. I did love the differing personalities of the two ML, and the way the secondary characters complemented them within the story. The story flowed well and to spite an overall slowness to the book as a whole, the pace remained steady. I might have skipped ahead a few times if it had been narrated by anyone other than Paul Morey. I would have liked a little more intimacy between Simon and Declan when they had sex, which aspect was always mostly glossed over. And the ending was anticlimactic for me.
All that being said, there was an opposites attract and have a way of bending each other aspect that I liked to the story. It started off well, but lost me somewhere toward the end. I think that someone who really likes football would enjoy this story more than I did. But hey, I got to listen to Paul Morey for fifteen hours! His narration added something to the experience for me that the story itself was lacking in the end.
** I received a copy of this audio book from Dreamspinner Press in exchange for an honest review through MM Good Book Reviews **
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