Book Review

The Devil in Denim by Melanie Scott

Is everyone tired of hearing me talk about this book yet? I mentioned it on a previous “Whatcha Reading” and I gushed heavily on my podcast with Sarah where I talk about contemporary sports romances. Admittedly, I don’t try new authors as much as I probably should. I DON’T LIKE CHANGE! But I’m really glad I gave it a chance. I liked it. No, I loved it. So much that I actually bought it after I finished reading it from my library. That’s dedication.

Maggie Jameson is “heir” to a baseball team. Her father, owner of the New York Saints, is not getting any younger and Maggie knows the team, inside and out. She grew up around players with the baseball diamond as her second home. Her education groomed her to one day take over the family business. So you can imagine how pissed she is when dear old dad winds up selling the team to someone else: Alex Winters. A corporate raider and Maggie’s own personal devil. She doesn’t know that he actually knows what he’s doing. He played baseball in college, though his time in the sport was cut short by a disastrous fire during one of his games. Not really a spoiler, as this is what the book opens with. You’d think this would turn Alex into a brooding, tortured hero, but it doesn’t. Both characters are (surprisingly) well adjusted, doing what the can to make the best of some shitty situations. Alex’s love of baseball and his inability to play echo Maggie’s dream of running the Saints going up in smoke.

Oh, and if you like Beta heroes, Alex definitely fits the bill.

Not only are Maggie and Alex competent, but they make one hell of a team, much to Maggie’s chagrin. You see, she’s only playing along to make sure the players (and their wives) don’t jump ship under new management. In the public eye, Maggie and Alex need to fake it until they make it, but in private, Maggie is still nursing her wounded pride.

The book also has an amazing cast of characters that are diverse and entertaining. Alex’s cohorts, the team’s players, and Maggie’s friends/player’s wives helped propel the story without needing to force the hero and heroine into unnecessary scenes. To me, I think a mark of a good romance is when you’re still enjoying the story and characters, even when the central couple isn’t being featured. It’s good to have secondary characters to break up the monotony and add a bit more interaction. It’s refreshing to see a heroine with a life outside of love, with healthy friendships, especially with other women. Lots of warm and fuzzies here.

One thing that Melanie Scott does really well is make the romance both sexy and fun. Alex and Maggie’s chemistry is natural. Granted, I’m all for lust-at-first sight plots and characters who just can’t control themselves, but a growing romance with witty banter and sly, playful comments works just as well. I’d also say the latter more often has me stupidly grinning to myself on the subway.

She pulled the jeans down firmly and let him step out of them. Leaving him in plain black cotton boxer briefs that were currently having the limits of the manufacturing tolerance of their elastic tested.

See what I mean?

Scott’s cheeky and, in real life, if you can’t have a laugh during sexy times, you’re doing it wrong!

He bent and picked up his jeans, pulled his wallet from the back pocket.

“Are you planning on leaving me a tip?” she teased.

He fished in the wallet, pulled out two condoms. “Planning on leaving you unimpregnated.”

The villain of the book is rather obvious, though his role in the book is well-timed. Scott doesn’t throw a shitstorm at the characters, but gives them something new to tackle before they can get too comfortable. Admittedly, I tend to find myself liking the hero in romances more than the heroine, but both Alex and Maggie were equals in the book and in my own brand of reading pickiness.

I actually have very little in the way of complaints about the book. I wasn’t too fond of Maggie’s father, Tom, given how he acted toward his daughter. He knew her dream was to run the Saints and he pulled the rug out from under her and sold it to Alex without any previous conversations. After he gives up ownership, he practically falls off the face of the earth, going on vacation without a word to Maggie. I get that he’s an older man who probably just wants to enjoy his retirement, but I didn’t think it was cool for him to leave her up shit creek without a paddle. Maggie talks about how close her relationship with her father is, but Tom certainly didn’t act like it.

That being said, I’m happy to see another contemporary sports romance series on the shelves, especially one that exhibits such good feelings. If only all the things I read were as satisfying as this book.

I should also mention that the next book, Angel in Armani ( A | K | G | AB ), features the team surgeon as the hero and (wait for it) a helicopter pilot as the heroine. Yeah, I’m all over this one.

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The Devil in Denim by Melanie Scott

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  1. Darlynne says:

    This sounds great, Amanda, something I’m sure I would like. Our libraries don’t have any of the books, so on to my wish list to hope for a price drop. Thanks!

  2. Amanda says:

    I definitely recommend nabbing it any way you can! Though I know libraries can take a while stocking new titles.

  3. Colleen says:

    Ooooh! A baseball beta? Sign me up! Really loved that podcast by the way! Thanks for reminding me that I needed to go binge on iBooks!

  4. Amanda says:

    @Colleen: Glad you liked it! I’m trying to make better use of the library, but my ebook time for Devil in Denim ran out and I couldn’t renew it. I was so desperate to finish that I just bought the book.

  5. DonnaMarie says:

    I think those may be three of favorite b words: baseball, beta and banter. And look, the GBPL has it shelved. Awesome.

  6. harukogirl says:

    Ok, I totally disagree with the rating. I got and read it based on the rec here, and was incredibly disappointed.

    There was no real closure – he gives NOTHING. She simply decides to ignore all her (valid) worries based solely on sexual chemistry, and that’s it. Book over. They don’t even DISCUSS her change of heart, just go straight to sexy times.

    I give it a C

  7. Amanda says:

    @harukogirl: Oh no, sorry to hear you didn’t like it!

    However, I thought the book was very human in the way interpersonal relationships work. We may have reservations and we may wind up going against them. We also may not make the best decisions when sex is involved. Alex didn’t really push her in terms of getting involved and was fully willing to let her take the initiative in that regard, though of course he made his intentions rather clear.

    My main issue was Maggie’s relationship with her father rather than Alex. I thought he was a bit of a jerk the way he sold the team without filling in his daughter who has played such a big role in its history.

  8. Kelly says:

    I agree with harukogirl. I also bought it based on a recommendation from here and could not stand the hero or the heroines father.

  9. Hyacinths says:

    I couldn’t get past the opening scene in the free sample on this one, in which Alex declares that he won’t ALLOW Maggie to take a cab home from a bar unescorted, and tells her he’ll pick her up and carry her out if she won’t accept him as an escort willingly. Um…hell to the no, thanks!

  10. Lissa says:

    This review reminded me of a question I’ve been wanting to ask here for a while. I keep seeing books in which the hero gets the job or opportunity the heroine wants with all her heart. Then they fall in love and live happily ever after. Are there any books in which the heroine gets what the hero wants, and he sucks it up, they fall in love and live happily ever after? Because from what I’m seeing so far, it seems like women are supposed to think that after all, getting Mr. Right is the only thing that really matters, and your career goals are something to tide you over til you get him. Sorry, might be overstating this, but I read a few romances recently where women suddenly lost all interest in businesses that had been their passions as soon as they got married, and sadly they were recently published.

  11. Kaitie Belle says:

    @harukogirl I agree. I also bought this book based on the rec here and was sorely disappointed. I just felt like all Maggie got in the end was the guy, and that even though I enjoyed her and Alex’s relationship, I didn’t really feel the connection, besides the lust and attraction. I also thought that her problems with her father went unresolved and completely swept under the proverbial rug. It just seemed like the book was unfinished and that in the end none of the problems or concerns Maggie had about herself (those that didn’t involve her romance with Alex at least) were resolved or even mentioned again after the first half of the book. I was definitely left wanting more of a well-rounded ending, that resolved at least some of the non-romantic issues.

    It get’s a C- from me overall

    And @Lissa, I completely agree with you.

  12. Helen R-S says:

    Lissa – I’d recommend Her Favorite Rival by Sarah Mayberry. The H&H are colleagues. At the end of the book they compete for a promotion and she gets it, and he is genuinely pleased for her.

  13. Ellen says:

    I agree with harukogirl and Katie Belle. I thought it was okay, but was frustrated with it. While I thought her father and Alex had a point – as someone fresh out of grad school, she probably *doesn’t* have the chops to run a huge franchise – there is no resolution to where she comes to terms with this or her father apologizes to her for covering the sale up. I would like to have seen where she acknowledges she would have been in way over her head AND where Alex sees her value as an intelligent and valuable employee, not just someone who is friends with the players. For a book that was more about relationships than any big plot movement, I was disappointed by the lack of real conversation between Maggie and the men in her life.

    Side rant: Alex hires Maggie as a (seemingly) WAG-for-pay so she can get the team to accept the new owners. At no point does she wonder, hmm… how long can this job possibly last? (That alone makes me sideeye her master’s degree.) She’s not asked to use her business degree in any way – it’s all “make notes on what favorite foods people have” and “show up and look pretty at press conferences”. Would someone really be okay with this? Even if she wanted to help the team, this is clearly not a real job, much less one that would last more than a few months.

  14. J-Gro says:

    @Lissa – Have you read Desk Jockey Jam by Ainslie Paton? The hero and heroine work at the same finance firm, and in the beginning of the book the hero resents the heroine because she got the promotion he wanted, and his knee-jerk reaction is that it was due to reverse discrimination. A lot of the book has him coming to terms with his own ingrained sexism and coming to see himself and the heroine differently. I think Ainslie Paton is great, and I really enjoyed it!

  15. jo says:

    Yeah, I wish I’d read further down in the comments before I bought this one based on the review.

    I, personally, didn’t have many issues with the hero Alex but did find the heroine absolutely insufferable. All through the book I kept waiting and waiting for her to grow up and/or voice a well-reasoned opinion. When I got to the end, I actually looked behind the Kindle to see if more pages were hiding somewhere. Pages where she does something with that MBA other than Google searching and sexy time…
    Solid C

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