I enjoyed May's book club pick so much, I wanted to hit people with it so they'd read it. That's effective persuasion, right? Of course it is.
The May Sizzling Book Club pick is: The Long Shot, by Ellen Hartman. Here's the plot summary:
Deacon Fallon has made something of himself. Yeah, it wasn't easy becoming a successful—now retired—pro basketball player, but he did it. In the process, he made his brother's life better. That's always been Deacon's goal.
This latest effort to help, however, may push Deacon too far. He's been roped into coaching the high school girls' team! Worse, there's a little offside action brewing between him and his hot assistant coach, Julia Bradley. Definitely not in his plans, but he can't resist her. And for the first time, Deacon wants something that has nothing to do with his brother and everything to do with Julia!
Girls high school basketball! Coaching! Returning home! Seriously, this book made me start emailing people while I was reading it, telling them to go look it up. It's delicious how much emotion and story Hartman packs into this book. Please, go read and join us to discuss it!
As usual, if you use SBTBARE at checkout, you will get a 50% eBook Bucks Rebate at AllRomance.com, the official sponsor of the Sizzling Book Club. The 50% rebate at AllRomance will be valid from May 1-15, 2012. This book is available in print and digital format, and you can find a print copy at many places including Goodreads, Amazon, BN and HQN. The rebate price at ARe is ridiculously awesome – and please note, this is a rebate, which means Ebook Bucks will be available for your shopping pleasure if you purchase the book there. You can read more about the eBook Bucks at All Romance.
We've also scheduled the book club chat: it will be 30 May at 9:00 pm ET, and Ellen Hartman will join us at 10pm ET for a Q&A. Need a button? Here, have a button: 
PLUS, I have ten digital copies, and ten print copies to give away here! Just leave a comment and tell me the sport you'd most like to read about in a romance – curling! It has to be curling! – or your favorite sports romance, and you're entered to win.
Standard disclaimers apply: I am not being compensated for this giveaway, except that I got to read the book and it is terribly enjoyable. Void where prohibited. Winners must be over 18 and dribbling, either basketballs or diet Coke. Open to international residents, but not those on the space station. Is there anyone on the space station right now? Walk left, stand right. Do not taunt happy fun ball. We assume you have read and understand the disclaimer notice. Please acknowledge by nodding your head at the screen.
The giveaway will be open until 1:00 am ET, Friday 4 May.
I really hope you pick this book up and read it, as it's emotional and funny and smart – and I hope you join us at the book chat on the 30th!
I’m not a big fan of sports romances, but I do like Rachel Gibson’s Hockey contemporaries!
I’d love to see a really good baseball romance. I love baseball movies, but haven’t found a baseball romance yet that I loved.
I do like SEP and Rachel Gibson’s sports stories, and I really can’t wait to read Ellen’s story, even though basketball is not my favorite sport. I love the set up for the book and the name Deacon seems so right for a hero in this scenario. Glad this is a pick!
Come on already! What about wrestling? I mean, who wouldn’t get turned on by seeing a man wearing a tight, little singlet that delineates that sculpted gluteous maximus, showcases the chest muscles, and gently hugs the sweet package. You realize that under all that stretchy material, he is only wearing a jock strap. Think about it! Check please!!! Wo!!!
I’m not really into sports so I have yet to read any sports romances. As far as a sport I’d like to read about in a romance…..Does weight lifting count? I can envision an over abundance of muscle descriptions…lots of ripples and hardness. Rock climbing would be great too.
Running. Track & Field or cross Country would be a great backdrop for romance.
Um, bowling? Or maybe water polo?
I thought this book would be available in the UK. Let me check into that, ok?
“Hurry hard” is exactly why there should be curling romance!
This book sounds awesome! And hmm… I think baseball would be fun to read about. Sometimes it seems like the umpires stir up trouble on purpose. haha
Roller derby! I know it has taken over much of my free time, it might as well suck up my reading time, too.
Go give me some soccer! I would love some Beckham.
Hockey, some sweet sweet hockey men in a romance would be nice.
MM i too want some soccer action in a romance lately. They are flexible!
Board games. Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan. 🙂
Sports romances… haven’t read too many of them, but there was one Susan Elizabeth Phillips book about a football player and his match-maker. Quite sweet, in a non-saccharine way. 🙂
Oh, what about bicycle racing, Ala Tour de France…just watching them push themselves uphill on a bike, body coated in a sheen of sweat, muscles stretched to their limit , hearts pounding away..mouth open, breathing deeply as possible…
Wooh. I need a fan..brb…
Soccer
my husband is a hockey player and watching him is pretty hot so I’m all for hockey romances. Especially if they happen to be canadian, eh.
Thank you for your post and giveaway, Sarah. The sport I’d most like to read about in a romance would be boxing. Why? There’s lots of potential for drama and conflict. Boxing can be viewed as a metaphor for life. And of course, there would be the inevitable cover art of a hunky, sweaty guy wearing nothing but shorts. Oh yeah, and gloves.
Keep up the good work!
Exactly Sarah. Well put and if my folks could last 40 years doing it…Curling I mean, then a romance book would be …um…the icing on the cake!
You know what I’d like to read in a romance, karate/martial arts. Not just a brief gloss over of oh, so-and-so has a black belt or whatever, and then its never mentioned again. But actual scenes where karate/martial arts is part of the story.
It had to be you by SE Phillips. I still remember where I was when I was reading it. (g)
I seem to enjoy football or hockey romances more than others. I would absolutely LOVE to read a romance about the wife-carrying contest though….or at the sport stacking tournament…
http://www.sundayriver.com/Eve…
http://www.thewssa.com/
I bet someone could make it sexy.
Love to read anything that deals with horseback riding———-not cowboy oriented though———but a surfer dude on the cover of a romance would not be bad either—-beach, sand, dunes, night walks—-I can just picture the romance. PS—Love ellen’s books—go Ellen!
i am not a big sports fan, but i did read one book about a decade ago that i really liked. I don’t remember the tile (although i think MVP was in it) or the author, but it involved a former football player who moved back to his home town to coach high school football. He ends up falling in love with a PR rep, who was recently divorced and was afraid to let him see her naked because of the stretch marks from her pregnancy.
Handsome, well formed men, and The French Countryside, WINNING !
I’m thinking beer-league hockey! Also, this has left me wondering why I don’t read more sports romances, I love sports *movies* so it follows that I’d probably love sports luurve-stories, too. (Despite my RL total disinterest in athletic events.)
Fencing! Someone please please write a romance novel about competitive fencing! This is the only sport I did not instantly suck at back in my summer camp days.
I’m not really into sports but I enjoy sports-themed books, especially Rachel Gibson’s Chinook series, SEP’s Chicago Stars series, and the two baseball books by Jill Shalvis.
I think fencing and swimming sound like great topics!
Ooh, sounds interesting. Never read a basketball romance. Mostly I just read the hockey and football ones. But I just started Dance with Me and I’m loving all the descriptions of dancing. I’d like to see more “obscure” sports, I guess.
I’m another for the SEP’s football novels. Match If You Can or Heaven, Texas, or Nobody’s Baby But Mine, or Natural Born Charmer . . . there’s a lot of love there.
Roller derby (shifter women) AND (indoor and outdoor shifter men’s) hockey are both part of Shelly Laurenston’s hilarious shifter romance, Beast Behaving Badly. Read it twice and laughed through it both times.
Curling! I would be very impressed with an author who could write a curling romance. I’d love to try writing a distance running romance myself, but runners tend to be so skinny. Hm, I’ll have to think about this one.
Fencing and curling are probably two topics that I would read. Both are topics that I am not familiar with, and if I can learn something while enjoying the romance, then bonus points. I enjoyed both SEP’s Chicago Stars and Gibson’s Hockey books.
I love baseball romances but basketball romance sounds great to me too. I love the Kate Angell baseball series to name one
Waterpolo! Hot guys in speedos! And muscular, bad-ass girls also in speedos! How romantic!
I love all of Susan Elizabeth Phillips Chicago Stars books, esp the early ones. Heaven, Texas is my personal fave of those. As a huge Atlanta Braves fan, I’d really like to read some baseball romances, but can’t seem to find any that look interesting enough to buy.
Try Lori Foster’s SBC Fighters series. I really enjoyed the first two (and have just discovered there are 3 more I haven’t read!)
Rowing! “Stroke, stroke, stroke…”
Oh, gosh, I played basketball in school, so this one speaks to me. But, maybe professional women’s basketball would be fun too .
I’d love to read a book involving girls field hockey! Those girls always fascinated me in high school…there was just an air about them that fascinated me, and I so desperately wanted to be good at it and be friends with them!