Making a Comeback by Kristina Mathews

I always like sports romances, but this book is a bit different from your usual hunky athlete finding love. In Making a Comeback, both the hero and heroine are damaged and have to learn to deal with their frailties while they find love. Nathan Cooper is a former star relief pitcher whose career went into the dumpster when he was caught taking a banned substance. He’s faced with trying to make a comeback into the sport that he loves when he’s almost paralyzed by shame and fear of what will happen to him again once he gets back to the pitcher’s mound. He just so happens to be the next-door neighbor of the beautiful supermodel on whom he has had a crush since her first Sports Illustrated cover a decade ago.

Mild SPOILERS ahead:

Annabelle Jones is a long ways away from those days, but she is trying to make a comeback. She’s left her husband and taken her adorable twin daughters to make a new start. Unfortunately, she’s involved in a car accident that mars her beauty. Her good-looking neighbor steps in to help take care of her and her little girls while she’s recovering.

The twin daughters are adorable and the scenes between Nathan the girls are very sweet.

So both the H and h have problems they need to confront. Nathan is so ashamed of his behavior that he is afraid to let Annabelle know who he really is. Mathews does an admirable job of drawing these characters. They’re wounded, but also strong enough to fight their way through to finding love. They’re not clichés and are more fully rounded characters than we usually find in romance novels. Despite his past transgressions, Nathan comes off as a very good person who just made a regrettable mistake. Annabelle is much stronger than you would imagine a woman known as one of the most beautiful in the world would be once she is permanently scarred. That is one reason why I wouldn’t give the book five stars; I just found her reaction too accepting of what has happened to her.

Don’t be put off by the thought of two wounded people. I found that seeing them cope with what life has given them was more rewarding than a sports romance where the guy is just a perfect physical specimen earning the big bucks and whose only weakness is that he hasn’t yet fallen for the heroine. Nathan was more of a three-dimensional character and I really enjoyed cheering him on for his recovery.

I was given an advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.