Meet Me Halfway by Kim Carmody

In this second book in Kim Carmody’s Off Field series about players on a fictional New York football team. I really enjoyed the first book, Lexington and 42nd, about a young Australian woman who came to New York to work for the team and ended up falling for the star quarterback. This book, Meet Me Halfway, is about a hot sports journalist, Olivia Callahan, who is shooting a documentary about a young first-round draft pick to the NY football team. She goes to interview Nate Sullivan, the new player as he graduates from college and prepares to play in the NFL.

Olivia and Nate fall for each other while she’s filming the documentary. She’s five years older than he is and a true city gal when he’s never been to the city before. They don’t seem to have much in common and I just couldn’t buy that this sophisticated professional woman was falling for a football player who just graduated college. I’m not a big fan of romances when the woman is several years older than the guy - I guess I’m old-fashioned like that, but I find the five-year gap when the guy is 22 years old. The differences in age when they’re older are not as stark as when a guy is basically just a college kid. Of course, he’s the nicest guy and a serious young man. In fact, he’s more appealing than Olivia who is a bit too driven and seems willing to use Nate both sexually and professionally.

I found a lot of the plot predictable. As soon as they came together halfway through the book, it was clear that her documentary was going to come between them. There is some mystery about a fight that Nate got into when he was a freshman, but it was pretty obvious what the story was behind that story.

I actually enjoyed the glimpses of the two characters of Emma and Will from the first book more than I did the romance between Nate and Olivia. I still enjoy the author and the team and would read another book in the series. This one was just a bit disappointing from the first book.

Thank you to Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.