Title: Crazy For You
Author: Rina Gray
Series: Crush on You #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: Novel
Available: 8th May
Baseball hotshot Jake Ross isn’t looking for love, only a good woman to come to his rescue. His bad boy rep lands him on the covers of gossip rags instead of sports magazines and could cost him a multi-million-dollar sponsorship deal.
Enter Charlotte Jones. The shy media coordinator is determined to lose weight and avoid the health concerns that run in her family, but after months of middling results, she needs someone to talk her out of throwing in the towel.
If Charlotte pretends to be Jake’s girlfriend, he’ll coach her on how to hit her numbers on the scales. It’s a home run of an idea … until sparks begin to fly. But has Jake really forsaken his playboy ways?
Source: ARC from Crimson Romance via NetGalley
At first I found this an easy, enjoyable read with a cute romance between this seemingly unlikely couple. Things do move pretty swiftly in the romance stakes, jumping over a lot of the getting-to-know you bits and having Jake realise his deeper feelings for Charlotte quite early on, which left me wondering what could possibly fill the rest of the book.
Then I realised exactly where it was going and I have to say I felt disappointed with the predictable “twist” into a mystery plot. Especially when it was obvious all along who it was and it’s a scenario I’ve read far too many times before. To be honest I would have been much happier without any of that and simply having Jake slowly getting to know the woman who agreed to help him out, while he in return helped her lose weight in a healthier way.
But I didn’t get that. I got a rushed relationship/health regime, a cliché threat-plot and lots of foolish behaviour from both Charlotte and Jake. I liked them both at first, and thought their early relationship was really cute, but in the second half they both had me rolling my eyes at their actions. Charlotte is allowed to jump to conclusions about Jake, showing him no trust, but he’s not allowed the same. While he is stubborn to the point of stupidity. The pair of them needed a proper shake. There’s also a big fuss about morality and marriage and I wondered if I’d fallen back fifty years.
Which is a massive shame, because there’s a lot of good here – the characters are likeable and the diabetes/body shaming/low self-esteem stuff was really well handled. I wanted so much more of that and the possible complications, plus more of Jake slowly changing his ways as they revel in their fellow geekdom. Instead Jake’s feelings seem to change overnight and all the good bits of both character and plot are shoved aside in favour of an annoying threat.
All of which leaves me feeling slightly disappointed. Having thoroughly enjoyed the other books in this series, I was really looking forward to this one, but sadly it just didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s still cute and enjoyable for the most part, but it also feels like a missed opportunity.
Crazy For You is out May 8th.
Visit Rina Gray for more details.
