REVIEW: Scoring Lacey by Jenna Howard
Dear Ms. Howard,
Older women-younger men must be the new vampires. I’m seeing quite a lot of it in the past few months but that didn’t stop me from picking this one up. What can I say, I’m weak for (hot, hunky, muscled) sports heroes.
So, um plot. Older heroine who hooks up with her younger brother’s best friend who is ten years younger than she is. Shayne is a hockey player but – a goalie! He’s got great hands but can’t shoot for shit. He is hot for Lacey now that she’s tossed her two timing asshat husband out for shacking up with a twenty-two year old twinkie. But as much as Lacey’s loving the incendiary sex, she knows that this relationship is doomed. He’s younger, he’s her brother’s best friend, plus her youngest daughter is pissed about Lacey’s upcoming divorce and thinks her mom’s the villain while her dad can do no wrong. There’s just no way this can end well. Can it?
Well, you certainly set the {scene} for the type of sex we’re going to see in this book. I mean right off the bat from page one with Shayne’s sizzling hot mental images of what he’d like to do to and with Lacey. Most of which, if not all of which, eventually gets done. I hope Lacey enjoys it during the off season because I’m just not sure that any man, even if he’s only twenty nine, can keep up this level of sexing and a pro hockey career going at the same time. But Lacey’s the perfect age to appreciate his skills. And he certainly is skillful. Lacey produces more cream than the combined dairy herds of the entire state of Wisconsin as Shayne brings her to yet another mind bending orgasm. All women should suffer such a fate.
Initially the fact that Lacey is ten years older than Shayne didn’t bother me. When you threw in the fact that she used to baby sit for him and her little brother, that did get a touch skeevy. But these two are also fully aware of how the world will view their relationship. And also aware that they themselves don’t think it will last. So when it keeps lasting, and their hearts ache at the thought of separating and they agonize about the whole thing, I felt a little better that they weren’t blowing off the issues or papering over the problems.
Lacey’s relationship with her daughter Carmen is one reason I never wanted to become a mother. I don’t think I could stand the pain of my flesh and blood hurting so much and taking the opportunity to hurt me back. Mothers deserve medals for making it through their daughters’ teenage years. But what Shayne tells Lacey is so true – that Carmen acts out and acts up because she knows Lacey loves her regardless and will always love her and deep down, Carmen loves her mother just as fiercely.
There’s ample abundance of just how well Shayne and Lacey get along sexually. But I like that you include non sexing scenes of them. Scenes that show how much these two are truly coming to care for and love each other. When Lacey is hurting, Shayne’s first thoughts are to get to her quickly and do whatever he can to help her. When Shayne is losing it on the ice, Lacey can’t bear to be so far from him. And also some scenes of just how hard this relationship is going to be to keep going. The reality moments and less than perfect times that every couple share. I’m not quite sure how they’re going to work out forever since the book is rather open ended but I’m sure they will.
The “I’ve known him since he was four years old” aspects of the story still sort of squick me and Lacey’s brother certainly gets a touch womanly in his ability to parse through what’s ailing Shayne and in urging Lacey to fix her relationship with Shayne but I ended up liking the story and seeing Shayne and Lacey stumble towards their HEA. I just hope Lacey’s going to be able to handle those steamy Houston summers. B
~Jayne
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You had me at hockey. But the book sounds good overall too!
ETA: Jayne, I can’t believe you passed on the obvious tie-in: This is the perfect accompaniment to watching the Stanley Cup finals right now.
Lacey produces more cream than the combined dairy herds of the entire state of Wisconsin
It disconcerts me when erotica/erotic romance authors refer to natural female lubricant as ‘cream’ because it always makes me think of Monistat.
I don’t like sports at all but I still find it fun to read romances with male sports stars as heroes who fall in love with a “normal” woman. Perverse of me? Surely.
I think it’s a flashback to the athletes I knew in High School. Good looking – yes – but way too spoiled by life. It’s always nice to see stories where those guys learn that love hurts even if you’re special.
Aren’t sports hunks really today’s Regency rakes and rogues? Instead of being a duke, he’s a quarterback…
@Joy: Yes! Especially due to the amount of it she produces. It didn’t take long for the descriptions to make me think of vaginal yeast infections.
@Sunita: Well, if the Canes aren’t it in…
@Mary Anne Graham: When I see the newest pairing of sports star and actress hyped all over the internet, it’s sad that my first thought is, “wonder how long this will last?” So I like to see a “normal” woman + sports star book too.
In this case, Shayne’s history shows he was anything but spoiled in school – but I know what you mean in general.
Hockey, you say?
/adds to list
Love this review. Bought book using my rebate dollars over at all romance.
I don’t do sports heroes as a rule, but hockey players get a pass, as they’re total sweethearts compared to baseball, basketball or football players. The ushers at the Garden constantly sing their praises, especially compared to Celtics players, and I was totally bowled over when I met a bunch on the B’s last fall. Timmy was such a complete doll, and I was hitting them up after a loss to a division rival.
They’re so laid-back IRL that I can totally buy a hockey player hero HEA in a romance novel. Must be the Canadian influence.
What is the big deal with the “TEN” year age difference? Tons of men date, marry, and reproduce with women over THIRTY years younger than themselves. Ten years is not very much at all.
That wouldn’t even be enough to label a woman a “cougar”. It’s so funny how some women actually get their panties in a knot over a ten year difference lke it’s such a big deal.
I can’t even believe this was used as the premise of this book. They should have made the age difference much larger if they were going to base the entire book on this.
So silly and ridiculous. It reminds me of when I was in high school and my best friend who was a senior was shocked and aghast when a sophomore boy asked her out on a date. We were so immature back then but it seems a lot of women still carry that “high school girl mentality” even in their old age when they should know better. LOL
I finished this today. 1) There was far too much crying.
2) They had sex all the time and in appropriate places. They couldn’t keep out of each other’s arms outside the sliding glass doors during a family barbecue? REALLY?
3) TOO MUCH CRYING
4) The ending was too open ended.
Basically, I thought the book started out well and then petered out at the end.
That said, I would read another book in this series. God, I am a sucker.
@Jane: When I got to the end I was sure there was a mistake because it felt so abrupt. As Jayne said in her review, you have to wonder how it will work out. I hope there’s another book in the series, because yeah, I’ll buy it.
I thought the hockey-culture stuff was well done, but I’m not an expert (or a Canadian). It sure felt authentic, though.
@Sunita – the hockey stuff was my favorite too but yeah, the ending was too abrupt. It felt like the author just lost steam. She wasn’t sure how to resolve it and just kind of threw up her arms and left it to the reader’s imagination. But because the ending is so vague and because the two characters never really considered how to make it work even though they both clearly wanted it to, what the reader is left with is doubts.
@Jane: I would swear that somewhere I read this is part of a series – Lacey’s brother seems like he was being groomed to be a future book hero – so I just assumed that more would be said about Shayne and Lacey’s growing relationship. Plus I don’t really mind books that end as HFN vs HEA.
@Jayne – Yeah, I clearly get the idea that her brother and Shannon (who she calls “Non”) are going to get together but I like the romance to be encapsulated in one book and in this one, I just felt like Howard didn’t know how to close.
What is with the older women named Lacey? when I first saw this I thought it was a continuation of Liberating Lacey (also older woman/younger man). Strange such similar titles.