Evening the Score by Jaqueline Snowe

Evening the Score by Jaqueline Snowe

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Blurb

Fiona Davis and Gideon Titan have nothing in common—except their mutual dislike of each other. But when they’re stuck coaching together for four months, each battle sparks flames, turning them into enemies with benefits…

Fiona Davis is an over-talkative college senior unsure what she wants to do with her life who volunteers to coach a baseball team at the suggestion of a charity close to her heart. Gideon Titan is an injured MLB player desperate to save his career, whose manager volun-told him to coach the youth team to rediscover his love of the game. 

She hates his attitude and extravagant, multiple-car-owning lifestyle. He hates her constant need to prove herself and the way she snorts when she laughs. They both hate the six days a week they’re forced to see each other. What starts with a snarl boils into a sexual tension they both resent, but…the only time they aren’t arguing is when they’re naked. 

They did it all backwards: enemies, co-coaches, lovers, then to some version of friends. If they want anything more, someone has to take the first step. There’s not a chance in hell it’ll be Fiona…unless Gideon can prove he’s worth the risk. 

But making sacrifices is asking a lot for two people who know what it means to lose.

General Release Date: 7th May 2019

Review

Hoo boy. Okay. First of all, I’ll be up front. I didn’t finish it. I couldn’t. I still gave it two martinis, though, because Snowe is a gifted storyteller. She created an incredible world, one I could see and smell and hear beyond the written page. I could feel the excitement of the boys on the page, and I could smell the stink of the locker room.[1]

This isn’t easy. Snowe had a lot to unpack in this story, and she managed to do it without anything feeling cramped or shoehorned in. It was masterful, really, and I think most readers will still get a lot out of it.

I couldn’t finish it because of the male lead. I can’t call him a hero. Gideon isn’t just an asshole. He’s verbally abusive. He does it because he wants her to quit – yeah, I get that. I don’t care. People who behave that way “because I’ve got a good reason” will behave that way the next time they think they have a good reason, too.

He sexually harasses her the first time they meet. He doesn’t sexually harass her in that “I’m a privileged white athlete and no one’s ever taught me better” way. He harasses her in a deep, personal hatred kind of way. He’s never met her before, and his hatred is so deep he’s willing to be that vulgar.

I don’t know what happened after I put the book down. I’m sure he gets some kind of redemption arc, because it’s romance and they’re supposed to wind up together. That makes it worse. This man doesn’t raise a hand to her but I was in constant fear that he would. From the moment he steps onto the page he made it clear he only cared about himself, and he actively wanted to hurt this woman. He could never be redeemed in my eyes, and the thought of them winding up together made me want to throw up.

Both characters have an inner voice that is downright vulgar, but it doesn’t seem inappropriate for Fiona’s age or for Gideon’s position in life. Still, every time Gideon mentions his dick I cringed. The thought of him having sex, with anyone, of any gender, ever, made me want to cry.

Fiona wasn’t some delicate and fainting flower. I can’t say I liked her, but she was plenty tough (until she wasn’t, but female vulnerability is important in m/f romance so I’m going to try not to judge.)  I don’t care if she’s a normal college student or Kellyanne Conway, no woman deserves to be with Gideon or anyone like him.

So I couldn’t finish the book, because I couldn’t root for the “happily ever after.”  Snowe is a gifted, talented writer and I am deeply envious of her ability to transport the reader out of their everyday, occasionally smelly existence and into the book’s universe. I just couldn’t view Gideon with anything other than revulsion, or a relationship with him as anything but a prison sentence.

[1] All locker rooms stink. It’s science.