Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  Winning the Season

SERIES:  Miami Piranhas, Book 4

AUTHOR:  Beth Bolden

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH: 362 pages

RELEASE DATE:  December 1, 2022

BLURB:

Coach Asa Dawson has fallen wildly in love only twice in his life.

First with football.

Then with Scott Callaway.

But Scott isn’t just the one who got away.

He’s the one person—the one man—Asa hoped might finally show him how all-consuming passion could be.

Instead, fate (and football) intervened and they never got the chance to explore their attraction. Their friendship ended in ruins, Scott left, and Asa’s been torn between hating him and loving him for the last seven years.

Asa doesn’t think he’ll ever see him again, but when his bad habits catch up to him and he doesn’t have a choice but to accept help, he’s horrified—and exhilarated—to learn Scott’s been hired to assist him.

With the final stretch of the Piranhas season falling during the holidays, maybe what Asa and Scott have needed this whole time was a little Christmas magic to remind them the most important job isn’t to win the season—but to finally win each other’s hearts.

REVIEW:

Beth Bolden’s Miami Piranhas series continues with the long-awaited HEA for Coach Asa Dawson.  In the previous books in this series, which are not strictly necessary pre-reading for Winning the Season, but helpful for context, Bolden gives us glimpses of Asa’s loneliness as his son Beau and his players begin to pair up, and they speculate about why Asa is all work 24/7 and has a sad, almost wistful look when faced with the blooming romances on the team.  In Winning the Season, we get our answer.  Scott Callaway.  

Asa’s in love with his long-time best friend Scott Callaway, although he only realized his bisexuality and feelings for Scott eight years ago.  After a year of wrestling with his newly acknowledged attraction, Asa finally decided to tell Scott how he feels, and let’s just say it does not go well.  

Scott has been in love with Asa since the moment they met, but while he always dreamed of them being together, he thought it was a pipe dream because Asa was straight.  Upon learning that Asa isn’t as straight as either of them thought and is very much in love with Scott, Scott panics and leaves, taking a job across the country with another team.  He falls back on his fear of living in the shadows with Asa and potentially jeopardizing Asa’s career.  Scott, a former player and assistant coach to Asa, sees Asa’s potential to be a groundbreaker, a shooting star in the football coaching world, and is determined to save Asa from himself.  He knows Asa would give it all up so they could be together, but Scott won’t abide forcing Asa into the closet with Scott, or outing them as a couple and having the blowback destroy Asa’s up-and-coming career. 

The pain of that separation has lingered for seven years, but when Beau calls Scott back to Asa’s side after Asa suffers a heart attack at the end of book 3, Playing by the Rules, Scott comes running.  Those events overlap with the beginning of Winning the Season, so no worries if you haven’t read book three.

The story that plays out in Winning the Season sees Asa and Scott get their well-deserved HEA, but that, surprisingly, takes a back seat to the larger storyline of propelling the team to the playoffs. This is a hardcore sports romance with a heavy emphasis on sports. Bolden knows her football, and this book is chock-full of detailed on-field football action, including complex plays and strategies. If you enjoy football, you’ll love it. It also dovetails perfectly with what I view as the true focus of this book – relationships and found family.  

Bolden highlights relationships in general, including but not limited to the romantic relationship between Asa and Scott and the relationships between the previous couples.  While the dynamics of Asa and Scott’s reconciliation and negotiation of the tricky situation of living as an out-and-proud couple in a traditionally homophobic sport are fully fleshed out, Bolden also displays the dynamics between the other couples, like Beau and Sebastian. She shows how they interact with each other on and off the field, respect each other, recognize the needs of their partner, and provide support for it.  Asa’s relationship with his son Beau and, separately, with his ex-wife are also explored.  And then there’s the found family of the team – how they support each other and truly act like a unit – coaches and players alike.  Even the holdouts – like Micah Rose, who made himself some enemies by hurling a homophobic slur at Beau in one of the previous books – are brought into the fold, mainly because of Scott’s efforts.

The holiday season serves as the backdrop, and Christmas marks a turning point of sorts in the story, but Winning the Season isn’t a holiday/Christmas story per se.  It is a highly enjoyable, different take on an MM romance featuring two older (late 40s/early 50s) MCs and a heavy dose of sports.  If you aren’t a football fan, this story may not keep your interest because it is very heavy on the sport itself.  Nevertheless, it’s worth a read for all of the other romance and relationship aspects of the story.  If you like football, though, you will certainly enjoy this story.  I highly recommend it and am looking forward to the final book in the series, which is alluded to at the end of Winning the Season.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

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